Winter pruning of mature Apple and Pear trees

Those that are not in the know, seem to think that as the leaves are off the trees and the garden is ‘asleep’ there is nothing more to be done other than putting your feet up in front of a fire and enjoying a seasonal tipple and waiting for the grass to grow in the Spring. How wrong they are, there are lots of January jobs in the garden and one of those is the pruning of top fruit.

Particularly if you have an older tree, this is essential to keep the tree in good health removing diseased stems and branches. keeping a nice open crown to help prevent the build up of pests and diseases. Also to keep your tree with in the size you want for picking and most importantly of all to rein in all that strong growth and get your fruit tree thinking about producing fruit instead.

pruning a mature pear tree

pruning a mature pear tree

Choose a dry day if at all possible, particularly if you are venturing off the step ladder and up into the crown. Arm yourself with a good pair of secateurs and loppers, pruning saw and long armed pruner for the more out of reach sections.

1) start off on the ground, remove any vertical growth coming up from ground level,next to the main trunk. Remove any lower branches that are going to be in the way of mowing or will have the apples/pears lying on the grass.

2) Walk round the tree, look at it’s shape decide if there are areas that need the crown ‘pulling in’ to reduce the over all size and improve it’s shape.

3) All pruning whether a tiny twig on the top of the tree of a branch, must be taken back to either the bud with a slight sloping cut, or back to a branch joint. NOT cut halfway a long a branch, enabling die back and an unsightly stump. So with bigger branches make your decisions carefully.

careful pruning

careful pruning

4) Work from the ground up into the tree, using good strong step ladders where needed ( if the ground is uneven then it is essential to enlist a ‘ladder holder’ with a firm foot on the bottom rung) Always make sure the ladder is stable before going up it and never stand higher than the top rung or lean out to get that last little bit how ever tempting! Most ladders come with instructions, use them!

5) Remove all damaged and diseased wood including apple canker. Remove any rotting old fruits that are left on the tree how ever small.

removing a branch with apple canker

removing a branch with apple canker

6) Reducing last seasons growth, your tree at this time of year may have a vertical hair style of straight stems, these need to be reduced down to 2 or 3 buds in length back to the main network of the tree, this will help encourage your tree into fruiting.

7) Once pruned then it is worth helping your fruit tree into the next growing season, Codling moth larvae is the enemy of the Apple tree grower, with perfect fruit being cut into to show a rotten eaten core centre, but putting grease bands round the lower trunk of the tree, just above grass level should help to reduce their impact. Also spraying with winter cold tar wash, the new version dose not have tar in and it is approved by the soil association for organic growers, it helps to kill off some of the pests and disease that are over wintering on the branches. Use as per manufactures instructions with full protective clothing including suit, gloves and most importantly a face visor, for spraying higher branches. Only spray on still days and it must dry before a frost. It is also good to clear vegetation if possible from under the tree and mulch well to help with moisture levels in the summer months.

The RHS book, Pruning and Training by Christopher Brickell and David Joyce, is a good practical guide with photos and illustrations to help you. However if this is all sounding rather daunting, and a little beyond your gardening skill, then never fear I know a woman who can, give me a ring 01273 470753 and let me carry out your fruit tree pruning for you.

A Christmas wreath from the garden

There is nothing more wonderful at Christmas than bringing the garden into the house. From garlands of holly and ivy and sprigs of mistletoe, to pots of scented forced bulbs of Hyacinths and paper white Narcissi to the brilliant red of poinsettias and bloucy pink giant cyclamen all are a joy. The icing on the cake of course, is a fresh cut Christmas tree that now sees the humble Norway spruce on the back foot out striped by sturdier and more house friendly ‘non-drop’ varieties of conifers.

But the welcoming show piece that invites both friends and family and Christmas into you home has to be a Christmas wreath on the front door. When that goes up it feels like the festive season really has arrived.

They are easy to make and most gardens have a variety of the raw ingredients needed, you can be as imaginative as you wish, from purists with just ‘naked foliage’, to adding some sparkle by using gold and sliver sprays, to adding Christmas glass balls and flashing lights and everything in between. Also who ever said it had to be round, go wild, square, triangular, or just some draped ivy with a luxuriant red velvet bow, why not?

