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Everyone loves the Sun, I love the Sun, but you can have too much of a good thing. The current drought means there are no deep water reserves in the soil and no matter how deep plants send their roots they are still having difficulty finding water. Of course I in my desperation come along and water the soil which in turn makes the roots head for the surface to get the water the Sun then scorches the shallow roots and kills the plant; I feel like an accessory to murder.

7th September: Things I have been doing lately

🥐 Feeding the lawn. If you have any lawn left as opposed to desert dunes, then now is the time to give it the last feed of the Summer. Apply a high Potash feed using either a wheeled spreader or just broadcast it by hand. The only problem with hand broadcasting is that it can lead to patchy results with high doses that cause grass scorching or low doses that mean not enough feed. So if you can justify it get yourself a wheeled spreader, they don’t cost very much and you need to use it about six times a year.

This feed is important as the grass will have become exhausted with all that growing and now needs to recuperate during the cooler months. By doing this now you will get your reward with stronger brighter grass in the Spring. The photo below shows my spreader ready to go to work and a sack of the feed that I use.

🍂 Composting Autumn leaves. I know the height of Summer is a strange time to be thinking about Autumn leaves but that’s gardening for you. No doubt you will remember that I told you last Autumn to rake up all your leaves place them in sacks aerated by puncturing with a fork and then leave them in a dark place. Well if you did, it’s time to get them out. Leaves compost in a different way to normal plant matter so are best kept out of the compost heap for a while. I usually wait about 6-8 months then add them to the normal compost heap. By this time they will have done their main compost period and can be happily mixed in to add nice rich loam to your compost. The photo below shows one of my six sacks of leaves about to go to it’s final resting place in the compost heap. I have put one bag in every two weeks so that they are layered into the heap. This is riveting stuff I don’t know about you, but I’m on the edge of my seat.

🥔 Digging up Butternut Squash. Sadly my Butternut Squash have totally failed to provide me with even one little Squash this year all because of the drought. Last year was a bumper crop and Cruella (my wife) has been making Butternut Squash curries all year and using them in all sorts of spells. She even knitted little blonde wigs for them and had a line of Butternut Squash Donald Trumps (she is a big fan).

After feeding, watering and caring for them night and day I decided that enough was enough, they were not going to produce Squashes now so they had to go. In the end I dug up almost 20 metres of Butternut Sqash tendrils. The photo below shows one of the three barrow loads that went on the compost.

🌴 Checking out dates. Not that kind, I’m not thinking about “Tinder”, Anyway I thought it was something you lit fires with. No, I mean Date Palms. One of the big successes of this dry summer besides Figs, have been dates. I have a number of Phoenix Date Palm trees and all of them are bursting with dates, see photos below. The squirrels in my garden will have a fabulous time, but I plan to give them some competition. After my great success with sun dried Figs, I now plan to sun dry the dates. The only problem is Cruella and I are going to our English house for a couple of weeks and I don’t know if the squirrels will have left any by the time I return. I’ll let you know what happens.

💦 Its raining! My prayers have been answered it is just starting to rain; and quite heavily too. Much to Cruella’s amusement this has sparked a burst of frenetic activity from me. Firstly, I have to race round and open the lids of the compost bins so that they benefit from the rain. Then a quick sprint around all the water timers turning them to “off”, all 11 of them. Stopping only to tie up a wayward shoe lace, I then jog round all the water butts and tanks to make sure every thing is open and clear, ready to receive the lovely rain water. I place a large plastic box by each water butt ready to run off any excess and lastly I place three large plastic dustbins besides my large 1,000 litre tank ready to run off any overspill into each of the dustbins in turn. I have also decided to stick any Naya plants that are normally undercover into puddles for a drink; why not it’s free.

The first photo below shows me in unbelieving supplication as the first drops of rain begin to fall. The second photo shows my collection of water receptacles by the big water tank. The final photo shows a Lantana and an Aloe enjoying a drink in a puddle.

 

To be honest we did have a tiny bit of rain but not enough to even cover the bottom of a water butt. The end result is that plants are dying due to the excessive heat and lack of the deep watering that can only come from a good deluge. It’s not that I haven’t been watering, I have a huge rota of watering duties that sometimes see me wandering the garden in the moonlight dragging a hose behind me like the Ancient Mariner with his Albatross. Just like him I have become a water bore and “I stoppeth one of three” to discuss the lack of water. The end result is that we have a huge water bill of over €600 for a month, it is normally high at €200, but this is an emergency and needs must. I hid the bill from Cruella (my wife) but due to her powers she found it and currently is threatening to turn me into a Toad.

Anyway enough of this frivolity let’s get on with the serious stuff of gardening.

21st August: Things I have been doing lately

🌼 Gathering seeds from Marigolds. If you have grown Marigolds this summer, now is the time to gather their seeds. Marigolds are perfect for our climate here in Spain, they love sun, flower freely and at the end give you lots of seeds for next year. Because of the extreme heat and the drought, the Marigolds died very quickly after flowering. In most cases this happened before the seed heads were fully ripe meaning that there were fewer mature seed heads this year. The normal process for gathering Marigold seeds is as follows:

– mark the best blooms with tape to that you can identify them later at the seed gathering stage.

