New Year, New Garden
Projects are a foot…
Greetings from the Walled Garden, and a Happy New Year to you and yours. It feels strange to have written the last garden update before the Christmas decorations went up, and this one just as they are coming down. So much has happened in between but short days and short weeks - not to mention unseasonably freezing conditions - have meant progress in the garden has at times felt somewhat disjointed. Despite this we’ve managed to make good progress on some bigger projects and fit in a bit of planning as well. I’m writing this dispatch on the Epiphany, and in the absence of such a thing myself, what follows is a few shorter bulletins from the garden in December and January.
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In early December we took lots of potted bulbs along to the brilliant Christmas market at the Hirsel Estate in Coldstream. It was so nice to meet so many new people as well as catch up with some friends of the garden, and I’m pleased to say we sold everything we took. We have a new batch of spring bulbs coming along now so keep your eyes peeled if you’d like to snag some, we’ll be sure to let you know in the newsletter as things become available.
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The deep freeze extended its icy tendrils into our unheated glasshouse, meaning most of our tender perennials succumbed to the cold. It was always a bit of a gamble but one we’d gotten away with so far because of the thermal mass of the wall, but it now means there’s a lot of clearing out to do. If you have a greenhouse at home now is a great time to set-to throwing out old material, tidying up, and giving everything a good clean ready for the season ahead which will be here before you know it. This is what we’ll be doing on the next rainy day, along with scrubbing and disinfecting pots and seed trays. Another timely job is rose pruning which is best done in the dead of winter. We have lots of shrub roses and climbers to tangle with over the next couple of months, some of which we’re going to try and tame into sculptural shapes in the style of brilliant gardener Jenny Barnes (look her up if you haven’t come across her before – her work is extraordinary). Sticking plasters at the ready!
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About six weeks ago we started the very big job of clearing, splitting and replanting a seventy meter stretch of herbaceous border (thirty-five meters on each side of a central path). There were many reasons for doing this, but our primary objectives were to introduce some cohesion and a longer season of interest; edit plants that had become too dominant and remove any that were unsuitable; and painstakingly comb every square inch of soil and root ball for dreaded bindweed (it’s almost guaranteed that the bindweed will be back next year, so this will be an ongoing personal vendetta of mine for quite some time). Now that everything has been dug over and raked level, we’ll begin the exciting job of splitting and replanting most of the plants that were taken out, as well as introducing some new ones. It’s been a huge undertaking with halting progress as we took time to assess each plant on its merits, not to mention at least a week where the ground froze completely solid. Most textbooks will tell you to do this job around every three years, which is a good joke if you need to hear one.
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The next big project after this one will be the creation of a new cutting garden. We’re hoping to have this up and running and stuffed full of flowery goodies by summertime. Our aim is to not only supply flowers for the house and estate events, but also to floral designers looking for beautiful seasonal Scottish blooms. If you’d like to know more about this as it develops, be sure to sign up to our mailing list for updates. It feels so nice to be looking forward to summer projects, and I’m heartened by the knowledge that the next time I sit down to write to you in early February, I will be coming and going from the garden in daylight. What a thought!
Kate