February fails to fill the dyke but freezes the Paddock Pond
Sunday, March 1, 2015
Another cold month held back the late winter plants so that like
the January News Item there is not much of substance to report. The
ground has been either frozen or wet making it difficult to get on
with essential outdoor tasks. The polytunnels provide sanctuary to
make some progress with re-potting plants in the nursery and to
continue with seed sowing.
On higher ground there was heavy snow early in the
month. This was the scene from the woods above Cilgwyn Lodge to the
Carmarthenshire fans 8 miles away
And at maximum zoom this is the sandstone cliff
face of the highest peak in the western Brecon Beacons at 802
metres
Weather
Frosty nights and cold days with no rain on the first 10 days
were very enjoyable with brilliantly clear skies making the fields
safe to get in more firewood.
During the first 2 weeks the barometer pressure was
steady at 30.5"
There were some brilliant skyscapes
The full moon rising beyond the forest trees - sorry
that the picture doesn't quite come off but a nice
idea!
Wet weather returned by the second weekend which alternated with
cold spells until the month end. Rivers rose only slightly even
though the garden was soaking again, There were 16 nightime frosts
Min -7 and a max daytime temperature of 12C . Ice on the Paddock
Pond but not as thick as might be expected as I am keeping a good
flow of water through the pond from the stream that feeds it.
At the end of meteorlogical winter the total number of days with
a min below zero in the 3 months was 42 making it much colder than
2013/2014. (Only 11 frosts Min -6C). It was also stated to be the
sunniest winter for 80 years!
Garden update and what's looking good?
The dry start to the month enabled me to remove all the 450 or
so plant stakes from the borders, to cut back the dead stems and
have one of my few but much loved bonfires - perfect for a starry,
cold night.
Is it my imagination or does this look like a Welsh
Dragon?!!
The downside of the cold spell was frozen ground that defeated
any attempts to attack the bittercress which is already begining to
flower, and when the ground thawed the rains came making it too wet
to start weeding. At least by cutting back I can now see more
clearly where the priorities are and it was heartening to see
growth returning in plants such as phlox, papaver orientale,
monardas, sedums, lupins and colchicums which send out their large
fleshy leaves at what always seems to be an entirely inappropriate
time, but no amount of late frosts seem to to trouble them.
The cutting back begins and the first of the plant
stakes are removed
Colchicum "Waterlily" bursts into lush
growth
The loan of a large commercial leaf blower from Rob the lawns
guru has been a welcome accessory to keep the gardens tidy and an
added bonus is that it just blows off huge swathes of moss and
lichens on the gravel paths as easily as lifting a rug. Only one
small problem is that it takes most of chippings with it, so paths
have to be made good at a cost of £41 for a 1 tonne bag - and it
doesn't go very far!!
In the tunnels growth is much quicker than in the gardens and I
have already repotted many of the plants there. Seed sowing
continues with some good germination rates on my heated benches
which I keep at around 55 -65 F. There are now in excess of 130
pots of seed at various stages of development plus over 100 pots of
sweet peas now growing away well, on a shelf resting on the crop
bars of the large tunnel well out of the way of predatory
rodents.
Latterly I have started to pot on from my 4 large cold frames
which are so valuable to keep off the worst of the weather,
probably one of the best and cheapest ways of protecting hardy
perennials from the worst of the elements as even though they are
are hardy in the ground they are vulnerable in pots to excess wet
and freezing of the roots.
Just 3 more to go - each takes about a day to clear and
repot
We don't have large numbers of snowdrops in the gardens and I am
desperately fighting off the galanthophile bug for which there
seems to be no cure, but you can see at this time of year why, with
little else to divert our attention, they command such interest.
The latest crazy price on e-Bay for a form called "Golden Fleece"
was £1,200 for a single bulb!! Most of ours are the plain nivalis
with just a few named forms which would be fine if only I could
find their labels. I apologise to any galanthophiles who may be
offended by reading this!
Snowdrops and cyclamen make big contributions to The
Beech Hedge Walk
Hellebores are much more my thing as you may know by now, but
like almost everyone else, they are very slow for me this
year. Many of mine are in shade where they had to contend with
conditions that were too dry for them during the hot weather last
summer. They will come eventually but it is quite difficult even
now to pick enough heads to float on on a bowl of water and not all
the colours especially yellows are out yet.