– wait until the seed heads go fully black with no hint of green or orange.

– remove the seed heads and roll them between your forefinger and thumb, letting the ripe seeds fall into your other hand.

– remove all the chaff and rubbish by passing the seeds from hand to hand and letting the wind blow all the rubbishy stuff away.

– place the seeds into a plain envelope, mark the year and the type of seeds on the envelope, and you are all set for next Spring.

The first photo below shows this year’s seedheads. From this you can see that although the plant had died many of the seedheads were still not mature. I have circled the only ones that were suitable. The next photo shows the process of removing the seeds from the seed head. The final photo shows next year’s crop of seeds ready to be put to bed.

🌴 Cutting back Palms. The photo below shows a circle of Palms that I have grown in the centre of a pathway. The first photo shows the Palms overgrowing on to a path, which makes them dangerously spikey for children or dogs. The second photo shows my Herculean efforts at cutting them back. If you look carefully in the second photo you will see Cruella sweeping the Naya with one of her old brooms. Once they are no longer useful for flying she recycles them, she thinks it makes her modern and caring, she even has a t-shirt with eco-witch on the front.

🕳 Filling a gap in a hedge. When a plant dies in a hedge it can leave a gap that looks worse than someone with missing front teeth. The problem you then face is that it is difficult to fill the gap especially in a line of mature hedges where it will take years for a new plant to mature and close the gap. Now you can plant the same type of plant and wait the necessary years for nature to work its magic, or you can plant something new and fast growing to plug the gap.

In the first photo below you will see the gap that has occurred in my hedge because of the death of a mature Hibiscus. Now just a word of warning before I continue with this riveting narrative. Hibiscus have a habit of going into a coma sometimes for up to two years. They look dead and lose all their leaves etc, but a quick scrape of their bark will show the green underneath. They in effect are suffering from the plant equivalent of “locked in syndrome”. I know this has now turned into an Edgar Alan Poe blog, but it’s true.

Anyway, my Hibiscus was dead and I had the certificate to prove it; cause of death was old age (natural causes). So it was time to fill the gap. An easy way to fill the gap is to take a cutting from a fast growing climber, and use the framework of the dead plant as scaffolding for your new climber. In my case I have grown Pink Trumpet Vine especially for this purpose. The second photo below shows the new plant settling into its new home and ready to scramble up the frame of the dead Hibiscus.

💔 Gardening failures. All gardening lives are riddled with failures, and the results of this blistering Summer have meant that I have many examples. The two photos below show a lovely little trailing Lantana that I took as a cutting from some of my existing plants. I had two of these proudly sitting on the Naya wall just opposite the entrance to my front door. But for some reason this one just started dying, it was just too hot. Despite giving it some shade I was left with giving it the plant equivalent of “extreme unction”. This involves trimming back the plant to bare basics to relieve the stress on the roots and then placing it on the potting bench in the recovery position. The jury is still out, but I believe the last rites have been correctly applied.

My second big failure this Summer is the lack of Butternut Squash. I have had the foliage and lots of flowers, but the end product is missing. Every day I hopefully peek  under the leaves to check that I haven’t missed a little baby squash starting it’s journey. But to date not a thing in sight; I am left like Mr Micawber hoping that “something will turn up”. The photo below is worth a thousand words.

By now everything is in full bloom and lots of plants have gone over, especially in this heat and drought. So now it’s time to think ahead to late border filling and even plants for next year

10th July: Things I have been doing lately.

✂️ Tidying my borders. No I don’t mean Brexit, though it would be nice to get started. No, now is the time to start getting your flower borders in ship shape by dead heading, cutting back, tieing in and just generally rummaging around. Because of the weather everything has flowered very early and due to the heat is dying back much faster than it normally would. The end result is floppy flower beds that fall over paths and driveways.

The photos below show the state of some of my flower beds. From this you can see there is death decay and dying everywhere and it all needs tidying up and putting in order. The Marigolds in particular have gone over very early this year. But never mind you can see the best flowers which are now just blackened husks have been marked up with white tape so that I can identify them later for seed. If you haven’t done this, it’s your own fault, I told you to.

Anyway let’s get on with this. You can see from the photo below that I am all set to go. When I asked Cruella (my wife) to take this I was under the impression that I looked like a slightly older, but toned George Clooney, she informed me that I looked more like a baggy old looney.

I wanted to tackle two main plants. Firstly the Margeurites which are past their best and the cause of most of the flopiness. But also I wanted to take cuttings from and plant out some Chlorophytum (Spider Plant). The Spider Plant is the denizen of bathroom window ledges the world over, where it languishes in half light and covered with dust.

Margeurites are best left to sit in their flower bed as long  as you can stand the untidiness. The reason for this is that they will set seed which will appear as seedlings as soon as we get any rain. Margeurites, In my opinion are difficult to grow from cuttings but easy from transplanted seedlings. Sometimes the main plant can be cut back to new growth and it will get going again. The photo below shows the only two plants that I thought were worth just cutting back, the rest are in the compost bin.

