In my garden: What a difference a day makes

With worsening weather forecast and expecting to have little free time on Sunday, there was only one thing for it and that was to briefly get out into the garden on Saturday in an attempt to get it as winter-ready as we could, in about thirty minutes flat.  Our main priority was covering the pizza oven and the logs, as with frosts and worse on the way we didn't want to risk it cracking, and well damp logs are no good to anyone are they?

The tarpaulin's arrived a couple of weeks ago and the two smaller ones, measuring 2m x 3m were earmarked for the back garden. To give the pizza oven some added protection and old fleecy throw that we used on an old sofa was repurposed as a middle layer in the tarpaulin sandwich. Tied on and weighted down with bricks, our work was almost complete.

The log store was artfully draped with a folded tarpaulin and secured with random bricks, blocks and slabs. In fact these are less random than they would be before the skip, when MOH encouraged me to throw the very random assortment of garden weights into it. But of course, he was the first one to say, have we got any stones to weigh this down...  I did, oh so well, not to say we did have, before the skip...

I think he's starting to realise the benefits of having some garden detritus!  So with our tarpaulins secured much more quickly than we expected, as I was out in the garden then I thought I'd have a poke around.

I moved the trugs into an already full greenhouse - and even from this picture I think it's clear I'm a fan of colour, don't you?!

I told you it was full, didn't I?

I spotted some chillies though and clambered through to harvest them. Definitely worth it, but will these be the last of the year?

Elsewhere in the garden there was some true winter colour, and I spotted our first hellebores, shy as they are.

The primroses, although a bit nibbled, continue to flower. I'm expecting them to be flowering a while yet and it's great to spot their cheery colours as you walk down the garden.

Heading back to the house I spotted a lone fuschia in one of the larger bushes it's been climbing up, it's only a small flower, but it really stood out.

The fatsia is looking as glorious as ever, at this time of year, and I think it's providing a good food source for the birds in the garden.

There's still plenty of leaves to collect, and one of our concrete hares has an almost slightly guilty look, don't you think?

I thought it'd be useful to check out my favourite corner, and I think it'll be fun to collect a series of photos with me standing in the same place.  Mostly these photos have been in flip flops, but not today. Socks and wellies all the way, and I didn't even know what was coming the following day, at that point.

And yes, the very next day we woke up to a dusting of snow, or quite a lot for London - and there was no way I was going outside for a similar shot, so you'll just have to use your imagination for that one!

But, what a difference a day makes, hey?

Imagine if there were no trees, wouldn't that be strange?

Trees are things I think we take for granted, but just imagine for a moment if there were no trees, I think it really would be strange.  Take Greenwich Park for instance, somewhere you know I walk almost daily, without trees it would look very different indeed. I'm sure it'd still be pretty, but it wouldn't be quite the same.

I'll not deny that at times it would make gardening our back garden simpler, but we'd lose the height and privacy they bring. And I'm not even going to touch on how they can reduce our carbon footprint, although I'm convinced they can.

I've 'followed' a couple of trees and shared those with you here too, remember the Pawlownia Tomentosa or foxglove tree - I should pop along and visit it soon really, and more recently the tree that captured my interest on my daily walk through Greenwich Park.  Yes, I think it's safe to say that I think we take trees for granted, and it would be very odd indeed without trees.

Photo by Chris Lawton on Unsplash

The future of trees

If like me, you believe trees are good for us - and the planet - then the good news is there's something you can do about it.  Maybe you'll plant your own tree, or maybe your part is simply by taking care of the ones we have already.

Last week was National Tree Week, and I'll admit I only discovered this fairly late on and it got me thinking. Does everyone know how to plant or prune a tree? I suspect not, I know the basics, but when we moved the small apple tree on the plot, there was a lot of hoping that we'd got it right. 

The advice on the Landmark Trading blog on how to plant trees says to plant in the autumn or winter, prepare the ground well and aim not to damage the root ball. The good news is that the small apple tree was a plucky little thing and has since gone on to produce a bumper crop of apples, so we must have done enough things right.

