Flopage, Fire and Foolish Decisions

Lost secateurs and other garden emergencies, mostly involving the Rapid Support Deployment Service.

Is there a more acute gardening-based panic than losing your favourite secateurs?

If there is, I’m yet to experience it. Forgetting to cover my crops against the dreaded carrot fly? How about when the road above flooded, creating a proper waterfall right into our garden? Realising I’d left delicate seedlings out all night, defenceless at the mercy of Jack Frost and critters galore…? Nothing comes close.

Like any self-respecting gardener, I have several pairs, but these Niwaki Pros are my absolute must-haves. We’re normally inseparable. Go into the garden, grab the secs on the way out the door. It’s habit. So it’s especially galling when they go missing. Beautifully crafted and razor sharp, their only downside is their colour. A dark burnished steel. They don’t exactly jump out.

I hunted everywhere: in the beds, in the borders, potting shed, conservatory, little nook by the back porch, compost area, benches, kitchen, garage, wood store, even the loo! Then, a memory flash at 2am. Ping! Wide awake. I remembered!!!

The compost bays.

I’d put them on the side while I was wrestling the covers. And there they were. Such a relief. I must have knocked them off and they fell right down the side. Sneaky and hidden. Deep in the corner. Glinting in the torchlight. A little slimy. A little rusty. But mine. My own. My precious.

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And so, how is your garden, my dear reader?

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The Gardens

Slightly weather beaten

Here, the poor plants and scrambled gardeners are dealing with flip-flopping extremes. Scorching. Flooding. Scorching. Freezing. Scorching. Ridiculously cold, horizontal rain and hail.

My own slice of countryside is a little battered. After writing about the Kokushobi heat of late spring, meteorological summer (starting 1st June) arrived frigid, drenched, howling and filthy! The weather here in Blighty is almost as fickle as its gardeners. After one week of rain, we’re all clambering after that heat and sunshine again.

Squally thunderstorms have spurred the “Rapid Support Deployment Service” into action. After the gym, still clad in shorts and sweaty T, I walked out into the garden for a quick inspection. Ooof! It had been a particularly severe nighttime thrashing.

Those lush and overly enthusiastic roses… prostrate. Delphiniums snapped. Hesperis flattened. Peonies bowed under the weight of giant blooms acting like whopping great sponges. I rushed around with metal hoops before slinking back inside, scratched, bruised, and bloody after wrestling with Emily Brontë.

On the upside, the house is looking particularly lovely with delphiniums and peonies aplenty! You see, when it comes to damage, I’m quite ruthless. I won’t bother rescuing broken stems. Anything kinked, buckled, or remotely mangled is unceremoniously chopped and plonked in a vase. After all, there’s still plenty out there in the garden.

The supporting cast

I do use a variety of supports and, in fairness, I had already installed many. Just not all. The rose hoops had slipped my mind. Oops! I’ve never learned how to weave those gorgeous hazel or willow supports you see in fine country gardens. But I adore them! Instead, I rely on simple bamboo and twine, alongside various metal structures.

Wire hoops, peony cages (some heavy duty with nice rusty balls on top), obelisks (with yet more rusty balls), large and small grow-through frames, etc. In the Flower Garden they’re all rustic and rusty. In the Courtyard, just to complement the white garden with its zinc planters, I use sage green, light grey or galvanised.

Various supports through the gardens

In the Flower Garden, despite first appearances, our soil is surprisingly fertile. Under foot it looks rather grey and stoney, but even though there are just a few inches of topsoil above an extremely alkaline clay substrate, most plants seem to thrive. The roses grow extraordinarily tall, without additional feed from me. Only generous mulching.

It sounds wonderful, but plants like Salvia nemorosa ‘Caradonna’, Nepeta ‘Walker’s Low’, Euphorbia ‘Excalibur’, Cephalaria gigantea, Geranium ‘Orion’ and ‘Rozanne’, and Geranium psilostemon all grow too lush. The result? Widespread flopage! Hence the early supports.

