Gardening Tutor

A while ago I decided that I liked the idea of a garden tutor; someone to show me, in the setting of our own garden, how best to control and improve it. I didn't want someone to just come in and do all the work, because that would leave us in the same situation next year. And I couldn't do my standard tactic of just research it on the internet, because when I identified and looked up the Clematis Montana, everything told me it didn't need pruning, when it obviously obviously does...

Finding a tutor seemed harder than I expected - I would have thought it would have been a great thing for a retired gardener to do, but when I tried to find one online it seemed otherwise. Eventually, I found someone who looked perfect: Alexese Katherine.

She arrived today, and spent a couple of hours touring the garden, identifying our plants for me, and suggesting how to control those we have, and what we could add in the future to make it better.

Front Garden:

Neither the Pyracantha or the Wisteria originate in our garden, but have grown through the fence and over the framework of the Clematis and Honeysuckle that we never really knew we had. This combination has made a climber triffid, which has grown a couple of feet off the wall in all directions - it's huge. It's also leaving the plants beneath it sun starved, and encouraging them to grow out in further over the drive and into the path of the garage door. 

The answer is to go brutal. It might mean that the next year doesn't get quite as many flowers from the wisteria, but at least we'll discover our own plants, the non-climbers will get some sun and we might not need to trim the rose in front of the garage so often. I have ordered shears...

Back Garden Left: 
The trees are Eucalyptus and Cherry Blossom. We also have Ivy, Rose, Fushia, Holly, Rosemary, Japonica, and our own Pyracanthus. There's a couple of other small bushes that I don't remember the names of, but might be Euonymus and Azalea.

The Ivy is quite out of control - whilst it's great for covering up the ugly fence, I can put my arm into the leaves and not reach the fence through it. Ivy being as resilient as it is, we can go for an excessive trim here too, trying to get some of the depth of our flower bed back.

The Rose needs to be half cut for winter, so that it doesn't get too blown about, as well looking for any misplaced stems (where they're rubbing against each other), and then a more drastic prune in spring.

The Holly is in a similar situation to the Ivy: it's doing far too well, it's grown out in all directions, and could do with a good chop.

The Rosemary is looking a bit woody, we've pulled it back up against the fence to try and improve its posture, but the real solution would be to cut it right back early next summer.

The other Rose needs a lot of dead wood removing, and to be cut back a bit as it's got a bit wispy and spread out.

The Fushia, Japonica and Pyracanthus are all doing fine and will just need pruning to keep them in shape.

Back Garden Right:
The only real ground cover is a couple of different types of Sedum. I like one of them, but the other is a little messy - in the fullness of time, I'd like to replace it. There's also some lavender which I added, which hasn't done that well in the hot weather.

The rest of the right side of the garden is ALL about the climbers. It's a little like the front garden in that there's a combination of mostly Clematis Montana, which is providing a cane framework for everything to grow ever outwards and upwards, blocking sun and flowering way above eye-level. At the far end, there's a rose that gets hardly any light, because it's overshadowed by the rather massive Jasmine (I think it's Humile). Also below and intwined through the Jasmine is a Honeysuckle (fairly standard yellow and pink flowers). Which then blends into the gigantic Clematis Montana which goes across the top of the rest of the fence.

Again, everything apart from the Rose, is doing far too well. At the far end the plan is to trim back the Jasmine to a slightly less ridiculous height and overhang, and then cut the Honeysuckle beneath it back extensively and train it to fill in the area beneath. This should also help the Rose to get some light and do better.

The Montana, whilst glorious in Spring, has become far too top heavy - building on the cane like framework left from it growing unchecked for a few years. It's so big, there's a bird's nest in there that we'd never even spotted! Again, a fairly extensive prune is the way forward, which may limit the flowering next Spring, but is required to stop it trying to make a break for it over the top of the conservatory.

So... in summary: Wisteria and Clematis at the front needs sorting first, then the Clematis/Jasmine/Honeysuckle at the back, and finally the Ivy and Holly (because it doesn't matter what time of year we do it).

Lastly, thoughts for improvement: 
Adding in less manic Clematis varieties on the trellis, plus some more dry soil resistant ground cover (because it's in smallish raised beds, it can dry out quite fast - as the lavender has proved), such as Vinca Minor, perhaps some other varieties of Sedum (there seem to be tons of them), and no doubt more when I've done more research.

I can have also raspberries, peas and beans along the trellis along side the conservatory, but only if I buy/get Arjan to build much bigger containers to counteract their tendency to dry out.

Before and after photos of my triffid collection will no doubt come along in time...

Birthday board kit

Connie and Steef's Sinterklaas present, finished bar a couple of coats of varnish on the board and a hook added per month.

Photo has made the colours look a bit darker than they are to the eye.

Kit will be made up of the board, 33 discs, a silver sharpie for writing on the discs and the jewellery hooks to put the entire thing together.

Bookends: Painted Tigger book back.

I've spent the evening painting the second book.

The only thing left is to assemble and varnish both bookends, and then we're done.