Why I love Autumn!

There's something so complicated about Autumn.  On the one hand, I see plants visibly dying in front of my very eyes and even though I know most will return again next year, revitalised by months of dormancy, there is a short period of mourning for friends no longer here.  But the feeling is offset by the knowledge that there will either be a return or annual replacement - both of which is part of the excitement once snowdrops begin to appear in the new year.  Who would put off that anticipation?

Autumn has a beauty, though, all of its own.  Berries and hips begin to ripen, birds move in for the feast and trees, hitherto verdant, green but unshowy strut their stuff in new ways.  Sometimes we get unexpected late shows like this clematis that, struggling against the old apple, gave us a last minute show.

I painted the fence in the HastyTastyGarden deliberately with autumn in mind.  I chose a colour I had for many years avoided, wanting the fence to blend in as if it wasn't there.  However I have no regrets because the clear boundary it gives, provides important structure and in all months of the year - but never more so than in Autumn - a definite colour.  Just look how it complements the rowan above and the fading fuschia below.  Soon the dogwood on the left will become fiery yellow.  That's another beautiful thing about autumn, the colours return like other old friends.  Steady, predictable and welcome.

York Gate Garden, Leeds

Yesterday was an idyllic summer's day.  Warm and sunny but not roasting, we decided to visit York Gate Garden, originally designed and realised by the Spencer Family.  We live fairly locally and I'd always wanted to go, and what a gem I had so far missed!

View of the house from the entrance.

The entrance to the garden reveals a cobbled maze, wonderful plant combinations within huge decorative pots and a variety of entrances to the garden rooms so loved by the Arts and Crafts Movement. We bought our £5.00 entrance and mooched round the shop as a preamble before stepping out to begin the journey around the house.

There is a circular theme with the garden first seen in the cobbled maze just inside the entrance. This is made even more specific later, within the  lawned area where a   a clever wall and clipped hedge uses the elevation to create a spiral effect.  Pathways lead to other themed areas.  Echoes of Sissinghurst in the white garden where the mixture of whites and greys -

The White Garden

and the occasional blue thistle (nothing whitens whites quite like a bit of blue!) makes an absolutely stunning effect.

Throughout, perennial borders with fantastic plant combinations permeate the scene often with huge displays of mass planting.

Mass planting of phlox

Interestingly, though, I found myself drawn to the hot, dry rockery area and York Gates fine displays of Aeoniums.

 Last year on going to the Leeds Show I became the proud owner of a greeny/yellow Crassula, the parent of which was a huge three footer or a plant.  I've found it a sunny spot and only water with rain water (as instructed) and it's well on its way to match it.  Since I'm drawn to this area at York Gate it is clear to me that I may be on the way to fostering an obsession.  Am definitely going to begin a small collection and hopefully to display them as effectively as I saw here.

One of  the succulent displays in
the sunny rock garden

Another plant combination I fell in love with is one I've instantly copied.  Here at York Gate I saw the planting of bronze fennel with a yellow umbelliferous grass.  It turned out that it was one of the few plants left in the nursery so snapped up three of them to go with my own fennel.  The effect by this bench was absolutely lovely.

It took us just under two hours to do justice to York Gate.  There were many other delights to see: the coniferous area, the woodland area, a beautiful rill of water lillies.  Will leave you with the rest of the pictures I took in the hope that you give York Gate a try.

It is open Mon-Thursday from 12.30pm.
Details here.

Hydrangea next to
porthole window

Beautiful clipped Pyracantha against the stone wall of
the house.

A view of the woodland garden

Two views from the conferous garden

The folly.

The water lily canal.

Recent Pics from the Hasty Tasty Permaculture Garden

Camelia.  Amazed at how it's
climbed into the fir tree.

On the left: camelia over, now it's time for the
 rhody to take over.  On the left,  suited and booted and 
ready for action!  
All part of the woodland section of HastyTasty

From a 5cm pot to 4ft high and wide! Magnificent.  In the woodland garden.
 

    

HastyTasty Front Garden on gorgeous Spring Day

               

Last Summer

Bottle Top Feeder adapter nestling
in an Acer and Holly

Worm Compost

I've had varying degrees of success with the wormery.  It basically consists of a base and a set of stacking boxes with meshed bases.  You put kitchen waste in the bottom together with the pack of brandling worms they send and basically keep adding boxes when the one below gets full. Eventually, when the worms have finished consuming the lower layer they work their way up to the top through meshed bases.

