Hogmanay - is it time to dump the posies of 2009?

Although the garden has just about gone to sleep with all this cold weather, we have plants inside that amuse us.  There is the posy of dahlias we have in the loo.  These were City of Rotterdam and they dried out gradually and were transformed into another phase - a dried posy with considerable attraction.  See for yourself below.  The question is: when to dump?

We have a Camellia in a pot which is early flowering and we take it in to enjoy it close up in the conservatory.  It is a cultivar bred by the Puddles at Bodnant  and has the name 'Hiraethlyn'. It is a lovely simple flower which retains a bell shape and often hangs downwards like a bell.  It does very well in a pot if the vine weevil leaves it alone.  We lost one that way before.

Have you tried Witch's Butter?

Boxing day was another nice day so Corbie collected some more Christmas decorations from the garden and driveway.

Rosa gentiliana syn multiflora var. cathayensis (I need to sort out its nomenclature) still has great swags of hips and R. 'Scintillation' has the orange and green ones.  'Cupid' provided the giant ones. Berries of Cotoneaster horizontalis were mostly taken by the blackbirds but enough were left to brighten the berry collection.  Added to the flower list were gorse, broom, osteospermum and periwinkle.

C and L are here for a few days so we went out for a walk round the circle from Tregarth to Cororion.  The holly growing out of the oak tree is still doing well and we encountered a nice bit of witch's butter, Tremella mesenterica, growing on gorse.

Christmas Day

A pet day today.  Full sun with nice clouds over Liverpool Bay and not a breath of wind. 

The annual Christmas Day garden flower hunt is over and I have bagged some amazing flowers despite the rotten weather we have had.

The photo shows:
Roses Windrush, Dainty Bess, Stanwell Perpetual, Old Blush China and Phllys Bide and hips on Cupid
Convolvulus cneorum, Schizostylis Mrs Haggerty and while; Nicotiana alata Sensation, Algerian Iris, Jasminum nudiflorum, Viburnum tomentosum, Erisimum cheiri (wallflower), Bergenia cordifolia.

Run down to Christmas

Corby managed to rescue the Dahlia tubers from the shed bed before the hard frost arrived.  They will be dried off a bit and stored in the shed until they produce cuttings in the Spring. Now 20 tulips have been planted, Mr Tesco's cheap mix of pastel and purple in a central array. Lily-flowered Burgundy will go in the back row, and multi-headed Antoinette in the front row. These should flower first, and be short.
                                                                                       
Corbie continues to pick the long spears of silver from the Iris under the kitchen window.  These open in the kitchen warmth into the most increadible helio and tiger striped flowers.

This is Iris unguicularis, the Algerian iris which is also found in Greece.  It likes a stoney site at the base of the south wall of the house.  I managed to track down the name unguicularis - it means shaped like a claw or narrow-shanked (the petals). It blooms from late October into Spring and produces a flush of flowers every week or two - hundreds in all.  The flowers look very delicate yet survive outdoors through the worst weather except that something eats them.  The buds are frequently eaten off at the tip and sometimes are completely shedded.  Mice or snails?  It is probably mice as the slug pellets don't seem to be the answer.  The plant must be 30 years old as mother Jean from Lesmahagow brought a bit down.  A couple of years back, the plant almost died off - disease? -but has grown back strongly more recently.

Stone wall risen again

Dave Grundy has done a fine job; the wall is good for another lifetime or two. Now everything else needs planning, especially how the levels will work. A lot of earth-shifting is on the cards. I want to make a level area that will keep the sun a little longer than the rest of the north-sloping garden. There is the potential to create a sheltered, sunny corner, something we've never had.

Surprise in the winter garden: flowering Christmas roses (Helleborus niger).  They were hiding so when the leaves were cut away, there were masses of flowers at every stage of development.  We will take the large pot into the conservatory to keep the flowers clean  and dry and sprinkle on a few slug pellets.  The plant is one that Jean from Lesmahagow (Corbie's mother) gave us maybe 40 years ago.  it has been divided a few times and top dressed with rich compost now and again.  They used to flower in January but because of global warming ..... 

The sun actually came out today and flooded through the top landing window to strike the Pelargonium there in a pot.  I got cuttings from Angharad this summer.  she says it is Lord Bute and I think she is right.  Just look at that rich colour!

Today was RAT day.  This is the time of year when rats arrive, maybe from the Little Chef, to cash in on our  potatoes stored in the garage/car-port.  Corby found a couple of tails sticking out of a drawer and told Corbie to get rid of them.  I am clearing all unwanted potatoes and baiting a trap with fresh potato and bacon and might even put out some poison to sort them out.  Chased one around the room with a broom handle but it got away. Watch this space.

Harvested some cherry tomato from the polytunnel.  They continue to ripen slowly in spite of getting a touch frosted last week.

We are having pot-roast pheasant with celeriac and Blue Danube mash tonight.  This is inspired by Nigel Slater's new book, Tender.  This is his newest one on vegetables and is really sumptuous in its presentation. Slight problem with the celeriac.  It was sown very late but grew fast and the tops got very large in the new bed by the garden shed.  Well, when I dug up the first one just now, it had a tiny root.  So I had to save all the rootlets to get enough to cook.  We had no Marsala so substituted white wine and Futyulos (dry apricot brandy from Hungary).  Corby is doing a damson and Charles Ross crumble.

This is a picture of the Charles Ross apple, with the tree still laden with its biggest-ever crop in mid-November. Behind it is the old hut, which is now cleared away.  This apple must have been planted by Vic Smith around 50 years ago.  We get good harvests every few years.  The flesh texture is turnippy but the flavour is good - citrussy - and sweet.  Birds have been pecking the fruits and seem to play a game of "see how many fruits we can put a tiny peck into".  So we picked them all and use them chipped to go with our meusli and also to make fresh juice.  Fortunately the squirrels have left them alone this year otherwise they would have gone ages ago.
This shows the best side of the old hut, given  that most of the roof, front and other long side had gone the way of all corrugated. The ivy was holding up the remainder.