Cordyline Carnage

Spring has finally arrived, although there can still be four seasons in one day. Today is warm, windy and wet. Tomorrow might be frosty, calm and dry. Who knows? But what I do know is that the weather has caused a lot of damage to many plants at the hospice this winter. Most of the damage was done in the two week cold snap just before Christmas. All our cordylines have died.

After this photo was taken there was another cold snap, killing off the other cordyline. The frost makes the stem go soft, causing all the leaves to die back. I have cut back the stems, and am waiting a little longer to see if they re-sprout. My fingers are crossed, but I’m not that hopeful. Other plants have been affected too.

This bottlebrush plant was kindly donated to us after it had outgrown the person’s garden. Although a bit leggy, it was doing well in its new home. That was until the frost got to it, causing its bark to split.

Again, I have cut it back to see if it might regrow as the weather warms up. A similar fate occurred with our large hebe hedge. I fear I am going to have to dig it all up. The frosts were so severe it even caused damage to a large area of bamboo. Nearly all the leaves turned brown and dropped off, making it look very unsightly.

With it being bamboo, it will come back, probably with a vengence! I have cut much of it back, but left an area where a group of long tailed tits were hanging out. I love long tailed tits, they are so pretty.

Enough of the destruction that has occurred. Let’s focus a bit more on the positive. I know that I have posted a lot of photos of the Rainbow Bridge, but here’s another, during one of those frosty periods.

It always makes me smile and reminds me that there is always hope. Last week when we were having lots of showers, I saw a real rainbow. I become a kid again when I see a rainbow, getting all giddy!

Whilst weeding and tidying up a flower bed, I looked down into my trug and saw this toad looking up…

The frog and toad spawn has has been laid again in our ponds, although a couple of weeks later than last year. We’ve had some other visitors recently. The local roe deer have been getting in on a regular basis. They seem to be able to jump over our 6ft fence to get in, but are then unable to jump back out again for some reason. One day there were four in. They’re beautiful to watch, but a bit scary when running past you at high speed.

Whilst weeding earlier this week, one of the volunteers found this insect…

None of us were too sure what it was. One of the volunteers was trying to indentify it with an app on their phone, but were unable to get close enough. So I let it climb onto my hand so that she could get a little bit closer. That was a mistake! It turns out that it is an Ophion wasp (or maybe a Netelia wasp – they seem quite hard to tell apart) and it had stung me. Thankfully it didn’t hurt much. They are largely nocturnal, so I suspect we had disturbed it from it’s sleep. They are parasitic wasps in the grizzly business of laying their eggs on, or inside, caterpillars. In the latter case, when the eggs hatch the unfortunate caterpillar, often still alive, is eaten from the inside out. I just hope it didn’t have time to lay it’s eggs in me!

There are many flowers now out around the gardens. There are lots of beautiful daffodils in bloom, but my favourite flower of the moment are the hellebores. We have several varieties growing, showing off their good looks in winter and early spring.

There are also a couple of daphne shrubs which are in bloom. As well as their pretty flowers, they also smell amazing.

I’ve been working throughout the winter at the hospice, and am enjoying the days getting a bit longer. My private gardening jobs are now getting busier as it warms up. So it is time to stop and put my feet up. I’m hoping that soon I can tell you some exciting news about the Tatton Flower Show!

Until then, happy gardening! X

June to November 2022

OK, so I’m a bit of a failure when it comes to blogging! Yet again I haven’t written anything for months. I had a good excuse for June… I did no gardening. I was on holiday with Sam for the first couple of weeks, in the south of France. We got the train down to Carcassonne, which is beautiful. The train journey down was great, but the train journey home was a bit harder work. Whilst travelling from Paris to London on Eurostar, there was a passenger behind us who kept coughing. She announced to everyone that it wasn’t COVID. Lo and behold, three days later I started to feel unwell; tired, feverish, a bit of a cough and generally lousy. I had finally succumbed to the coronavirus and had to take the next two weeks off work. So no gardening in June, and no blog.