Top tips for making your own Christmas wreath.

1) making you basic frame; decide on the shape, traditional or your own individual style?

frame for Christmas wreath

Also the size is very important it must be in scale with the door it is going on, think of the postman here, they still need to be able to get at your letter box and you and everyone else the door handle, don’t get to carried away.

I find vines are the best for making a frame that is strong but flexible enough to bend into the desired shape. Have some thin green garden wire at the ready cut into lengths. Cut about three lengths of vine, remove the leaves, start warping the vine into the shape and size you want. The thickness of three strands should be enough, otherwise you will have a very dense frame that will be heavy and stand very proud of the door. Making it an easy target for barging shoulders in overcoats and winter gales. Use the wire to secure your frames shape, leave any longer sections of wire to help secure the foliage.

foliage hunting

2) Now get foliage hunting; cut all foliage to good lengths to allow you to weave it into the frame to secure it. A good evergreen base layer is needed, it can be holly, or ivy with fruiting berries.

vy with fruit heads

varigated ivy

or another evergreen shrub like Viburnum tinus or the common bay. Also choose some variegated foliage, either holly, ivy or Euronymus all are good.

3) The decorative touch; seed heads these can look striking sprayed with gold or sliver or even glitter spray. Alliums, Agapanthus, mop headed hydrangeas and of course teasels

4) Add the colour; Now of course we would all like holly trees dripping with red berries as featured on Christmas cards but for most of us the berry part of our wonderful hollies can be a little bit of a disappointment and if we are lucky enough to have a laden tree the chances are the birds have been feasting since September. So find another source to add that festive splash of red. Cotoneaster, Pyracanthus and of course red rose hips all would work very well.

rose hips

Once it is all safely gathered now is the time to get creative, whether on piles of news paper on the kitchen floor in the green house or garden shed. If you are going to use decorative festive sprays to add a bit of glitz then make sure you have lots of paper down and it is will ventilated.

winter foliage

5) First decide which way is up on your frame, hold it up on the front door. Now add a good length of wire round the frame for attaching the wreath to the front door.

6) Spray the seed heads and foliage, allowing them time to dry.

7) Start weaving your base layer onto the front face of the frame, tieing in with wire.

holly on frame

8) Now add your variegated and sprayed foliage.

sprayed foliage

9) Next add in your seed heads and berries, they can either be spread evenly round the whole wreath or be in groups.

10) Make sure everything is securely wired or woven into the frame it has to last a month and the winter winds.

completed wreath

11) Hanging your Christmas wreath, either from the door knocker or a hook or wide headed screw, both which can be painted to match the door so they are there for many more Christmases to come.

12) Use the wire to attach the wreath firmly to the door.

13) The finishing touch; a ribbon of your choice, traditional red but perhaps you want sky blue pink and as wide or narrow as you desire.

vy with fruit heads

Decorative Christmas Door Spray.

If you have less time and no access to materials to make a good frame then a very quick but equally beautiful Christmas door decoration is a spray of foliage.

1) Gather together foliage as above but make sure it is nice and long. Also add some long tendrils of climbing ivy either common or variegated.

2) Having looked at your door and decided how large, wide and long the spray should be with out interfering with door knobs and letter boxes, start work on your decorative Christmas spray.

3) Lay out your base evergreen layer, fan it out to the desired width.

4) add 2 or 3 long tendrils of ivy which will hang below the main body of the Christmas spray.

5) next add your variegated and sprayed foliage.

6) Decorative touch; add the sprayed seed heads.

7) Finally the berries so they lie down at different heights through the spray.

8) Now it is really important to make sure your creation, looks even and balanced and it is not heavy with foliage on one side, it dose not have to be huge to have impact, don’t forget this has to hang on the door and stay there, don’t get too carried away.

