What a difference two days make. The sun shone this morning with some heat in it, and there wasn't much wind, so that it felt positively inviting to be outside, well wrapped up. Even the forecast for the week is improving.
I made some progress planting out my stash of plants. Three Geranium 'Blue Cloud' finally found a home in the long bed. This has pale blue flowers with subtle purple streaks, very pretty. I fell for it last year at work but we'd sold out before I organised myself to buy any, so this year I snapped up three when I saw them in the summer. I had a broad idea of where they could go, since 'Blue Cloud' likes well drained soil, and sun or semi-shade, and I thought there had to be a bare patch somewhere in the long bed that could usefully be filled by a group of geraniums. 'Blue Cloud' has branching stems that keep on elongating and flowering through the summer, giving it a long season, and the manager tells me that grown in the ground rather than a pot it makes a dense, weed-smothering mat. I'm always keen to have more of those. I'd been eyeing up a space at the front of the bed. Once the geraniums were planted, I fretted that maybe I had them too close to the ivy hedge, on the other hand I don't want a bare 40cm of soil around the edge of the border between the planting and the hedge.
A Euonymus planipes also slotted into the long bed. This is a deciduous species, which develops rich and marvellous autumn colour in a medley of red and plum by mid-September. After the leaves drop, the buds containing next year's leaves are long and pointed, attractive in their way, if you notice that sort of thing. I have admired it at several gardens, including Marks Hall and Scampston Hall, and written its name down in my garden visiting book more than once over the years, which is generally a good indication that my liking for a plant is deep-seated, and not a temporary enthusiasm. Today's specimen was a replacement, since I planted one about this time last year. It died at some point. I didn't notice it go, and don't know why it failed. It was planted in an area of the long bed that I was renovating, and everything else that went in at the same time did fine. Maybe I didn't water it enough in the dry spell we had in spring before the endless wet summer started, or maybe it succumbed to a disease. I haven't found deciduous euonymus the easiest group of plants to establish, when I've tried. In pots on nurseries they seem rather prone to fungal root infections, and the boss struggles to find clean suppliers of some of the varieties he in theory lists in the catalogue.
Then it was time for stint in the back garden, and another barrow load of compost. I weeded part of the ditch bed and mulched it, peering about in vain for signs of life in the form of resting buds from the small peony Molly the Witch that I planted down there earlier in the year. She was a slightly weedy little witch, proving not to have rooted into the full depth of her pot when I tipped her out of it at planting time. Perhaps she is resting under ground, or perhaps she is no more. Spring will tell. A group of three fancy saxifrage with deeply toothed leaves, bought from the Chatto Gardens, is doing very well in deep shade further back in the same bed.
One of a group of three river birch, Betula nigra 'Wakehurst Place', has already turned a soft yellow and dropped all of its leaves. The other two are still green. There is no more than a couple of metres between each pair, and as they are a named variety the three trees should be genetically identical, so it is a puzzle why one has turned so far ahead of the other two. The tree that has shed its leaves is at the southern end of the row, so gets the most light of the three. The bark of the river birch forms great shaggy tufts and peeling patches, which are very attractive. I have never felt the urge to pick at it and pull the loose pieces off. The trunk of the central tree is noticeably thinner than the other two, showing the effect of having competition on both sides instead of the lawn on one side.
As it was a nice afternoon and the chickens hadn't been out for several days, it seemed kind to release them. They were very happy about this, and grazed on the grass just outside their run before rootling around in the turning circle. They didn't try to disappear into the back garden, which they'd started doing just before we went on holiday. If they will consent to stay in a little flock in the front on winter afternoons that would be extremely helpful (and make it more likely that they'll be let out, though it would be too much to expect a chicken to work that one out). I was able to cut down stems and trim the ivy hedge while keeping an eye on them. They were rather dilatory about going to bed, and I was starting to feel slightly chilly and had run out of space in my bins of prunings before they had finished. I did a headcount after shutting the run for the first time and found I was one short, but she turned up soon afterwards. I put the last of our stock of straw bales in their run this morning, as it was muddy after all the wet weather, so I need to find a source to restock. I had thought of asking the boss if he could let me buy some straw, when he seemed in a good mood. They must have it for the horses.
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