another job ticked off the list

I finally finished sorting out the greenhouse.  The geraniums and other tender perennials are tucked away, ready for me to shut the doors when frost is predicted, as it will be any night soon.  Things propagated in greater quantities than I've managed to use so far in the garden have been weeded and kept for next year, potting them on if needs be, and the contents of pots that had died or gone horribly manky have been chucked out.  The lilies are stacked under the bench, together with four Whichford planters containing next year's hyacinth bulbs.  Last winter I left the hyacinths out, as I've always done, and the bulb plates rotted away in the extreme weather.  Odd pots containing small bulbs that I never got round to planting in the spring have been investigated, and those with live, sprouting bulbs weeded and kept, and the remainder thrown away.  There are a couple of nice things from the Avon Bulbs catalogue growing on, ready to be planted out in the spring when I've finished (ha!) the great tidy-up outside.  So I struck 'greenhouse' off the list, which left only fifty items to go.

I set out to flame some odd bits of beekeeping kit that were sitting outside the garage.  For the non-beekeepers, this doesn't mean burning them on a ceremonial pyre (though that is what will happen to your hive if it should have one of the nastier brood diseases).  Flaming to a beekeeper means running a blowtorch over the surface of wooden beehive parts until they are lightly charred, which is a method of sterilising them.  As wood is porous and you don't want chemicals soaking into the hive and contaminating the honey, heat sterilisation is a good method, and I'd been cleaning my kit as I stacked it away.  What I didn't know this morning, but do now, is that the System's Administrator's blowtorch uses a butane canister, which won't work below 15 degrees C.  I found the torch on the veranda, where we'd had it to light the barbecue, twizzled it to on, flicked the ignition button and - nothing.  Repeatedly nothing, except for a faint hissing sound and slight smell of gas.  I found the S.A. and grumbled that the canister must be running out (though it felt pretty heavy) and so learnt about the thermal requirements of butane.  Leaving the torch in the kitchen brought it to a temperature where it would work, but it kept running out of oomph outside, and as the wind got up I decided that today was really not the day to choose.  Pity.  You know how it is, when you galvanise yourself to get on with a tedious job, and circumstances get in the way.

I scraped aside the gravel where the poor Teucrium fruticans 'Azureum' used to be, and couldn't see the rootball at all.  I ended up probing cautiously with a garden fork, lifting sections of soil on the basis that the ground would crumble whereas the Teucrium would come up in a circular lump.  It did.  There is no top growth left whatsoever, and I'm not terribly optimistic about its chances of revival, but some shrubs have surprised me pleasantly by regenerating from below ground level after being hit by cold above, so I might as well find out if Teucrium fruticans is capable of that trick.  Watering it correctly in the greenhouse will be key, as it needs to be on the dry side, and is currently fairly wet.  The ginger scented rosemary went into the gap.  If you come across one of these then grab it, if you like rosemary.  It really does smell spicy and different to the usual sort.

The gardening afternoon was cut short by my monthly visit to the Pilates teacher.  She was recovering from a vicious cold, and looked rather exhausted, but that's part of the deal being self employed.  No lesson, no fee.  I seemed to be particularly dense this afternoon about co-ordinating my breathing with the movements of my legs.  I find formal exercise one of the dullest things ever, but that's part of the deal having a dodgy back and a hardcore gardening habit.  If I do some moderately boring exercises reasonably regularly and take notice of my posture I can function normally.  If I don't, I can't.  The teacher is a nice and cultured woman, and congenial company, which makes the lessons nicer than they would be otherwise. 

starting to count the winter losses

I'm beginning to count the winter's casualties, and fear there will be quite a few.  It was colder for longer last December than in the previous winter, and some things that made it through 2009-10, albeit looking a bit burnt by the cold, are now looking dead, like my Acacia pravissima.  I don't like to assume the worst too early, as plants can have amazing powers of regeneration, but I'm concerned that things like Callistemon that were cut to the ground the previous year and had begun to reshoot from the roots won't have the energy to repeat that trick a second time.  Even so I won't rush to dig them out, just in case.

I have no hope at all that the crisped up leafless remains of my rosemary 'Severn Sea' are still alive.  It only went in last year.  I chose that variety because the flowers are a very beautiful shade of blue, and it is supposed to flower over a very long season, and I wanted a low growing one.  Rosemary can be short lived as shrubs go, but the prostrate ones tend to last for longer than the upright growers because the branches root where they touch the ground, and the plant renews itself that way.

I try to be philosophical about losses in general, on the grounds that these things happen, it is interesting to see how plants behave and what succumbs or surprises you by surviving, and the gaps created do offer opportunities to try new things.  But it is galling to lose a lot two years in a row.  Partly it is the expense of replacing plants, and the extra work created by having to clear away the remains and replant.  Plus weeds love bare soil, and established plants act as weed suppressants.  Each lost plant, or failed bit of 2010 planting that has to be done again, represents another bit of ground that will have to be kept weed free this year, when I had hoped that it would be starting to look after itself.  I might need to take a slightly more hawkish view about what can be regarded as hardy, and how much doubtfully hardy stuff I can cope with.  I saw a wonderful rose at Wyken Hall a couple of years ago and have been wondering where I could fit one in.  Maybe in the space previously occupied by Acacia pravissima?

growing under cover

Overwintering plants in a polytunnel is always tricky.  Their demand for water falls right off so you must cut down on watering, but they still need some.  There's always the chance of finding one or two that have dried out too far, especially in a crowded tunnel where they are all crammed in together.  Some will not recover from this state of affairs, for example, Callistemon.  Once their leaves have gone brown and crispy from drought in their plastic pots they've had it (although Callistemon in the garden that have been cut to the ground by winter cold may shoot again from below ground).  Overwatering is equally damaging, rotting roots and setting up the conditions for botrytis to take hold on leaves and stems.  Tender salvias are among the worst: they'll break out in botrytis at the least opportunity.

I spent a peaceful day at work clearing fallen and dead leaves out of the heated tunnel, and indulging my ancient monkey grooming instincts picking dead and damaged leaves off the plants.  It's not a bad place to be on a winter's day, getting some fresh air but out of the wind (which was lively), up close and personal with the plants.  Aromatic shrubs are a particular pleasure, giving off great wafts of scent as you touch them:  lemon from Aloysia triphylla, a ginger-cum-rosemary flavour off Rosmarinus officinalis 'Green Ginger' and a strange mixture of lavender and sage from Salvia lavandulifolia.  I mused on how I could plant all of them, plus the lovely but ever-so-tender Teucrium fruticans 'Azureum', to replace a large patch of curry plant that I am tired of.  It is getting straggly and I don't even like the smell, which always makes me think I must need to clean the chickens out.  More prosaically I thought that I must pay the same attention to my own conservatory as soon as possible.