Spider plants which are often overlooked can look quite showy in dappled shade, where their variegated leaves really stand out. I already had some ready to come from the potting bench, but I also wanted to take some of the spiderlets from the plants already in the border. The two photos below show the existing plants ready to be shorn of their little spiderlets and the new little plants sitting proudly on the potting bench. Their day will come in November or December.

🌿 Cutting my grape vine back; yet again. You will remember that this time last year the grapevine that grows along the front of our house got mildew. This necessitated cutting back all the leaves. They come back, but you lose the grapes. Anyway, it’s happened again. As soon as I saw the mildew I sprayed, but alas it was too late. Now I have two other grapevines which grow along the balustrade of the swimming pool and after spraying they were fine. I think the problem here is air flow. Because the grapevine is so close to the wall there is not enough air which in turn encourages mildew spores.

The photos below show the grapevine in its mildewed state and its eventual nudity. In the words of the great Arnie; “it’ll be back”. By the way don’t compost mildewed leaves as you will only leave the pathogen in your compost bin for next year, throw them in the rubbish bin.

🌳 All things Figs. Now those of you who know me will know that I have a passion for Figs and a hatred of Onions. The latter can wait to another day, but the former is the subject of great excitement. We have an excellent crop of figs this year from our two trees, and I am picking 2 kilo of fruit nearly every morning. Cruella and I have been dining on all sorts of Fig meals too numerous to mention and she has been using them in all sorts of “Spells”. When the glut has got too much for us I have been giving them away to friends.

If after scoffing as many figs as you can – and remember the consequences of too many – and giving away some to friends, you still have lots of figs, then why not preserve them. The easiest way to do this is to sun dry them. Just halve the figs in two and place them in the sun on a rack suitably covered to keep flys away. It will take about 4 days and you have to turn them once a day. It is also very important to bring them in at night as Dew will spoil them.

The first photo below shows my daily crop of figs, whilst the send shows some figs drying nicely in the sun. I stole the rack from the kitchen whilst Cruella was out, I also borrowed one of her hats to cover them and some pegs from the clothes line to hold everything in place. Once fully dried I will put them in an airtight container, pop them in the fridge and I will be eating figs this Winter.

But also, and this is the exciting part, my friend Cath has a fig tree and I have been advising her on all things figgy. Well Cath has only come back and called me a “Fig Guru”. I am so pleased with this that I have decided to call myself Figuru. I told Cruella that in light of this I have decided to write an Opera about Figs called “Figuru”, but she just laughed and said it had already been done by somebody called Mozart. But, I don’t believe her and I’m going to look it up in the morning. Anyway, in the meantime I am still working on the script and music. I intend to have a major aria with Figuru singing “Figuru, Figuru, Figuru” good eh!

🐱 I wondered where all the water was going. I just found out that the cat has been stealing water from water feature. I know you have seen photos of the dogs before but here is a rare picture of the cat. She normally only appears with Cruella and not normally in day light.

I know it is hot everwhere, and goodness knows here in Spain we should be used to it. But it is really hot and as such we gardeners are suffering far more than the general public. You just get tanned, buy ice cream and jump in the pool. Whilst we poor gardeners are running around and watering like crazy only to see plants that have been fine for years, just keel over and go to that great compost heap in the sky. Each morning I emerge with trepidation to see that everyone is ok, only to find out we lost another good plant in the night. It’s like a medieval siege, unless relief comes soon we are lost. I have even asked Cruella (my wife) if she could cast a rain spell, but she just laughs knowingly and says she doesn’t know what I mean; but she does.

30th July: Things I have been doing lately

🌞 Trying to save the lawns. My lawns have literally become deserts – or is it metaphorically – but that doesn’t matter the end result is large black bare patches where there should be grass. If you have grass in Spain you have to expect this, but this year is the worst ever. The cause is obviously the heat of the Sun which has been relentless for over two months. There is no rain on the way so we will probably be like this till late September or October. All you can do is mitigate the damage. I am watering deeply every second night with in lawn sprinklers. You must do this when the Sun has gone down and the heat is going out of the day. Don’t water every night as this shallow watering will only encourage the roots to come up seeking the water and they will duly get scorched the next day. The photo below shows an area of my poor lawn; I showed the photo to Cruella but she just smirked and asked me what I wanted her to do about it – but she knows!

Also as an aside to the watering issue, you need to check all your irrigation systems at least weekly. Our part of Spain is a holiday destination and the population can easily double during July and August. This means greater water usage and a concomitant drop in water pressure. Therefore irrigation nodules that where giving your plants plenty of water in the Spring will now not be sprinkling as widely and may not be reaching your plants.

🙏 Rehoming orphans. It’s true I have turned into Mr Bumble the Parish Beadle who treated Oliver Twist so badly. You will remember that I emptied some of the Orphanage (potting bench) a little while go. I mentioned at the time that as there was no room in the planting beds I was going to repot most things and wait for the beds to empty. Well in the main that is true, but foolishly I did plant out a few plants in areas that really weren’t suitable for them. In other words like Mr Bumble I rehomed them badly. I watched them struggle for a few weeks but in the end after sleepless nights worrying I have corrected my mistakes.

