Our visit from the Beechgrove Garden film crew went very well. Jim really is quite a character and it was good to chat with him about his gardening experiences. As usual we did film quite a lot more than actually went on air this is just as well.
A couple of weeks after the filming I had a call to say that the camera man had lost a bit of the recording this was mainly still shots of the Thuja family trees where they naturally layer themselves and also the Mull syndrome where the tree falls over in a gale and then the sideshoots grow upwards to become new trees. I was asked if I had a decent digital camera if so could I go into the garden at a similar time of day in similar weather conditions to take a few stills of these groups of trees. I was very relieved when the producer said that they had been able to use them.
Tuesday, 15 June 2010
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
Finally Spring Arrives
In the last couple of days we have at last seen the first of our unforced Daffodils flowering, along with the first camellias (usually they would have been doing their thing for some time now but due to the weather we have had to wait a little longer) The Rhododendrons that had started to flower in late November have been in suspended animation for three months and are still only in their first flush.
The bad news is that we have definitely lost our Bush Echiums which is a shame, they had survived for many years, fortunately they are very fast growers so we should be able to replace them very quickly. The other sad news is that my Purple Aeonium that I managed to take care of, over winter outside last year in a pot, is looking very dodgy. Thankfully this is not a problem as I have dozens more to replace it, I just hoped it would survive.
Apart from these, very little in the garden has been lost of consequence, but I have had a few casualties in my nursery area where I have been growing a selection of plants to transfer into the garden when ready. One collection of plants in this area awaiting a final home is the Olearias of which we have over 20 different species. Some of these I have been keeping in a tunnel (others were outside) it was a good job that I duplicated the stock and thankfully have not lost any types! Whilst the weather has been cold, but dry, we have been able to prepare the bed to plant this collection, with generous amounts of seaweed and farm yard manure. It is quite exposed to the sea, so windy and probably quite salt laden, but it should make most of them feel at home.
Don't forget to pop in if you're on the Isle of Mull. The gardens are open all year round and we love to have visitors.
Till next time, happy gardening!
Duncan
The bad news is that we have definitely lost our Bush Echiums which is a shame, they had survived for many years, fortunately they are very fast growers so we should be able to replace them very quickly. The other sad news is that my Purple Aeonium that I managed to take care of, over winter outside last year in a pot, is looking very dodgy. Thankfully this is not a problem as I have dozens more to replace it, I just hoped it would survive.
Apart from these, very little in the garden has been lost of consequence, but I have had a few casualties in my nursery area where I have been growing a selection of plants to transfer into the garden when ready. One collection of plants in this area awaiting a final home is the Olearias of which we have over 20 different species. Some of these I have been keeping in a tunnel (others were outside) it was a good job that I duplicated the stock and thankfully have not lost any types! Whilst the weather has been cold, but dry, we have been able to prepare the bed to plant this collection, with generous amounts of seaweed and farm yard manure. It is quite exposed to the sea, so windy and probably quite salt laden, but it should make most of them feel at home.
Don't forget to pop in if you're on the Isle of Mull. The gardens are open all year round and we love to have visitors.
Till next time, happy gardening!
Duncan
Monday, 8 February 2010
Is Spring just around the corner?
What a winter we have all had this year! It has been quite a shock, the severity of the frosts that we have had here. Just before Christmas I was talking about how early some of the first Rhodo's were this season, well they certainly got put on hold, but they are looking good again now!
In the lower part of the walled garden, which is the area where the snow always hangs around longest, the temperature certainly got as low as minus 5 degrees maybe lower! It has been a bit of a disappointment as we have lost a few plants that we were quit attached to, the most upsetting being the Echium candicans, they look stone dead to me at the moment. However it does seem that the Echium pininana have survived.
Surprisingly my favourite succulent, the purple Aeonium, that lives in a terracotta pot in a recess in the south facing buttress wall does seen to be alive still!
Much of our time, so far this year, has been spent working with Hydrangeas mostly pruning old overgrown areas. I know that really it's a bit too early yet but when you are doing restorative work, rather than annual maintenance, the timing is not as important, as if you do it when you have the most time.
As well as pruning we have done a bit of thinning out, many of the plants just love the conditions here so much - the acidity and the high rainfall! They sucker a lot, so I had to get in and remove a few as it was like a thicket. In the summer when they were in flower I went through and named them all, so we'll be able to sort out the colours into better blocks using the spares to replant elsewhere in a new bed.
At this point I just like to remember the quote in Ken Cox's recent book 'Gardens in Scotland' that the Hydrangeas at Torosay are the bluest that he has ever seen !
I cant wait till they start to flower again!
In the lower part of the walled garden, which is the area where the snow always hangs around longest, the temperature certainly got as low as minus 5 degrees maybe lower! It has been a bit of a disappointment as we have lost a few plants that we were quit attached to, the most upsetting being the Echium candicans, they look stone dead to me at the moment. However it does seem that the Echium pininana have survived.
Surprisingly my favourite succulent, the purple Aeonium, that lives in a terracotta pot in a recess in the south facing buttress wall does seen to be alive still!
Much of our time, so far this year, has been spent working with Hydrangeas mostly pruning old overgrown areas. I know that really it's a bit too early yet but when you are doing restorative work, rather than annual maintenance, the timing is not as important, as if you do it when you have the most time.
As well as pruning we have done a bit of thinning out, many of the plants just love the conditions here so much - the acidity and the high rainfall! They sucker a lot, so I had to get in and remove a few as it was like a thicket. In the summer when they were in flower I went through and named them all, so we'll be able to sort out the colours into better blocks using the spares to replant elsewhere in a new bed.
At this point I just like to remember the quote in Ken Cox's recent book 'Gardens in Scotland' that the Hydrangeas at Torosay are the bluest that he has ever seen !
I cant wait till they start to flower again!
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