9) Next hang it on the door as above.

vy with fruit heads

10) The finishing touch, the ribbon now you can go a little wild you want about 1.5/2m in length to give you a generous bow at the top and long ribbons that wind through the spray and dip below it down to the ivy.

vy with fruit heads

I delight in bringing the garden in at Christmas and getting creative, great vases stuffed full of different hollies, gleaned fruiting ivy heads and sprayed seed heads from artichokes to alliums, and the berries and hips on anything I can find, shelves are cleared and stacked in boxes for the festive season so I can have as many over flowing vases of wonderful mid winter foliage as possible.

vy with fruit heads

I even have a Christmas tree made of rich red cornus branches hanging with Christmas bobbles and other decorations.

But one of the simplest and most effective of all is to save and dry the heads of Allium Cristophii and A. Schubertii, then spray them sliver. Hang then on a long tread below a light and as they move on the indoor warmth they look like giant snow flakes, quite magical.

Go on get out there, see what treats your winter garden has, get creative!

……………..and enjoy the merry and festive season.

Autumn in the garden. November 2015

The Autumn garden is a magical place, the vibrant summer hues fading,the browns and rusts of turning leaves mingling with the rich colours of late flowering perennials, there is much to be enjoyed and much work to be done.

The new eco-sensitive gardener is of course not a completely tidy one, gone are the days when every herbaceous plant the moment a brown stem appeared is cut down to the ground, instead the prairie garden movement that sprang to life in Germany has made us all appreciate the beauty of clumps of brown stems and seed heads with frost, dew and spiders webs bringing winter beauty to the garden.

Also the gardener can do much to help the wildlife of their garden over winter from the odd small pile of leaves for over wintering amphibians, to larger piles of logs and leaves for hedgehogs, sadly a much rarer visitor to must gardens, to piles of twigs and grass for insects.

But there is still some hard graft that needs to be done. Leaves cleared from the lawns and grassed areas, if you have room, keep the leaves to make into leaf mold, just one or two black bin liners full stuck behind the shed ready for use next year is worth doing. Clearing paths of flopping dying foliage and giving them a good brush and wash down to help stop them being slippery over the winter. There is still time to plant Tulip bulbs now and Lily bulbs into December.

autumn pond maintenance

The big autumn job and one that often gets over looked is if you have a planted pond, be it formal or informal and do not be fooled by the word ‘wildlife’ pond, as natural and balanced as it may be, it will need some maintenance and now is the time to do it. If you do nothing your wonderful pond of any size or style, packed with aquatic, marginal and bog plants, will do what nature intend and in time will go from pond to swamp from swamp to bog garden and finally to land and will be a pond with open water no more.

There is nothing for it, you will have to get down and dirty and hit the water. Depending on the depth of the pond, wellys or wadders and if it is fairly big and deep then a dirty water pump is a great bit of kit to get hold off. Over several hours it will reduce the water level exposing more of the planting and hopefully you will not have to go in over your wellys. Rubber gloves or even washing up gloves are good. For cutting I find a bluntish old bread knife on the end of a long string round the neck every bit as good and easier than gardening secateurs. Containers for putting the plant debris in, plant pots or a big bucket or garden plastic trug, but with holes in. You want something that floats and drains the water out.

wildlife pond autumn maintenance

If it is a sizable pond and you are going to be in it standing on the marginal planting shelves working then see if you can get a second pair of hands to help, by feeding you empty containers to fill, otherwise walking in and out of the pond is not only hard work but you will no doubt be adding more organic matter and soil into the pond.

autumn pond maintenance

You want to cut down all the dying down marginal plants as close to the water surface as possible if you can reach the dying leaves on floaters like water lilies as well even better. You want to remove as much organic matter as you can, to stop it falling to the bottom of the pond rotting and in time filling the pond in. Also reducing the organic matter will help to keep the water in the pond well balanced.

Once you have cut down the bog plants and as much of the marginal planting as you can reach, you should now have some bare pond edges and banks. Now If possible also reduce some of the oxygenating plants as well, a plastic garden rake is best for this running it under the water surface, pulling out what you can, moving round the pond taking one sweep out of each section of the pond, so you do not remove it all. Spread the contents of the rake on the pond banks, remove any obvious aquatic snails. Leave the contents of the rake on the banks over night to allow pond insects and the odd newt to head back into the water.

autumn pond maintenance

All of the pond debris should compost well unless you have some very hardy bull rushes. Do not fear about taking to much out of the pond, remember pond plants are at best vigorous and at worst dame right thugs, if very attractive ones at that.