The first photo below shows a badly rehomed Lantana planted under a hedge of Jasmine and Bignonia supplemented by Ivy from my next door neighbour. What was I thinking of it would never survive there. I dug it up one night when the heat of the day had gone and rehomed it in a space I made in one of the beds. The second photo below shows the replanted and happier Lantana, it even has a little flower. I have now taken to calling myself Mr Brownlow (look it up – gardening and great literature).

🛌 Repotting Cordlyines. When I was going through my Mr Bumble phase I also made another mistake, but I want to confess everything now so that we can move on. As a Christian I believe in forgiveness and redemption. The problem here was that I was repotting some Cordylines but did not have large enough clay pots to put them in, so I foolishly cut corners and placed them in undersize plastic pots. Now the problem with doing this is two fold. First, because the pots where too small the plants would become pot bound quite quickly and this in turn would stunt overall growth. But the second and more serious mistake was to put them in plastic pots. Now plastic pots are fine and are useful for repotting in the winter. But if your plant is to stand in the sun then it needs to be in a clay pot. The clay pot will hinder evaporation and stop the roots getting too hot. A side benefit of a clay pot with a tall plant like Cordyline is that the extra weight will stop the plant being blown over on a windy day.

The first photo below shows the Cordylines looking at me reproachfully as they stand by their potential new homes. The second photo shows them happily rehomed. I prefer my Brownlow to my Bumble – that sounds a bit obscene but you know what I mean.

🐛 Fighting off the evil Weevil. In case you have forgotten the dreaded Palm Weevils will be circling your Phoenix Palms as you read this. The Palm Weevil loves this hot weather and will be trying to burrow into your Palm tree to lay its eggs which in turn will kill your tree. With small trees you can  just spray the crown with proprietary killer and they should be ok. But with large trees, and mine are all large, you need another solution. I have told you before, but I will tell you again, just in case you weren’t listening last time. Either pay a contractor to spray your trees or, if you have a head for heights and a profound deathwish do it yourself.

The alternative is to do what I have done. Drill into the trees, feed a perforated tube in then pour in Weevil killer and let the rising sap take it up to all the branches. This has the effect of turning your tree into a toxic Weevil assassinator. The photo below shows one of my trees mid treatment. All you need is the tube in place, a jug with the Weevil killer mixed with water and an old Fairy liquid bottle to squirt the poison down the tube and into the tree.

🐺 Letting sleeping dogs lie. Finally to cheer you all up and prove how hot it is, the photo below shows Tango dreaming of getting back into the pool. I swim with both dogs every day and am planning to offer holidays to the general public “swimming with Labradors” – Dolphins are old hat, and they smell of fish.

With all due respects to the late Freddie Mercury he really didn’t know what he was talking about; unless of course he meant gardening at the hight of Summer. Yes, it’s all happening now, things are sprouting like crazy, everything is crying out for water, the weak are dying and the strong are thriving. At this time of year I am not so much a gardener as a cross between Gunga Din, Florence Nightingale and Albert Pierrepoint – I am either watering, tending to, or unfortunately executing plants. See I told you stick with this blog: great literature and gardening, what’s not to like. Anyway on with the show.

19th July: Things I have been doing lately

✂️ Trimming seed pods from Trumpet Vine. If you have Trumpet Vine then you will know that once they have flowered they will then produce a lot of spectacular seed pods, some of which can be almost a metre long. Now this is fine and lovely at the end of the season, but we need flowers now and the seed pods must go. Using your secateurs or shears trim and tidy up the Vine making sure you take off all the seed pods. Once you have done this the plant will begin to flower again within a couple of weeks and you will have a whole new flush of flowers. You can probably do this twice over the flowering season, but make sure that eventually you leave the last lot of seed pods as they make a spectacular addition to the late summer garden.

The first photo below shows the Trumpet Vine with its seed pods. The next photo shows the plant tidied up and ready to flower again.

 

🚿 Spraying grape vine. At this time of year grape vines are liable to get mildew of one type or another. In Spain it is usually Powdery Mildew which is caused by a pathogen (whatever that is – I always worry about things with “patho” in them). Anyway, it is important that you spray your vines as soon as you see the first signs. This usually involves white powdery residue on the leaves which then start to curl and go brown. You can buy proprietary brands of mildew killer that do a good job. If you fail to spray then the leaves will all fall off and the fruit will rot – don’t say I didn’t tell you. The photo below shows one of my vines with the start of mildew.

💣 Spraying Roses for Rust. I have lots of Roses and I often mention how much time I spend trying to make them look nice, only to be repaid by them constantly skewering me on their thorns. My favourite Rose depends on the time of year, but one of my best is “Munstead Wood”. This is a beautiful deep red heavily cupped Rose which when it is in full bloom has a beautiful beguiling scent. However, Munstead Wood is a bit like an ageing Hollywood actress who is a complete hypochondriac and is always demanding attention. If there is a disease or pest anywhere around, then this Rose will get it. Throughout the year it manages to get: Greenfly, Whitefly, Blackfly, Mildew and Rust, sometimes all at the same time.

This year her early blooms where wonderful and I really thought she was pulling her self together. But unfortunately no. She has taken to languishing on her metaphorical couch all day with a cold compress over her eyes. She has Rust again and she looks absolutely terrible. The photo below shows one of my Munstead Woods looking very much the worse for wear. The solution is sitting beside her. A good dose of Ant Rust spray administered every second night for a week. We will soon have her back on her feet.