The only thing we could have done better is weeded it better, but we were so concerned about ensuring its survival and not damaging it as we moved it about four metres from where it was planted. So that means grass grows around its base - and for a tree that's smaller in height than me, that's not such a good look. I've since realised that what would help is a weed guard for trees and of course pegs to keep it in place.

Now let's talk pegs for a minute, and surprisingly I've a bit to say about these. This year in pursuit of our circles, or more precisely weed-free slate beds, we've tried the metal U shaped pegs and the plastic ground pegs, which look more vicious than they really are.  While the metal pegs look more attractive, I've found the plastic dart shaped ones much more effective, for the simple reason that the plastic head covers the hole that you make hammering it into the ground.  Simple, hey? And now I'd opt for these for everywhere I'm not expecting to need to remove the pegs.

And if you already have trees, then learning to prune them is also a good thing to know.  Smaller trees are relatively easy to prune yourself with the right equipment, we prune our own pear tree and the forsythia, but we know our limitations.  Mostly our trees are pruned to reduce their height, and to allow sunlight into our narrow garden, and if I can't do it off our tallest stepladder then it's time to get someone in. That may sound an unnecessary expense, but I'd much rather pay a professional to look after our trees, than to pay one to have it removed should it become diseased.

The key thing to know is when, and generally that will be after its flowered. Too early and you'll have no flowers, or fruits the following year, and that seems like a waste of a season to me. 

So can you imagine a world without trees?  No, me neither...

* This is a collaborative post but all views remain my own.

A practical gift guide for gardeners

Gardening is another hobby that can be a great inspiration for presents. But, and speaking from experience, while it's always nice to have a pretty garden trowel set there is a limit to how many you can have, and often something more practical might also be appreciated.  For this week's gift guide I've put together a mix of items that I use, and which I have my eye on.

While the secateurs I told you about in the summer are brilliant, when there's more heavy duty work to be done I turn to my ratchet secateurs which we bought one year at Grand Designs - they were so good that when we went to another home show later in the year, we bought another pair. Now when we're working in the garden we know there's two pairs available and after having my pair nicked by MOH once too often, mine can usually be found in my back pocket when not in use.

It was earlier this year that I shared my admiration for the Stihl trimmer, and I'd recommend the Stihl range generally. You'll remember I went to visit their factory in Kufstein in January, and not only was it fantastic, the research that goes into these products blew me away. Coupled with the fact that the people were so lovely too, for me, if there's a choice I'd always opt for the Stihl or Viking products, because I've seen how they're assembled and looked their top management in the eye (in a non-confrontational way!).

While I was in Portugal this October they launched a new range of powerful and lightweight tools, and if I'm honest I've got my eyes on the leaf blower from this range - looking at the details it weighs 2kg, including the integrated battery.  Their site says it's quiet and I can well believe this, remember I've been into their Competence Centre, which is Europe's largest anechoic chamber, and totally mind blowing (pun not intended). 

At the time I told you how the echo from all sound, including sound you don't hear, is removed - but anyway, the testing that goes into noise levels means I believe it when they say it's quiet.  Our current leaf blower (and sucker) is far from quiet, in fact it sounds more like a motorbike and therefore isn't used very much at all.  And we wouldn't buy a leaf sucker bit again, as it gets even noisier (which we never thought possible) if it sucks up a stone - worth remembering if you're in the market for a leaf blower.

A practical gardener's gift guide by lifeat139a on Polyvore

The henchman ladder is also on my wish list. I'm a bit wobbly up ladders, but I'm also impatient so often can't wait for MOH to finish doing whatever he's doing to come and hold the ladder - which I instantly regret of course, every single time!  This one has a wider base, which will make it more stable and it also has adjustable feet, because no garden ever is ever flat is it?  

My current ladder has a lean guard - that's my non-technical name, but hopefully descriptive enough for you to know what I mean, and having somewhere to rest tools, gloves and string is always a good move too.

The gloves and cloche, well I go through gardening gloves like anything - I'm not quite sure what I do to them - but I do like to have pink gloves, I leave the more usual green ones for MOH. Cloches are also on my wishlist, and this Victorian style cloche would be a great addition to any garden wouldn't it? 

And I wouldn't even mind seeing it, much nicer than anything I've Heath-Robinson-ed together!