Compost : The Pen is Mightier than the Dalek.

 

 As you might know, if you've followed me for any length of time, I hate Daleks.

 

 

No! Not those things, the least-scary and stupidly mobility-limited villain ever invented or made out of cardboard egg cartons.

No, I mean those nasty plastic compost bins - and for once, yes, I use the word “bin” rather than “pen”.

 

Anyway.... I hate plastic compost bins, known as daleks, because they don't work. They simply don't work.

The idea is that you tip material in the top, then when it's ready (pause for hollow laugh), you are supposed to open the little door at the bottom, scrape out the good stuff, then continue shovelling more material in the top, as part of a continual process.

Great idea in theory: but in the real world...

 

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January Newsletter

 

Well, hello everyone: yes, Xmas is over, and we are heading uphill towards spring!

Yes, the days are getting longer: not by much, but already it's light enough to work at 8am. Each day is longer than the one before, and the increase is increasing, if you see what I mean: at the start of the month, it was about one minute a day longer, but by the middle of the month it's more like two minutes more, every day, and by the end of the month, 2-3 minutes longer each day.

That means that now we have passed the end of the month, the day is nearly an hour longer than it was at New Year! Yay! 

 

So what's going on in the garden, this week: well, we've had some milder weather and the bulbs are coming up, which is always nice. And can you tell the difference between them, before they get flowers?

Here's a quick look at what was coming up in one of "my" gardens: (to see all the relevant photos, you'll need to hop across to Patreon)

Firstly we have the predicted Sno - pause while I type it really slowly - Snowdrops. Phew! I have no idea why, but I just can't type that word correctly.

There they are, dear little things, and easily recognisable by being small, glaucous (ie bluey-grey) and - if you look closely - having a slight vertical stripey-ness about them.

Next are everyone's favourite: can you guess?

Yup, Daffodils. Much taller than Snowdroips (told you), which doesn't really help unless you have them growing side by side... but they are also less glaucous, and with a definite feeling of sturdiness.

What about these little fellows, though:

They are Tulips: the clue is the way the leaves form a hood, almost but not quite a tube, as though each leaf were protecting the ones below - which I suppose, in a way, they are.

Tulips send up a lot of leaves before they start on the flowering lark, but Hyacinths don't: their flower buds are evident, very early on in their young growth:

You can see the knobbly bud, right in the centre of the leaves.

Another spring beauty which does a lot of leaf-before-flower is, or are, the Alliums, which are much paler and somehow less chunky than the other spring bulbs:

Their leaves tend to flop outwards, rather than standing to attention as the Daffodils do.

Crocus often appear to be producing flowers before the leaves - but that is usually because they are growing in lawns, and their tiny, slender leaves look just like blades of grass.

At the other extreme to the delicate little Crocus (Crocuses? Crocii?), we have Spring Snowflake, Leucojum vernum, with their stout, upright, bright green leaves: they don't normally flower until the real Snotrdips (told you) are nearly finished, although there is often a slight overlap in flowering times: but until they flower, it's easy to mistake them for Daffodils. 

So, hopefully you can now wander round the garden looking at the bulbs with confidence!

Apart from all this bulb activity, not much has happened in January, because I have done very little work, mostly due to the weather, which has been almost unremittingly cold and wet.

That means that several of January's articles have been leftovers from last season, rather than the usual "ooh, look what's going on in "my" gardens this week!"

There were a couple of season-appropriate articles: frost on the grass, winter pruning of Fuchsia, tidying up the Auricula, Dogwoods and their lovely colour, for a start. And then some less seasonal articles on water butts (rainwater harvesting being one of my many soapboxes), brambles (a never-ending source of questions, enquiries, and pleas for help) and the vexing question of Housework in the Garden.

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Fuchsia - winter pruning

 

Another plea for advice from another former Student: I am beginning to wonder if I am not training them sufficiently well! (laughs) To be fair to me, this is a winter-related question, from a summer Student, so it's not a topic we would have covered in any great detail.

Hardy Fuchsia, then: the sort that live outdoors in the garden all year round, with a woody structure and usually a gnarly woody base. I think the most famous is “Mrs Popple”:

 

... which is hardy, reliable, beautiful, and can get up to nearly waist height each year.

I say “each year” because they die back over the winter, and are generally cut down, right down to ground level.

Personally I'll cut them back radically in late autumn or early winter, depending on how long they stay looking nice: then in spring, when they start to grow again, I'll go over the cut-back stems and remove any which are not sprouting.

Most of the best sprouts are from the very base of the plant, but if you forget to cut them back in winter, you will find some sprouts - and when I say “sprouts” I mean “shoots”, not “brussels sprouts”, but I am sure you realised what I meant - appearing along the old stems, which leads some people to ask if it's not better to leave the old stems uncut, in order to get a bigger plant the following year....

 

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