🌿 Planting a cutting from the lovely Solanum. Regular readers of this blog will know that my plant of the year which I have grown from a cutting is a lovely Solanum (Potato Vine). Planted out in February this is now over twenty foot high and has been flowering profusely for two months. I am so enamoured of this plant that I have left it something in my Will. But not only that, I have been giving cuttings to all and sundry. I have kept a few cuttings and am now beginning to plant out.

Now I know that you know how to plant things out, but just in case you don’t this is what you should do. First you need to get some rich compost from your compost heap, or, if you must go to a shop. When taking compost from your heap make sure that you leave your Trug lying on its side for half an hour as this let’s all the beneficial insects that you have scooped up sneak back into the heap. Cruella (my wife) laughed at me when I told her this was important, she even asked for some bugs for her spells. The first photo below shows the bugs, whilst the second shows their escape route back to the compost bin. Click on each photo.

 

Once you have dug the necessary hole for the plant and filled it with water at least twice, then you are ready to plant out your cutting. However, you can’t plant it into compost alone. If you do this you will cause the roots to circle round and around as they refuse to leave the lovely compost and make their way out into the real soil. You need to mix your compost with a 50/50 mixture of compost and the soil you dug from the planting hole. This mixture will give the right amount of reassurance to the plant without mollycoddling it, the end result is that it will make its way out into the soil.

The photo below shows three trugs: one holding compost from the heap, one with the soil and the third for mixing. The final photo shows the lovely Solanum planted ready to grow up wires and protected from marauding Labradors by rocks.

👩‍🎤 Pruning Dame de Noche. This is one of the great plants of Spain. Admittedly it’s not very good looking, but it smells wonderful. Anyway, if you’ve got it you will know what I mean. By now your plant should have finished its first flowering, if you want more then you need to act now. Cut your plant down by one third. Don’t do anymore, and don’t do any less. The temptation is to try and tidy the whole thing up, but don’t bother it’s like putting lip stick on a Pig, it won’t look any better and will still smell the same. If you do this now then you will have a whole new flush of flowers in about a month’s time and can enjoy that intoxicating scent in the late summer air.

The photos below shows the Dame de Noche before and after its prune. As I said not a looker, but does she smell.

 

No the above heading is not about the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, if it was it would be a stupid name for number four. How terrifying would a visitation from “rebirth” be! But it is another day in my garden where the battle between man and nature is fought afresh every day. Mind you it’s so hot I have had to sit in the shade and write this nonsense rather than continuing the battle. I will return to the affray  later after a cup of tea.

8th July: Things I have been doing lately

🥊 Dealing with Oleander Scale. Oleanders are lovely plants and they proliferate in our part of Spain. However, now that they are in full flower they are like a magnet to “scale insects”.  The Scale insect is actually a bug and it is important to remember the difference. Even though I have told you before, I know you will have forgotten – “bugs suck and insects bite” which is important to remember as they both cause different types of damage to your plants.

Scale is a very adaptable species and there are over 8,000 described species – one to suit all occasions. Whereas you will visibly see insect damage as they will eat the leaves and you will see chomp marks. Bugs suck at the vascular system of the plant and the first real sign you will see – unless you are looking for them – is that your plant will wilt and in the worst cases die. So it is important that you check your Oleander on a daily basis. Now Scale are so small that, if you are like me, you will need your glasses on. If you look carefully you will see what looks like a small orange rash up near the Oleander flowers. Look even more carefully, and what you thought was a lot of little orange dots, is in fact a plague of scale insects.

The photo below shows my Oleander sustaining a large proportion of the Spanish Scale population. Now the choice is yours, you can pluck them off individually, using tweezers and a magnifying glass, then set them free in the wild. Or, you can blast the little b******s with insecticide; I leave it up to you.

🥋 Dealing with Mealy Bugs. I tell you it doesn’t get any easier, just when the Scale is dealt with the Mealy bugs start attacking my Aeoinum Schwarzkopf. For those of you who think this is a some sort of musical instrument or even worse, an expensive shampoo, let me explain. The Aeonium is a fabulous plant that looks as if it is a left over from the Jurassic era. The Schwarzkopf variety is a chocolate, almost black colour and normally nothing attacks it. However, I had taken some cuttings about a year ago and planted them in pots on my veranda and they were perfectly happy until about two weeks ago when I started noticing a fluffy white coating forming near the top of each stem. At first I thought it might be powdery mildew, but on closer inspection it was Mealy Bugs.

Mealy bugs like Scale suck the vigour from your plant but do not have to be dealt with by such a chemical onslaught. Instead, take the plant somewhere away from other plants and blast it with a high powered jet of water and wash all the white woolly stuff off. You will have to do this for a couple of weeks every time the white woolly stuff comes back. Don’t forget to hold on to the plant pot or like me you wil be chasing the plant pot all over the garden. The photo below shows my Aeonium before the water cannon treatment.

