When your enthusiasm leaves the garden...

It seems like an eternity since my last blog post and that's for a simple reason. I've had as much enthusiasm for writing about gardening as I have actually gardening. I was pretty excited at the back end of last year with over three hundred bulbs to get in and hours of surfing seed companies for new and interesting plants to add to the garden. Seed selection made and purchased I was eager to get going and most importantly...get sowing!

And then the frosts started and they kept going. Normally up here we get some frosty nights even a few in a row, but this year we had week after week of seriously low temperatures that started in January and rolled on through, February, March and late into April. Even the propagator wasn't much use because I couldn't get any seedlings out into the greenhouse and much of what I did sow was lost. The sweet peas rotted away, so did the Iris tuberosa and tete a tete daffodils in pots, the imperial crown fritillaries didn't flower and as the year progressed the full impact of the prolonged frosts including the minus 11 we had became apparent.

The huge Ceonothus at the back gate that usually provides a tsunami of blooms was now brown and lifeless. Its leaves turned to crisps that fell to the ground. Elsewhere in the garden, many of the shrubs had perished, even the usually indestructible buddleia. Ironically the more tender rudbeckias survived and are now flowering.

Now I was left with a dilemma. I'd already rearranged the garden in the autumn and my carefully crafted plan to incorporate the new plants that I was going to be growing from seed was in tatters and the shrub losses meant large gaps throughout the borders.

To say I was despondent would be an understatement, but the disasters didn't stop there. A friend had given me some echiums that sat happily in the greenhouse throughout December, looking very lush and green and suddenly they were gone. My Ensete banana had been sitting in the sunroom and a minus seven overnight had given it a real fright and it was quickly moved to the living room where it proceeded to turn to mush. At the same time the Musa sikkimesis had been in the greenhouse and suddenly its leaves went brown and I took it first into the sun room and then into the living room as well and luckily it not only survived but started to put on new growth.

I keep my dahlias in pots and they sit in the greenhouse, dry, all winter and as the weather warms up I start to water them and they burst back into life with a flourish. Well not this year. There was not a sign of growth until June when one of the Bishop's Children I had grown from seed finally started to push out some new shoots. It was the beginning of July before any of the others started to grow and even now there is just an inch of growth.

It seemed to be disaster after disaster and I kept an eye on the Tetrapanax Facebook page to see how everyone else's plants were doing. Many folk were putting up pics of a bare stick asking when they would leaf up and all were told that the plant is root hardy and there was nothing to worry about and one by one the pictures of fresh young leaves began. I still had a brown twig. It had attempted to put out a leaf earlier which was quickly nipped by the frost but this wasn't the worst of it. The low temps had been so severe that even with the plant in a sheltered location the growing tip was killed off. I was gutted! Last year I started the tropical garden and the Tetrapanax that was just a tiny seedling when I got it, had grown a good foot and a half stem and was already putting out foot-wide leaves. This year it would have started to become the statement plant well on the way to creating a canopy for the jungle. So for this year, Ricinus zanzibarensis is taking up the challenge and is growing rapidly. Its a fast growing annual so will be a place holder for the Tetrapanax and will give me an idea of how it might look in that location.

My garden went from the place I love to a place I hated. April was perishing cold, too cold to sit in the garden, and to cold to sow and nothing was growing so I made the decision to cancel the June open day. There was just nothing to see and I wondered if I would ever get my enthusiasm back. I didn't even feel like visiting other gardens.

Now we have warmth, in fact its been very hot and unlike other parts of the British Isles we have had no significant rain for weeks. The garden is catching up and later sowings have helped to fill some of the gaps with annuals for this year and the banana is growing fast. To my surprise the Tetrapanax started to throw up some pups from the roots and I've now managed to pot up half a dozen of them and, after waiting since April, the dierama seeds have germinated. The colocasia has a couple of wee nobbles poking up through the soil while the cold weather obviously suited the tulips as they put on an amazing display for weeks. I was very lucky to get some birthday money so I've got a new banana - Musa basjoo which although is deemed to be hardy I suspect will be a house plant this winter and a I picked up a couple more perennials to fill the gaps.

Last month I spotted some new growth on the stem of the Ceonothus so my mum came up with the loppers and between us we gave the shrub a 'good hair cut' and it's made a good recovery, in fact the new growth looks healthier than ever.

I can't say the garden is looking exactly where I would like it to be, the plants don't have as much height as last year but the August open day is going ahead. I've sown some fresh seed from the mecanopsis and candelabra primulas as well as hollyhocks for next year so I am ever hopeful. My enthusiasm is returning and already I'm planning the changes, in fact I've already started moving plants around...just for a change.

The open day is Sunday the 8th August - hope you can make it! Have a peak at our entry on the SGS website here