After June there were no excuses, other than being very busy and tired. In July we were inspected by NW in Bloom. The day of the inspection was the hottest day of the very hot summer. Due to the dry weather, the council hadn’t been for a couple of weeks to cut the grass. It was looking a bit tatty, so I decided to cut the lawns near the patients rooms prior to the judges visit. By the time they arrived I was very hot and sweaty! The awards ceremony was held in October and for the fourth year in a row we have received the highest award – ‘Outstanding’. I felt very chuffed to be a part of the team who look after the gardens and am extremely grateful to all my volunteers, who have been slowly growing in number. I even have a fellow man in the team now!

The wonderful volunteers

We also opened our gardens for the National Garden Scheme in July. We were lucky with the weather and the predicted rain didn’t arrive until mid afternoon, although this did affect our numbers a bit. Those that came seemed to enjoy themselves. Again, the heatwave and dry weather in the run up to the day made it quite challenging. But we did our best and the gardens remained full of colour.

The weather seems to have affected the plants in several ways. Some of our trees dropped many of their leaves in July in an attempt to preserve water. Now that it is so mild in mid November, other trees are still holding onto their leaves. I am still going in having to pick up the next batch that have fallen off. A few weeks ago I noticed that many of the beech leaves had a strange and very hard growth on them. I googled to see what was causing them. It turns out that they are beech leaf galls in which the larva of a midge lives. It doesn’t seem to affect the leaves too badly. The gall falls off in autumn and pupation then takes place within the gall. The midge will emerge next spring and the life cycle starts again.

Beech Leaf Gall

Other plants are flowering out of season or well beyond the regular season. There is a poppy flowering in November, alongside a blooming achillea and the verbena bonariensis, which just seems to be going on and on this year.

Poppy in November

The sunflowers came out very late, but again went on and on. We have only finally taken down the last ones this week. They have been very beautiful and very tall.

6’3″ gardener with 13′ sunflower

The bed in the photo above has been a great success. This time last year it had three hideous pampas grasses in it which I dug out back in February. Now when you drive into the carpark you are greeted with a bed full of colour.

There has been plenty of wildlife this year, but not so many butterflies. I did photography a some back in October, a rather tatty red admiral and a gorgeous comma, both feeding on the verbena.

Red Admiral
Comma

There have been lots of other insects too.

Hoverfly
Bee on a Greater Knapweed flower

The greater knapweed did really well in the wildflower garden this year.

Greater Knapweed

Normally I am not so keen on slugs and snails, but this one took my fancy. It’s a white lipped snail travelling up a phormium leaf.

White Lipped Snail

There have also been wild mammals in the garden. There was this litle cutie hanging out in a bag full of leaf mold with it’s sibblings, who had already scarpered by the time my phone was at the ready.

Mouse

We’ve also had a roe deer in the gardens. I am presuming that it can jump over the fence, but often seems to struggle to get out. Finally, we did see it leap out, but it was back in a couple of weeks later.

Roe deer

This autumn there have been lots of different mushrooms growing in the gardens. Here are a selection.

Puffballs
Inkcap
Shaggy inkcap
Bay bolete (I think)

I enjoy watching the seasons move from one to the next. We are almost in winter, but not quite. I continue picking up the leaves (nearly all done) and I have just finished putting up 87 Christmas trees in the grounds for the patients to look at over Christmas. Once they are lit I will try to pust some photos.

Until next time, take care.

Jim, The Hospice Gardener X

April and May 2022

I failed to write my blog in April, but had a good excuse… Sam and I were away for a few days near Bristol on holiday. We had a lovely time staying on the Mendips and meeting up with family and friends. By the time we got back, April was history (and I forgot). So it is a double dose this time round.

I am very excited to have my volunteers back in force. They stop for a few months over winter and return in spring, much to my delight! Here they are, hard at work…

My lovely volunteers

The bulbs were fantastic in April, as they had been in March. Just as the dafs were coming to the end, the tulips came out. They were really beautiful and lasted quite a long time.