 🧛‍♂️ Deadheading Roses. To keep your roses in bloom you need to dead head on a regular basis. In my case this means more or less every day and some times twice a day. No matter what I do this always ends up as a bloodbath as the Roses in their gratitude to me for keeping them blooming, proceed to stab me at every turn.  Because I take Aspirin this means that I bleed profusely for hours and look like a character from a Tim Burton movie. Sometimes at the end of the day I look like one of the “undead”. Cruella (my wife) says I look like this every day.

The photo below shows one of my arms after a bit of dead heading, I can’t show you the other arm as it will scare small children and cause fainting; it’s X rated. By the way don’t think I haven’t noticed those dogs circling every time I deadhead; I’m sure there is a lot of Wolf in Labradors.

✂️ Moving plants and taking cuttings. After all that disease pestilence and bloodshed it’s time for some rebirth and renewal. If this was a movie the music would suddenly change from all the dramatic stuff to some strings and harp tinkling. Anyway, as you wander round the garden at the moment you will notice little crisis taking place: plants will have fallen over, bits will fall off of others and some will just present you with a good opportunity for a nice little cutting. These are the opportunities you need to provide you with plants for free.

As I casually perambulated around the garden today (none of your strolling for me) I noticed some opportunities. For example I have lots of large dramatic Agave plants that look stunning in the right setting. One of them was growing parallel to the ground and was obviously in distress because it had started throwing new roots out from its stem. This is a sign that the plant has trouble with its main stem and needs to find a new route for water. Most plants would die within days if their main stem is damaged, but succulents have such a large store of water in their leaves and stems that they can buy themselves a month or so before they die, and in this period they fight furiously to reconnect with the ground.

But not to worry help was at hand donning my International Rescue outfit I got to work. First I went down into our Wild Garden area (I know I don’t talk about it much, but one day I will do a special Post on it; such fun). Anyway, in the Wild garden area I dug a new hole specially to receive the transplanted Agave. The first photo below shows the dying Agave (note the distress roots). The second photo shows the newly dug hole, don’t worry I’m showing you this so you can see the type of soil we have in the Wild garden. You can see it’s sandy, full of stones and very free draining hence I had to take this photo twice as the water kept disappearing. This is ideal Agave territory they do not need rich soil or much water.

I then cut the Agave with a saw making sure I cut below the new roots, as this would assist the plant to regrow. The final photo below shows the plant in its new setting. The new plant is the furthest away in the photo, the other Agave is one I did about three years ago.

In addition to the Agave I saw some nice little growth sticking out of another succulent. Don’t know what it’s called but it’s got furry bunny ears (why use binomial Latin names eh). The first photo shows the furry bunny ear plant. Anyway, I took some nice cuttings as you can see from the second photo, whilst the third photo shows the cuttings duly potted up and beginning their new life on the potting bench.

 

It’s hotting up here in Spain and there is lots to do in the garden. Cruella (my wife) is off to England to see our son, she flew the usual way (with the cat sitting on the back) and that means I can Garden 24 hours a day with short breaks to drink beer.

2nd July: Things I have been doing lately

👨‍👨‍👧‍👧 Emptying the orphanage. To those of you not familiar with a garden orphanage, it consists of those plants still left on the potting bench as Summer hots up. They obviously can’t stay there as it is getting too hot so they are usually planted out into your borders.

Now last year we had a Terrible time with the orphanage. I had sold most of the potting bench plants at our annual Campoverde Open Garden Day and all that was left were the ugly and unwanted. You may not remember, but I do, those nights of pain when I sat on the potting bench with the orphans singing excerpts from “Annie” and trying to keep up everybody’s spirit.

Anyway this year things are different the orphanage is packed with handsome self assured and upwardly mobile plants; its a bit like “Love Island” what ever that is, I was just trying to be cultural relevant. If there was Match.com for plants they would all be successfully dating by now. Look at the photo below, they’re a pretty handsome bunch.

But there is a problem, normally I would plant them out in my borders, but I can’t look at the photo below, the borders are packed, I can barely get water through to the roots, never mind more plants.

The only solution is potting on in gradually bigger pots throughout the summer until the beds start to become clear. So this is my strategy, the orphanage will eventually form the bedrock of late Summer early Spring planting. I’ve started with some little Carnation cuttings which I had started off in tiny pots. The first photo below shows them ready for re-potting. The second photo shows the reason for re-potting that they were getting a bit tight and their small feeder roots were starting to circle inside the pot. The third photo shows them happily re- potted. I have then gone on to the larger plants: the lovely Solanum, Pink Trumpet Vine and some little white trailing Lantana. The fourth photo below shows all the bigger plants in their new pots.  I shall continue this process for the other orphans as they reach the limits of their pot. In a few weeks I will probably have to shade them as the summer sun will just be too hot for plastic potted plants. (Click on each photo for an enlarged view).

⛱ Saving the best seed for next Summer. By now your bedding plants and annuals should be in their first and best flowering.  As you dead head throughout the Summer the blooms will get smaller and smaller. So, now is the time to mark out the best flowers to save seed from. You need to look for the biggest, best formed and all round handsomest flower heads. None of your equal opportunities stuff, be elitist pick only the best. Mark these flower heads now by placing  a piece of white tape directly under the best blooms. This will stop you deadheading them over the next few weeks. Don’t rely on your memory of which were the best blooms, they fade quickly and will look less than their best in a few days. We will come back to this topic at seed gathering time. In the meantime the photo below shows my Marigolds marked up for future glory.