This year, the massive geraniums, supersized nepeta, and soaring salvias were (mostly) all given a small grow-through frame, which is now completely hidden. But they’ve worked a treat! Keeping the majority of the plants full and upright… rather than splayed and smashed. Cue small shuffling victory dance.

If you’re interested, you can find these at Agriframes and PlantSupports.co.uk.

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The BIG JOB…

…of the past couple of weeks was the annual bank intervention. In my garden, a very steep embankment runs the entire span of the southern boundary. It may sound rather grand, but it’s a total pain in the proverbials.

It’s roughly 60m (nearly 200ft) long and up to 5m (16ft) high. About a third is in the Cottage Garden, shaded by ash and birch trees and covered with ivy. The rest is open to the sky and is a little wild. It’s mostly left to its own devices and lightly trimmed to keep the path below clear. But, now and again, it needs a firmer hand.

The docks, nettles, blue alkanet, and brambles are just so overpowering and I’m trying to encourage more diversity with grasses and wildflowers. The bank itself is home to countless solitary bees and bumblebees, all mining little burrows. It’s alive with bank voles (keeping the local tawny owl happy) and a surprising number of frogs eyeing up the slugs (keeping the gardener happy).

So we tread very softly.

Which is not easy. It is VERY steep. You’d be forgiven for wanting ropes and a harness - see pics below. I often fall and slide down while handling a sharp spinning blade, dragging my arse and bare limbs over brambles, nettles, and gnarly old tree stumps. It is not for the faint-hearted. It takes strength, stamina, patience, and an awful lot of swearing.

The Bank!

This year, I’ve tackled one section at a time. Hoping to prevent injury and, at the same time, giving the occupants and plants a little time to recover. Bees especially use landmarks (certain plants and flowers) and if you cut vegetation down, they can temporarily lose their bearings, before finding their way back home.

I use a brush cutter and hedge trimmer in a scything motion, cutting those brutes at their base. After each session, I piled the prunings high and left them to dry. Leaving the piles for a few days also allows any little critters to move on.

While this was going on, I had in my mind a bonfire.

Maybe for the crispy prunings, but also for the mountain of timber offcuts cluttering up the garage. All odds and sods, that “might come in useful one day”, as my dear father says. Well they’ve been there for ten years or more (Dad!) so if they haven’t proved useful by now, they’re going on the fire. Besides, I want the space for a new tool rack!

Being prone to impulsive behaviour and not always thinking things through, I picked one of those scorching hot days for the fire. Why not? It’s nice and sunny. The gentle breeze is handy to carry away any smoke. I carefully selected my site: The Pit. With its bed of rocks and hardcore waiting (beyond hope it would seem) for that concrete foundation and greenhouse.

The timber was assembled in proper teepee fashion. The fire was lit… and…

“Oh my!”

Apparently, the wood was VERY dry. Tinder dry. The gentle breeze? Picking up steadily. Before I knew it, the flames were licking two metres high and cooking everything within a five metre radius. That included plants, plant pots, planters, bamboo canes (that were lying hidden and now burning out of sight)… oh yes, and the ivy on the fence… oh, and the fence!

Cue every expletive under the sun.

Thankfully, a critical emergency was just about avoided and the Fire & Rescue Service were stood down. The garden hose was just about long enough (probably should have checked that first) and a liberal dousing all around was enough to prevent a wholesale scorching of the Kitchen Garden. I remained armed with said hose until nightfall when the fire was eventually extinguished.

So, a few less pots to worry about. On the plus side, I now have plenty of space for my new tool rack. And a greenhouse.

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Thank you for reading all the way to the end. It really is appreciated. Feel free to comment, ask me anything, call me stupid for the fire fiasco, it’s all good. If it made you laugh, maybe share it and restack it. Every little helps.

Until next time,

Elliott (Slightly singed) 💚

P.s. I promise the garden tour is coming soon!