After all this very hard work, the pond will look a little bare and perhaps very low if you have been pumping to get at the marginals,but with winter rains coming it will quickly fill up again. If you have fish and you pond is less than 1.20/1.30m deep then a couple of tennis balls for small ponds and a football for larger ponds just to stop it completely freezing over is a good idea. By spring it will be full of another years worth of fabulous marginal planting and busy with aquatic life.

Spectular Autumn, October 2015

I am sure like me you have all been glorying in the wonderful autumn we have had. This autumn seems to have been particularly specular with our deciduous trees and shrubs giving us a lengthy show, due to mild weather and a lack of autumn storms.

From motorway embankments ablaze with the reds of deciduous cotoneasters and cornus, to the dripping berries of street Sorbus to the mixed woodlands of the Weald and the ornamental park landscapes of Westonbrit and Sheffield Park and everything in between, it has been a visual delight over many weeks.

Obviously we do not all have many acres to play with, but even a small town garden can have it’s own autumn blaze.

Trees: the fiery reds of Rhus, are an eye smacking treat, as long as you can cope with the suckering habit, there is everything to love about this tree with a good architectural shape (as long as it is not pruned too insensitively) and long pinnate leaves and it’s velvety cone like fruits are a tasty food for many birds. For an extra twist plant R.tinus ‘Lacinata’ with it’s extra ‘toothed’ leaves.

R. 'Lacinata'

R. ‘Lacinata’

R. 'Laciniata'

R. ‘Laciniata’

Also Sorbus gives you a double autumn hit with great leaf colour and berries in hues from pink, to yellow and red. There are many smaller varieties like S. ‘Joseph Rock’ and S. ‘hupehensis’ which are very suitable for the smaller garden. They do struggle on very chalky soils.

S. 'Joseph Rock'

S. ‘Joseph Rock’

 

Shrubs: For a big punch and a large space one of my favourites, Parrotia persica. The leaves of different hues from buttercup yellow, flaming orange, to cardinal red all at once, it takes your breath away. It has a wonderful shape, a Martini glass with no stem, elegance, with or with out leaves.

P. persica

P. persica

P. persica

P. persica

Now a shrub that punches well above it’s weight and is not planted nearly enough in my mind. Once you have seen it, it will never be forgotten. Callicarpa bodinieri ‘giraldii’ a medium size shrub a little slow, but worth the wait, for maximum effect plant at least two, to get good berries. The delicate foliage turns a pink/purple which matches perfectly the clusters of small round purple berries they look as magical as cake decorations. It is a stunner and to get the full effect of the berries once the leaves have dropped, give it a good evergreen shrub backer. Well worth the planting space in anyone’s garden. Also C. bodinieri ‘Profusion’ for an even bigger berry hit.

C.bodinieri 'Giraldii'

C.bodinieri ‘Giraldii’

So now the temperatures are finally cooling to the seasonal norm and the autumn gales have started and the trees and shrubs are nearly naked of their leaves, while your head is down working hard raking them and turning them into leaf mould and no doubt the task seems endless. Do not forget the visual delight of the past 6 weeks. Get enthusiastic, start planning with winter planting of trees and shrubs that will give you all that autumn spectacle to be enjoyed next year.

If you need help? I know a woman who can! Give me ring, I will be delighted to discuss your new planting with you. Tel:01273 470753

In wonder of the June Garden

Mid- summer is the height of beauty for a traditional English garden. June is the month of busting pastel shades and heady scents, the breaded Irises have a few splashes left, dripping wisterias hang heavy with purple racemes and the full nodding heads of pink and magenta peonies exude summer richness, but it is the rose in it’s full unbridled glory that takes the garden to heavenly heights.

Now is the time of year when even the hardiest of garden cynics can not help but have their heart melted by the profusion of colour, and perfume.

Even a short stroll to work or school will take you past front gardens over-flowing with an abundance of mid-summer charm. Carpets of pink and purple hardy ground cover geraniums, banks of green foliage and trumpets of yellow and orange day lilies, climbing roses skirting their way round door frames, and heady honey suckle tumbling over fences.