🦅 Netting fruit. Now is the time to net up your fruit trees. I have Figs and Persimmon that need nets otherwise the local bird population become obese. Nets are cheap so splash out, but only buy the fine mesh ones otherwise you will spend every morning releasing fat birds who are hanging upside down in your nets and feeling sick. You may need to add some old CD’s hanging from the trees or some children’s windmills to stop the more adventurous birds having a go. The photos below show some expert netting courtesy of assistance by my friend David.

🚿 Checking irrigation. Now if Cruella was here she would mock me for this section as it is the gardening equivalent of train spotting. But, and I say this with pride, there are some things that we gardener’s need to talk about, and irrigation is one of them.

Now that Summer is in full swing, water is absolutely essential to all plants. You may say, that is not a problem as you have an irrigation system. But do you? You may have had an irrigation system, but you need to check it now. Once set up irrigation systems need checking and adjusting for a range of issues:

Changes in water pressure that require you to readjust settings, blocked up irrigation points that let no water out, and the worst of all broken and splitpipes that mean you are watering Spain as a whole rather than your garden. So now is the time to check your irrigation or you could just go on adding to the water company profits.

The photos below are a sample of the latest problems I have found with my own irrigation systems. The first one shows a blocked irrigation point that was letting no water out, this had to be cleared out with a bent paper clip. The second photo shows a damaged lawn sprinkler point that was watering the sky. The third and fourth photos show splits in pipes at joints. The fourth photo shows a big joint that needed tightening. The last photo is my favourite, a split pipe that must have been celebrated at the water companies AGM with Champagne all round. Click on each photo for spectacular and stunning close ups. And Cruella dares to say that this is not exciting; I have heart palpitations just writing it.

I was away for a short 11 day sojourn to England and left Cruella (my wife) in charge of the garden. I left her strict written instructions for each day of the week and time of the day. Those of you who can remember the disaster of last year – when she managed to destroy a whole tomato crop and kill off all my cuttings – will think it foolish of me to give her another chance. But as a Christian I believe you have to give people a second chance. I must be an idiot given her track record of garden mayhem.

Among the many things I had left on the potting bench was a cutting of “golden shower” Vine; which for some reason Cruella thought was very funny. I had layered the cutting into a seed tray and it was showing good progress when I left. When I got back it was gone, she told me a large blackbird came and attacked many of the plants on the potting bench and destroyed lots of them including the Golden Shower cutting.

I could probably have put up with this if she hadn’t unleashed a plague of Sawfly caterpillars into my Roses. I told her what to look out for but she swears she didn’t see them. What we are talking about here is a biblical plague of caterpillars, if this had been inflicted upon the Pharoah he would definitely have let Moses and his people go.

16th June: Things I have been doing lately.

🐛 Dealing with a Sawfly caterpillar infestation. Those of you who are regular readers of this blog will know that Sawfly caterpillars are a nasty garden pest here in Spain. They especially like Roses. The female Sawfly cuts into the stem of the Rose with a saw like implement on her ovipositor (yes, that’s right she has a saw up her bum). She then lays her eggs in the cut she has made. A short while later the caterpillars emerge and proceed to rapidly eat through all of the leaves on that stem. Nature has engineered these beauties with voracious appetites and sets of legs that can only be used to climb down. Mummy lays them right at the top of the Rose and they gaily munch their way down to the ground where they enter the soil ready to pupate for next year.

Now, you have to look out for them every day and cut them off before they reach the soil. Cruella deliberately, or if you are being generous, through an oversight allowed the infestation to get hold. When I came back it was like Disneyland for caterpillars, they were everywhere. The only solution is to pick each caterpillar off the leaf individually and see if they can swim in a bowl of water (none have succeed so far).

The first picture below shows the wound in the stem of the Rose inflicted by Mummy  Sawfly, whilst the second shows the caterpillars feasting on my Roses. Click on each photo to enlarge.

✂️ Trimming back Jasmine. If you have Jasmine then by now you will have had the first flowering. After this first flowering the plant can turn quite brown as the early leaves die back.  This can make the plant look unsightly, and it is almost impossible to cut these out individually so you just need to don your gardening gloves and rake through the plant with your hand. Whilst this won’t get rid of all the leaves it will make the plant much neater and let air into the centre.

The other major problem you will face with Jasmine at the moment; especially if you are using it as a climber on a trellis, is that it will start to fold over on itself from the top. What happens is that the plant grows top heavy and flops forward through sheer weight. In effect the plant is folding over on itself and creating an illusion that you have a nice green plant. But in reality the plant is disguising the dead leaves below and at the same time suffocating itself. You need to get up your ladder pull the plants head back up and cut it off to stop the folding action. At first you will expose the unsightly brown leaves, but the end result will be a healthier plant. The photo below shows the trimmed up Jasmine.

🍇 Pruning grapevine. Many of us in Spain have grapevines; some for ornamental reasons and others for fruit. Which ever one you have, now is the time for some gentle pruning. The overall aim is to make the plant look neat and controlled, whilst at the same time maximising your chance of good fruiting. To achieve this you need to prune back all those long wispy shoots with tendrils on them. These are not going to fruit but they are taking away energy from the main plant and lessening the chances of good fruit.