Hellebores, especially the darker flowered ones, add
depth to the colour scheme
Right on cue the first of the daffodils, albeit a
very small one, narcissus cyclamineus bursts into flower just
in time for St.David's Day
Only cyclamen coum are making a colourful inpact in large
swathes, but other than this, there isn't much to rave about. Just
a few herbaceous perennials have some new leaf growth which is
nice, and brown seems to be the top colour.
In the open garden corydalis temulifolia "Chocolate
Stars" is a sensational colour all winter, almost lost amongst the
fallen tree leaves. It fades to brownish green later when it has
attractive lilac purple flowers
In a pot in the large tunnel melanoselinium decipiens, a
half hardy umbellifer from Madeira, sends up new leaves which are
puplish brown at first turning later to a fresh green. Tbe plant
can get to 2 metres and is topped with a 3 feet wide flower head of
pinkish umbels held on a strong cane like stem. Then being
monocarpic it dies.
These lovely bronze brown leaves belong to bergenia
"Bartok", one of a number of good forms named after
composers
Wildlife and countryside
The highlight has to be, all of a sudden, the return of the
frogs to the Padddock Pond. Not having seen them before, on 19
February the pond was alive with them making that incredible sound
that at a distant of 30 yards can still be heard, like the distant
rumble of a train. The pondweed covering the deep end of the pond
is much to their liking as they conduct their manic reproductive
activities day and night, oblivious to the mallard duck pair who
regularly visit the pond, with similar activities on their minds
soon. It would be great to have some ducklings again after an
absence of 5 years.
And a sea of tapioca like spawn across 9 sq.
metres of the Paddock Rond and still more to come.
The first honey bees eagerly gather pollen from the winter
heathers in full flower
Every year the number of buzzards seem to increase to the point
where they are last as numerous again as the redkites. Birds
in general are active all over the gardens and adjoining
countryside with birdsong every day particularly robins which have
sweet sounding melodies to lure a mate.
Lambing is in full swing on all the neighbouring farms with more
and more appearing in the fields as the season progresses and the
lambs get stronger. Several of my neighbours have lost lambs to
foxes which appear to be more numerous than usual this year, the
twin lambs being more at risk as their mothers find it difficult to
protect both lambs when a fox attacks.
At least the lambs get off to a good start in the
generously straw covered barns before turning out into the
fields
Visits
Four talks to garden clubs within in a 70 mile radius from
Cilgwyn Lodge: Pembrey in the west, Aberystwyth in the north, a
first visit to Glynneath in the east and the annual Llandysul
Winter Gardening Weekend. All but one of them had talks on
Vegetable Growing, the most popular title this year.
Llandysul Winter Gardening Weekend stage display when
all the crowds have gone home
I am always looking to extend the range of talks I offer and am
now up to 10 titles. I have for some time tried to consider how I
could present a Propagation talk to a gardening club for up to 30
people. Although a slide show might work, it wouldn't really convey
the practicalities of propagation, so I was very pleased when 5
ladies from Brecon U3A Garden Interest Group asked if I could
conduct a workshop at Cilgwyn Lodge which I readily agreed to do.
On a cold afternoon we all huddled up in my large polytunnel with
the gas heaters at full blast and using hands on examples,
conducted a range of techniques from divisions, root cuttings,
softwood and hardwood cuttings, seed sowing, compost mixes, care
and growing on. We even tried our hands at cross pollinating
hellebores. We also discussed other, more specialist methods of
propagation such as budding, air layering, grafting and tissue
culture. With just a short break for tea and Moira's cakes, they
spent nearly 5 hourse here and left in the dark taking goody bags
home with them after making a very generous donation to the NGS -
the earliest visit we have have ever had for the charity. Keen
gardeners indeed and a great group to entertain.
Just 2 talks booked for March and guess what - veggies
again! Just as well because if the weather improves there is
so much to do here in the next few weeks and my jobs list will once
again be full - and all of them have a priority rating!!
Hope you can make progress too now that spring has arrived.
Happy gardening!