Garages and sheds disappear under a riot of sugar pink clematis and shocking pinks of rambling roses intend on covering all before them. Window boxes are crammed with geraniums, which tumble forth in frothy scarlets and pinks and Pub fronts drip in vivid hanging baskets that gently sway in the summer breeze.

Who could not be in love with the great out doors in June, whether enjoying a pint of Harveys on a summer evening in the pub garden or having a tea time picnic in Grange gardens or just peaking over the fence to admirer the fruits of someone else’s hard labours.

By Emily Blake-Dyke

New April 2015

New Specialist Gardening Service

To meet all your gardening needs, from maintenance visits once a week to every fortnight, to once a month, Or quarterly visits. Emily Blake-Dyke has full horticultural training, with over 20 years of experience in all aspects of gardening; from restoring mature gardens, with pruning of large shrubs, to looking after small modern courtyards to extensive mixed boarders to wildlife ponds and bog garden maintenance to rose gardens to looking after orchards, with specialist top fruit pruning and soft fruit gardening to doing battle with large climbers. Every type of garden from town gardens to large country retreats. I have the expertise you need and an extensive plant knowledge. Let me look after your garden through out the year so you can enjoy the very best from your garden.

To find out more about the Specialist Gardening Service contact Emily Blake-Dyke on 01273 470753 or 07745 514900, or go to the contacts page and fill in the form. I look forward to hearing from you, so we can discuss your gardening requirements and fees.

New Garden Advice service

You may just want some advise for your garden, so you as a keen gardener can carry out the work yourself. Even the most experienced gardeners can some times do with a fresh pair of horticultural eyes looking over their garden. Be it to advise on some general garden maintenance, areas where you may like to carry out new planting, pruning, dividing existing herbaceous plants and transplanting plants to better positions in the garden. Ideas on the position of new garden features you are planning for your garden. Why not get some professional advise to help you?

The Garden Advice Service is charged per hour, and is invoiced and paid for at the end of the visit, to find out more and book your garden advise visit. Call Emily Blake-Dyke on 01273 470753 or 07745 514900 or visit the contact page. I look forward to hearing from you.

The Triumphant Tulip

Tip-toe through the tulips… a walk round Lewes.

The crisp Spring air and the bright yellow trumpeting daffodils have now left us as April fades. May arrives with the promise of longer days, warmer rays and the brilliant colours of late Spring in the garden.

Tulips are a late Spring delight for keen gardeners and garden pleasure seekers alike; from the brilliant butter yellow stalwart T. ‘Big Smile’, to the brash cardinal red of T. ‘Kings blood’, under-planted with the jewel-box colours of mixed pallet wall flowers as seen in many Lewes District public planting schemes. Many a Lewes front garden features groups of ivory tulips like T. ‘White Trumpeter’, interlaced with the dark velvety richness of T.’ Queen of the Night’, or the subtle beauty of T. Shirley with its white and purple streaked petals. Grand pots either side of many Lewes front doors are planted with tall pink and purple combinations of the elegant lily-style tulips T. ‘Barcelona’, who’s petals gently reflex outwards producing a delicate flower. On Lewes twitterns and terraces, old tins and boots recycled into planters are bursting with the vibrant yellows of T.’ West Point’ a superb lily tulip and the deep glowing orange of T. ‘Ballerina’.

Then there are tulips immortalised by the Dutch masters; blousy, over-the-top and oozing glamour, these are the haute couture of the tulip world. Parrot tulips, from single feather-edged creations like T. ‘Oviedo’, to doubles T. ‘Rai’ which produce a flower that is almost frilly. Many forms are bi-coloured with a basecoat which is crossed with thin crazed lines T. ‘Estella Rynveld’, others have an almost shimmering hue with their feather edges dipped in a contrasting tint T. ‘Davenport’.

There is just so much to love and admire about the tulip. No matter what your taste there must surely be one to excite the pallet of everyone. During May revel in the many delightful varieties by taking a stroll through Grange Gardens; as the days lengthen so do its opening hours, until twilight. Enjoy!