Gardening UK, Moving & House Clearance

Hi its Gill

Sorry I didn´t get time to do a blog last week, there is too much to do with the moving, let alone blogs.I am moving house as you know if you follow me already, but this is the most stressful move I have ever done. When you are widowed you feel so alone and unable to cope, maybe its because I am now a pensioner. I hate saying that because I am so young in my head it just doesn´t seem right! The trouble is that I need to get back to Four Marks because my daughter is having my second grandchild next spring and I had wanted to be living nearer her.

I could afford a flat but would die without a garden!!! I am about £30,000 short for a small house. I have looked in neighbouring Alton but the ones I can afford are in such rough areas and yes I am may be being a snob but I don´t want to live there. I just don´t know what to do and would love some feedback from you all if possible.

The only alternative I can see is to buy on a pensioners mobile home estate. The houses are lovely but everyone has white hair and I dont feel ready to retire to a place like that. I had thought that maybe I could buy a small piece of land in Four Marks for £100,000 and put a wooden mobile home on it. Unfortunately all the builders gobble up any land available!!!!!

The garden is still a nightmare of a mess but I do intend to get it straight for the new people, they have 3 children and they will be wanting to play out there.

I did go out with Irene and Wendy on Wednesday to a garden centre, I would have gone insane if I hadnt got out of the house. We went to Secretts in Godalming. This is a nice place to go because they have a good range of shrubs, flowers, bulbs, Christmas stuff, and nice food. The only bad thing I have to say about them is that their bedding pansies and violas were £3.49 for 6 and they are £2.99 in most places.

On the way home we went into Hilliers in Liss because I wanted a bag of grit for my cacti. They didnt have their Christmas stuff out which was a shame because we cannot resist buying decorations. The tables holding the flowers outside looked absolutely lovely, a miriad of colours everywhere you looked, very nicely presented.

Well all I can say with the gardening is to make the most of this lovely weather and carry on clearing away all the spent plants and generally tidying up.

I will do my best to do a blog next week but know you will forgive me if I don´t get time. Take care all, happy gardening. Luv Gill xx

Choosing Trees

Create a balance
Trees surrounding a country garden, give shelter and privacy. Choose your forms and colours with great care, mix evergreens and deciduous to give your garden balance.

Planting Trees
When you buy young trees you may need to support them, as they may bend out of shape in wind. Hammer a stake into the base of the planting hole before putting the tree in and tie the tree to your stake (avoid the roots!). When you come to fill the hole look for the soil mark on the base of the trunk and plant at the same depth as it was before transplanting.

Hedging
We all plant for screening or hedging at some point in the garden. Fast growing, upright trees are useful for the former, and those with a dense, twiggy habit are ideal. Try to be patient when planting for hedging purposes, we can be impatient and go for fast growing poplars or Leyland Cypress. Both of these can grow rapidly and take over the garden, shading your garden and your neighbours, robbing your other plants of moisture, nutrients and light! Therefore, you should be patient and stick to less agressive, slower growing alternatives. Hedges are often a useful backdrop against which borders and groups of containers can be displayed.

Yew (Taxus baccata) is slow growing but is ideal for sheltering other plants as it forms a thick, impenetrable hedge that does not require a huge amount of attention.

Trees and Shrubs for colour!
Trees that flower are very popular and understandly so - cherries and plums are amongst the most widely planted. Ornamental apples (Malus spp) and rowans and white beams (Sorbus spp) are well adored too - they have a dual season and flower in Spring and Autumn. Autumn colour is a good basis on which to select trees; after all, at its best it can rival flowers for sheer impact. You will do well to remember that good autumn colour largely depends on there being sharp frosts at the right time in autumn, so areas with mild climates rarely see a good show of colour. Many of the best trees are large but you can get smaller ones, such as Bonzai, Amelanchiers and several shrubs, like Euonymus alatus and species of rhus.

Foliage Colour:
For dramatic colour in autumn, Japanese maples are hard to beat, they have a beautiful filigree leaves which turn from tones of scarlett to burnt orange - lush!

Year Round Interest

Some gardeners are happy to have most of their garden flowering at once. They like to see a spring garden with lots of bulbs, or an early summer garden with roses and perennials, and they are happy to let it rest for the remainder of the year. Most gardeners, though, prefer to attempt a long season of interest, which involves trying to interweave plants so that there is always something, or some part, that looks good.

A garden takes time to develop, and never stands still. Planning planting for the short, medium and long term helps avoid the great gaps that can try the patience of even the most dedicated.

Trees, needless to say, are the most long term, often maturing long after we have gone!

Shrubs, too, can take many years to look their best, which can mean a garden that is heavily reliant on them may take rather a while to develop. Herbaceuous perennials look established with remarkable speed, whereas annuals fulfil their promise and disappear within a year. It makes good sense, then, to include all these different plant forms in a garden.

Creating a structure

Informal Design
This simple garden has all the ingredients for success; an enclosing structure of trees and hedges, space for relaxation and an impeded view so that the garden appears larger, and more inviting

It is the larger or more upright plants that do most to develop the garden framework, dividing it into sections and serving as a guide as you walk or look round. Trees or shrubs with a narrow, vertical, columnar habit have lots of impact, but are useful in that they take up little space.

Trees, under whose branches you can walk, hedges that act as green walls, or plants with strong shapes, all provide the visual 'bones' for the garden. The softer, more formless shrubs and flowering perennials are the 'flesh'. Some of the most successful gardens are those that balance the formality of clearly designed shapes, such as clipped hedges and topiary, with the informality of burgeoning borders of flowers and shrubs.

Our collection of plants/flowers

We thought we would start with some common ground and list some of the plants that we have documented as growing in our gardens so far - no doubt many of you reading this will have or are about to grow some of the plants/flowers that we are nurturing.

So far we have documented the following to be growing in our gardens:
Fruits/Veg:
Apple
Lemon
Orange
Pomegranate
Grapefruit
Fig
Avocado
Garlic
Asparragus
Olives
Plum
Pear
Raspberry
Strawberry

Herbs:
Thyme
Lemon Thyme
Parsley
Coriander
Marjoram
Oregano
Mint
Dill
Basil
Rosemary
Chives
Lavender

Plants/Flowers:
Camelia
Mimosa
Palm
Sunflowers
Furs
Lantana Camara
Cortaderia Selloana (Pampas Grass)
Daisies (Purple/Yellow/White)
Jasmine
Cestrum Nocturnum (Dama de Noche)
Roses
Daffodils
Callistemon Viminalis (The Bottle Brush)
Brugmansia Arbrorea (Angel's Trumpets)
Bouganvillea
Aloe Arborescens (Red Hot Poker Aloe)
Strelitzia Reginae (Bird of Paradise)
Zantedeschria Aethiopica (Calla Lilly)
Felicia Amelliodes (Swan River Daisy)
Hyacinths
Tulips
Plumbago Capensis (Cape Leadwort)
Euphorbia Pulcherrinia (Poinsettia)
Jacaranda Mimosifolia
Hebe Caledonia
Geraniums
Cyclamen
Callistemon Citrinus 'Splendens'

As we keep documenting more plants we will update our garden of goodies :)

Anyone else growing the above plants/herbs/flowers/fruits/veg and have any special tips for growing, let us know?