Tulips galore

The tulips are now gone, but have been replaced with the aliums. I love how at this time of year there is such a quick succession of flowers. There never seems to be a time where there isn’t something to admire.

Over time, wildlife in the gardens has become increasingly important to me. I try to encourage wildflowers and insects as much as possible. The Amberswood garden that we created 4 or 5 years ago is really flourishing this year. The cowslips are gone, but there is lots of birds foot trefoil and ragged robin instead. There is also cuckooflower, yellow rattle and purple orchids in abundance.

Birds foot trefoil in the Amberswood garden
Ragged Robin
Cuckooflower
Purple orchid

The orchids grow in the lawns, along with meadow buttercups and daisies. In May, I always try to cut shapes in the lawns where the flowers are growing, in an attempt to encourage wildlife. The rest of the lawn is regularly cut in order for them to look neat and tidy. I find this method more visually appealing than the blanket “No Mow May” approach. I generally leave the areas of uncut grass until late summer before strimming it down.

We have heard a lot about declining numbers of insects. We seem to be doing fairly well. There have been masses of the once thought of extinct alder leaf beetle. They have been happily munching through the alder leaves as they appear.

Alder leaf beetle

We have also had a good number of butterflies and bees.

Common blue

And here a couple of bumble bees…

Bumble bee on a wild rose flower
Bumble bee on a comfrey flower

There are many more flowers out at the moment. The candelabra primulas are particularly stunning at the moment.

Pink candelabra primula
Yellow candelabra primula

The foxgloves are also looking good. I especially like this pure white one with silver birches in the background…

White foxglove

Recently there have been a few more relatives and friends visiting their loved ones at the hospice. And now that the weather is slowly improving, they are spending more time sitting outside. They are always so appreciative of the gardens and the work that I, and the volunteers, do. This makes me feel great, and worth the tired body at the end of the day! It is nice for me to be able to chat with them and listen to their stories. It is a priviledge to share these times.

This coming weekend is the Platinum Jubilee. The floristry students at Wigan and Leigh College have created an amazing floral display of the Queen, and have asked the hospice to look after it during their half term week off. Here it is in the gardens…

The Queen
The Queen in situ

Congratulations to the students for their amazing effort, and thank you for lending it to us.

Well that’s it for me. I’m looking forward to the long Bank holiday weekend, followed by two weeks off, including a week in the south of France. Hopefully I will feel fully rested and raring to go for the second half of June and the build up to our garden opening on the 24th July.

Till next time, happy gardening! X

March 2022

March has on the whole been a lovely month. The weather has been good and the days have been noticeably longer. My mood has definitely picked up, thankfully!

One of the jobs I always do in March is to cut back the dogwoods so as to encourage new growth for this year and to maintain the bright colours for wintertime. This year was no exception. Whilst cutting them back, I came across a wild animal. Can you see it?

It is really well camouflaged.

From hiding in the undergrowth, it ventured out onto the lawn and headed for the pond.

The pond had been renovated last year, so I wasn’t sure if the frogs would return this spring. I needn’t have worried. There were at least a hundred of them in the water, and they had only one thing on their mind… sex! It was quite a spectacle, one which wouldn’t have been amiss on a David Attenborough programme.

A couple of days later, the frogspawn duly arrived. It’s amazing that such a small animal can produce such a vast amount of spawn.

It didn’t go all the frogs way though. When the mating had been taking place, I had shown some relatives the action that was happening. The following week, when they saw me next, they came over to chat and asked if I’d seen the heron. I hadn’t. Apparently, it had been coming several times a day in order to pick out the frogs. One afternoon, they came out to chase it away. As they approached, they noticed two frogs legs protruding from the heron’s mouth! Sadly no photo.

Whilst continuing to prune the dogwoods, I came across a beautiful birds nest. I’m not too sure what bird made it, maybe a long-tailed tit? Any ideas?