The Wormery.  And no the
gargoyle DID NOT scare
the rats away!

A few years ago I bought a wormery from WigglyWigglers . I get all my birdseed from them as they send a variety in huge packs which make it relatively economical (though I'd be the first to admit they aren't the cheapest guys on the block, I trust that their stuff ticks all the ethical boxes I look for).

My first mistake was underestimating the time it would take the masses of worms to do their bit. You really need to use a wormery in conjunction with other composters or you'd soon run out of space.  It fell into disuse for a few years.  This is because we had a rat problem.  (If you aren't squeamish and want to read more about what happened, then read here.) but have since reactivated it having left the bottom base to its own devices and found the most gorgeous, friable compost when I took the trouble to eventually look.

All the worms had, of course, left the building but there were plenty - thousands - populating my other compost bin so I had a happy hour uncovering detritus to find them.  The wormery is back in business and I am much more realistic about the timescale.

One of the great by-products of a wormery is the compost tea it makes.  The very bottom has a solid base which holds the liquid seepings from the composting process and a tap allows you to siphon it off periodically and then to dilute it like you would any liquid feed.  I have found this to be a very hit and miss operation, however, as the tap gets blocked and some people recommend keeping it open anyway to avoid it all becoming a bit rank.  However at the beginning of the season, I now just dismantle the whole thing to check progress and then pour the tea into any spare bottles I have hanging around.

The quality of the eventual compost is exquisite.  I use it when I want to ensure precious plants get the tlc they need.  As I operate a 'no-dig' garden , planting with lots of goodness is really important and gradually improves the health of the whole area.

Recommended reading from  Radishweb, our on line bookshop:

Available from Radishweb £7.95 + p&p

Spring Prep

Had a great time since about mid Feb. Just a few hours a week, clearing, pruning and getting ready for the Spring onslaught. I really love this time of the year as everything seems so under control. Everything absolutely possible with the promise of plans and ideas coming into fruition. I had long wondered what to do in the back of the garden since a variety of sundry pets (dogs in particular - and we have a new one -) have been known to cause a lot of destruction and is the reason behind the fence (look at the autumn garden image in the right sidebar and you'll see what I mean). We also have a horrible time with slugs and snails which decimate yields and, being permaculture minded, do not like using slug pellets. I came across this picture in an old Alan Titchmarsh book and got so inspired, changed entirely the way I viewed the garden. Here it is but it is scanned and the quality not wonderful.

Scanned image not wholly successful
but you can see the semi-wild
look I'm after.

This year, I am going to grow all veg in pots and give the rest over to medicinal and few culinary herbs. I've also decided to frame each bed in a low growing box hedge (blight permitting, though it hasn't reached here yet) since MojoTheDog sees the one I already have as a bit of a barrier.

Tin bath for mint!

Growhouse is full of calendular seeds sown in fibre pots as they don't transplant well and I sent for packets of mint (for a tin bath), wild marjoram, dill, thyme, borage and some wild flowers. Gosh even the names make me smile!

Using the cold growhouse for
hardy perennial herb sowing

Whilst dreaming wild dreams of a summer herb garden, I've also been busy clearing the woodland part of HastyTasty. It used to house a large greenhouse - where the paved bit is - but it was a space I found hard to manage so always wanted to expose this to a different sort of gardening palette. I never really had the time to give it much TLC but hired a friend's friend who took down some large saplings (near trees!) last October and has helped to clear it radically. I cut back a huge buddliea and this weekend spent time raking out the worst of last year's detritus. The plan for this is to manage the brambles so I can get some decent blackberries and to sort out the fruit patch (foreground). Then it will be finding some good groundcover to cut reduce the weed buildup. Here's where I'm at - let's see where it gets us.  Happy Gardening!

Woodland Garden

Work Update

Just so our followers know we're still happening... first edge of box planted over winter and rest bought ready to install when weather is better.  Decided on a row of Lonicera too - like the colour and have decided to sacrifice consistency with impulse.  Could all go very wrong.

