Hogmanay. It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since we had the last one! I’m definitely getting to that stage in life where time is flying by.
But as we naturally do on this day, when I look back and reflect on the gardening year, it’s certainly been eventful.
It’s been quite a year
The major event that would’ve affected us all was the hot weather and drought.
Even in Scotland we usually get a wee spell during the growing season where we don’t get much rain. But this summer it went on for weeks, being so dry our fellow gardeners down south had restrictions placed on them.
Plants that have been in the ground for years, and our lawns, can just get on with it I’m afraid. In most cases their root systems are so established they will find the moisture they need to survive.
As for lawns, I’ve yet to see an established lawn turned yellow because of lack of rainfall NOT recover. So as far as I’m concerned I’m not wasting my time or good quality drinking water on these.
Thankfully I have a couple of rainwater butts that replenished my containers and hanging baskets, plus those plants I had popped in the ground from spring, as they would not have produced decent enough root growth to keep themselves alive.
Over the years I’ve been filling my garden with apple trees and I was so happy with the crop I had this summer, the best since I planted them.
I’ve been wanting to challenge myself and have been training the trees so that they have the shape of a pyramid.
An apple press next
I haven’t attempted this before so although I knew the number of apples would’ve been limited for the first few years, I was still still nervous but absolutely ecstatic with the number I had this year.
I’m still enjoying my last few today, having a good crop in store. I’m looking forward to treating myself to an apple press in the new year so I can have a go at making my own juice with next year’s harvest.
The way my gardening brain works, once it hits November I go into tidying up mode. By the time I go off for the Christmas break the dahlias are safely tucked away in storage, the fallen leaves are all in the compost bin and the herbaceous in the borders that doesn’t look good over winter has all been cut and cleared away.
After I’ve had a couple of weeks of being over-fed and over-watered, my body is quite literally bursting to get back to working in the garden. I am excited as from now on, everything I do is about the gardening year ahead.
There’s a few little jobs I like getting on with first, just to slowly break myself back in to physical activity gently.
The first is kind of a tradition, getting out to my Hellebore plants to remove the old foliage.
The joys of Hellebores
These are absolute crackers in the winter garden, adding splashes of green, white, pink or ruby colour on elegantly nodding blooms. The flowers are attractively speckled too.
I have a beautiful deep ruby coloured variety growing in my garden at home under the shade of an Osmanthus delavayi shrub, its evergreen foliage is the perfect foil for its flowers.
Anytime from November really we are advised to remove the hellebore foliage, which is a feature of the plant itself, to help reduce the spread of a black spot disease which can kill some varieties.
I also like to remove the foliage to simply make the flowers stand out that little bit more which, if we are really lucky, will still be in bloom once the native snowdrops start to appear.
Ideally this should be done when the soil is a little bit warmer but as long as the ground is not frozen, I’m going to scatter some fresh leaf mould compost around these pockets of winter colour in my garden just to really set them off.
I’m an artificial tree kind of guy, so in a few days when it’s time to pack away for another year, its pretty straightforward for me.
I do like the idea of a real tree one year. I prefer the thought of one growing in a container so I could possible reuse for a few years, rather than a cut tree once.
There is a downside, a Christmas conifer growing in a pot won’t like being indoors for too many days, so bring it in as late as you possibly can and keep it in a cooler room – or at least away from a radiator.
The 12 days of Christmas indoors will be long enough for it, before you either plant it in your garden, which will go on to add interest in future years (don’t forget to prune its height though!) or have a go and it being kept in the container so you can use it again next year.
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