It looks like it is this year’s nest, so I left the dogwoods in situ.

There was more wildlife hiding at the hospice. Can you see it?!

Right in the centre is a mallard.

He and his partner come every year at this time, along with a pair of moorhens, and think about nesting. The mallards, unlike the moorhens, don’t usually stay long enough to build nest. The moorhens usually do stay, and have a brood of chicks. Let’s hope they do this year.

The flowers have been beautiful this spring. The daffodils were stunning, and the tulips are now taking over. We’ve also have lots of anenomies in various colours.

The cherry blossom is also in full bloom now.

In the Amberswood Garden, the cowslips are appearing. When I sowed the wildflower garden four years ago, they didn’t appear initially. But each year we get more and more of them. They are always the first flowers to emerge in the wildflower garden, standing proud.

I am stil so in awe as to how beautiful nature is. Even something as simple and as ordinary as a celandine, is stunning when you look up close.

As you can see, March has been a busy month, both for nature and for me! Let’s hope that April can live up to March. Until next month, keep looking out for the spectacular amongst the ordinary, and let me know what you have seen.

JIM x

February 2022

Finally, the days are beginning to feel a bit longer and spring is in the air. It’s light when I wake up in the morning, and still light at 6pm. However, the weather in February hasn’t been brilliant. It’s been pretty wet and really windy, with three named storms. Somewhat surprisingly, we didn’t fare too badly in Wigan! At the hospice we had no trees down, two broken benches and millions of twigs for me to pick up.

Sam and I were actually away during Storm Eunice. We were on holiday in Suffolk, which didn’t fare so well. The Airbnb we were staying at had seven trees blown down, one of which took down the phone line. The weather didn’t spoil our holiday though, and we managed to see and do a lot. If you’ve never been to Suffolk, you should go because it is lovely!

But back to Wigan. The gardens are coming along nicely, with lots of colour from the spring bulbs. The bulbs were nearly all given to us by a local shop who were going to throw them away because it was too late for them to be planted. We took literally hundreds of packets of spring flowering bulbs and planted them in March! But nature is wonderful and they still flowered and this year are looking stunning.

The Amberswood wildflower garden is is slowly coming to life. There are a few crocusses which have appeared from somewhere.

And the primroses are growing very nicely. Hopefully by next month they will all be in flower.

The hellebores are in full flower now. A volunteer at the hospice gave us some last year and they are looking beautiful.

Occasionally I start a job that I almost instantly regret! This time it was tackling a bed that had three very large and unpleasant pampas grasses in.

I have disliked them for the whole six years that I’ve been working at the hospice. They are always looking unkempt, and add nothing to the gardens. They are definitely not the trendy variety. I hate cutting them back because my arms always seem to get cut. So I decided that it was the time to dig them out and create a new flower bed. It was relativey easy to get them out using a pick axe and brute force. But then the horrible part started – moving all the gravel, lifting the anti weed matting and then digging over the stony, clay soil whilst carefully removing the bamboo shoots/roots that were also growing there. I then had to add three tonnes of topsoil and compost before planting up. I’m very pleased with the results and glad I started the job (“…if you don’t start, you’ll never finish”).

There is a climbing rose, by the fence, that was donated by Hospice UK, as a thank you to all the hospices that opened their gardens as part of the National Garden Scheme. It is called “The Generous Gardener” and is sold by David Austen Roses in aid of the NGS. It has pale pink flowers and is highly fragranced. I can’t wait to see it in full flower.

I don’t really do poetry, but I read one recently by the theologian Frederick Buechner that really spoke to me. In it he talks about valuing everything in our lives, including the tough digging and the boring picking up of sticks, as well as the exciting stuff. I thought that I would finish with this poem.

Listen to your life.
See it for the fathomless mystery that it is.
In the boredom and pain of it
no less than in the excitement and gladness:
touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it
because in the last analysis all moments are key moments,
and life itself is grace.

Frederick Buechner