Worried about the bed in front of the kitchen window.  It has an apple tree which dominates but in front of it is a south/west facing bed so gets sun for most of the morning and mid-afternoon.  Sitting on the loo with one of my favourite gardening books (I have two - one is by Alan Titchmarsh (out of print) and the other is a shade garden book (again, out of print).  Alan's book features an image of an abundant herb border which I think will go beautifully in front of the tree.  Thinking of lavender, pot marigold, borage and sage to begin with.

Will keep you posted!

Just a load of old Poo!

It's been five whole months since we closed our bookshop and just beginning to see daylight after two full-on and busy years.  At last back to the garden! Although this may be a cause of great jubilation to all my followers (er.... two? three?), the sad news is that the theme is less than salubrious..

We have a new addition to the family!   Mojo, our Staffie x German Shepherd has not only given us great joy but an abundance of poo!  This is bit of a permaculture challenge as the disposal of dog faeces is very problematic due to the Toxicara worm. Having investigated dog loos, wormeries and some such have discovered that digestion time doesn't catch up with either Mojo's rate of output (three poos a day) or my ability to keep up with him! Lots of ideas here.

My solution is not ideal but began with Mojo himself!

 

I had been brushing the faeces - 'under the rug' of our large laurel arch. Obviously not an edible arch (keeping poo away from edibles is essential to keep Toxicara away from the food chain), and it presented a convenient and out of the way invisible solution. He began to dig a hole nearby just in front of the six foot fence we had to install (turns out he's both a digger and a jumper!) so I buried the waste in there. I researched septic tank sewage activators and found this recipe:

• 2 sachets of yeast granules
• 2 cups of brown sugar
• 8-10 cups of lukewarm water

I mix the yeast and sugar with the water till smooth then leave it for half an hour to get going then pour over the poo.  I only do it about once a month. There always seems to be space for more doggydo so it does seem to be working since the yeast mixture turns it all to liquid and it dissipates away.

BUT there is an even more pressing issue.  Mojo runs free in the back garden - with an emphasis on runs: runs on flower/veggie beds, runs on the paths, runs into shrubs etc - so my vision of a veggie paradise was in real danger of not materialising.  What to do?

Well, I looked at his habits in the garden and noticed he wasn't particularly interested in going and 'going' on the beds if there was an obstacle.  One bed currently has a low growing rambling rose to one side and another has a small box hedge.  He NEVER enters the bed via these routes. So next year I'm going for a mixture of lavender and box hedging.  The lavender will edge the front of one of the beds as it gets full sun for most of the time and box elsewhere.

This doesn't solve the problem entirely.  The low hedges (I had thought that one of them could be step-over fruit trees but for Mojo's exhaust system  ) will take time to grow and even when it achieves the two/three feet height it still won't  be Mojieproof.  I can't afford him trampling over seedlings etc., under any circumstances.  So I'm going for containers.

I'm thinking that if I hedge off a whole plot - which isn't going to be a huge space - I can use it as a space for pots of veggies. We eat tons of salad crops and our veg growing tends to reflect this: outdoor toms, courgettes, cucumbers, onions and herbs, cut and come again lettuce.  I occurs to me that I could create a really pretty space using the hedging to contain rows of veggie pots.   Toms at the back, cucumbers in front, courgettes in front of those and I can use raised containers for the lettuce.  I've already got an apple and plum tree am training on wires so they'd make a great backdrop.

Well, drawing skills leave a lot to be
desired but I think this'll work.  Will post
the finished work next year!

Saw a fantastic tin bath for sale at a local junkshop. That's be great for the lettuce and possibly some onions. It's gone now but we have a reclamation yard a few miles away - think I'll go for a mooch.

Would look good in my stately home?
Well notsomuch but some freeform box
trimming will be a bit of fun if
 nothing else!

There's another small 11' circly/squarish plot in front of the window which I'm going to edge in box.  Saw a gardening programme with the box trimmed like a caterpillar.  Not going to attempt something so ambitious but would quite like to go for a freeform trim if poss to reduce the formality of the overall design.

I've always gone for a semi-wild look to the place - fits in with the Permaculture ethic but the Mojinator has meant resorting to drastic measures!  Will keep you posted!