I’ve added a new article on “Canine Waste” – this is one of those topics which we all have to think about, but no one wants to talk about.
January 12, 2010
January 2, 2010
This year, I am going to try and keep a record of the plants that are of the most interest in my garden at the beginning of each month. This inevitably will be a much longer list during the summer months, but even in a very small garden, it is possible to have interest throughout the year.
There is only one plant in flower at the moment, the ubiquitous vibernum. There is a good reason why it is found everywhere. It is a well behaved, reliable shrub. It looks good throughout the year and comes into its own at this time of year when flowers are few and far between.
However, there is other interest in the garden. The cyclamen that I bought last autumn are looking wonderful. The leaves have a vibrancy of their own, whether they are dark green and glossy or shimmering silver.
The majority of the shrubs are evergreen and continue to provide structure in the garden at this time of year, however their time of glory is yet to come.
January 2, 2010
So what is it that would make someone, who has a healthy respect for heights, go happily climbing up the side of the house on a ladder? It has to be the winter prune of the Wisteria.
It is a job that I do every New Year’s Day. I know that gardening experts always say that the autumn is the start of the new gardening year as that is the best time for planting, but for me, pruning the Wisteria is the start. It is almost always very frosty, a lovely crisp day when it is a pleasure to be outside if you are well wrapped up. For the last two years, my husband has been concened to let me do it following my hip operation. Two years ago, there was absolutely no chance of me doing it as I was on crutches. Last year, he once again offered to do the job. This year, there was no way that I was going to let him do it.
We agreed to split the labour this year though. He placed the ladder and I climbed up to do the pruning. Once I had finished a section, he moved the ladder and the process continued. The wisteria covers the back of our house, so this means quite a few ladder moves. We have a stabiliser for the ladder for safety reasons, but it does make the moving process a bit more complicated. We always start on the eastern side of the house as it is much easier to put the ladder up on the patio. By the time we get to the western side, we have to negotiate the plants in the bed which is always a little harder. The dogs are always confined to the house during the pruning process, the last thing that we want is to trip over them as we move the ladder (our springers are very inquisitive creatures) or for them to be hit by falling branches.
There is something intensely satisfying about pruning the wisteria. The thought that this job is going to produce a more floriferous result in the spring spurs one on. As the books say, I prune to two buds, which I assume allows the plant to concentrate its efforts on a smaller number of buds and therefore produce more vigorous racemes in the spring. Over the years you create more and more flowering spurs just waiting to erupt when the time is right. At the same time, removing the unnecessary growth provides a nice neat structure for the plant to start its growth again once the sap rises in spring.
Gardening and dogs 