The photo below shows one of my grapevines after its light pruning. I have to admit that the impetus for getting on with this pruning was inspired by my visit to my friend  Steve’s garden in England last week. Despite the fact that Steve and his wife Pam live in rainy old West London, their grapevine was capable of supporting both Jack and a climbing giant, whilst mine shudders when a butterfly lands on it.

🌿 The lovely Solanum. If you have been following this blog closely; and I know you have. Then you will know that I have grown a Solanum from a cutting given to me by a friend. This plant has given such great joy as it has been extremely fast growing since its planting out in February and it has been fun to watch it fly up the wall. Well now it’s flowered and they do not disappoint. The flowers come through a lovely light blue with yellow centres and then gradually fade to white. I am doing lots of cuttings for friends, it could be that in the near future the Spanish Department of Agriculture complain of mono-culture here in Campoverde.

The first photo below shows the lovely Solanum in all its glory, whilst the second  photo shows some of the flowers. Click on each photo to enlarge.

🔫 Spraying weedkiller that doesn’t work. Now in the best of all worlds we would not use weedkiller or other garden chemicals. But unfortunately that is not the case, no matter how much you hoe and weed you will still need weedkiller for gravelled areas etc. Now having said all this I somehow managed to buy a weedkiller that in the small print tells me that it is made from all natural ingredients – code for it doesn’t work. And it didn’t, I have spent weeks spraying this bloody stuff and I think I have actually been feeding the weeds. Normally I spray with weedkiller diluted to the recommended level in a large sprayer. In this case I have tried less dilution until in the end I am spraying it neat.

If perchance you have bought the same weedkiller (not named to stop being sued), then it is important that you wear a mask and eye coverings. Mind you given it has all natural ingredients it will probably be like taking vitamins. The photo below shows me in full spraying mode. Note that the sprayer I am using is clearly labelled weedkiller, this is good practice with all sprayers and watering cans that you use for weedkiller as you can bet that someone (Cruella) will use them for watering, saying they didn’t know they were used for weedkiller.

 

 

 

I have been in The U.K. all this week at our English house. I haven’t got as much gardening done as I would like because Cruella (my wife) has tasked me with lots of things to do; none as important as gardening, but I have had to do them. Before I left she took cuttings from my toenails and a sample of my blood and threatened terrible spells if I didn’t do as I was told.

8th June: Things I have been doing lately

✂️ Deadheading Hydrangeas. As you all know you should always leave the flower heads of last years Hydrangeas on the plant as they provide frost protection to the new growth coming through. Well, their time is over, their job is done, off with their heads. Just hold the dead flower in one hand whilst lowering your secateurs down the stem till you come to fresh new buds, cut here. If you cut behind the dead flower then you leave an ugly brown stem to sit there all summer – not a good look. The photo below shows the Hydrangeas waiting stoically for the cut.

🔥 Clearing Ivy from close to a gas vent. Those of you who read this blog regularly will know that Ivy is not my favourite plant, especially when it gets into the ground. I can just about take it when it is on walls, especially the variegated type. Anyway, Ivy can grow and cling everywhere and you have to be very careful near the eaves of houses; otherwise it becomes a house plant before you know it. The other dangerous place is near gas vents. Left to itself the ivy will grow in to the vent and you will be dead, all this because you didn’t garden properly.

The first photo below shows the ivy cut back as it attempted to head into our garage eaves. The second photo shows the ivy cutback and away from the gas vent on our terrace. Check your Ivy now; it could be a matter of life or death.

🙈 Tidying up our back garden. We have a narrow but long back garden in England which overlooks the river Medway. The garden is paved, walled and mainly consists of climbers such as Clematis etc up the walls. This requires a big cut back in January each year, but at this time of year it needs a tidy up. The top two photo shows the garden before the tidy up. The second two shows it afterwards. To be honest I can’t see much difference but I cut lots out, honest!

🌿 Cutting back the plants on the river side of the wall. Just as I have to cut back the plants on the walls of the garden there is of course another side to the wall. The riverside of the wall faces on to a walkway along the river. If I didn’t cut them on this side they would gradually get long, drag on the ground, get infected and die and how would I explain that to Cruella – I don’t want to be turned into a Toad!

The photos below show the wall before trimming back and afterwards – good eh. Who said gardening is not enthralling?

👬 Old gardeners never die, they just go to seed. Whilst in the U.K. I visited my old friend Steve. Steve is a very knowledgeable gardener, and his West London garden is a small but perfectly formed jewel of planting. He and his wife Pam grow everything from seed or cuttings (as all real gardeners do). Steve is such a good gardener that if he stuck a bare cane in the ground it would sprout.

Anyway the photo below shows Steve and me standing in part of his garden. In case you didn’t know I am the old skinny baggy faced one whilst Steve is the exact opposite,but just as old. Cruella said we look like a before and after photo, I asked her after what? she said feast and famine! You be the judge, we think we have both worn well!

 

 

Every year I convince/coerce a number of local gardeners to open their gardens for the day to the general public. The idea is that people can wander round the gardens hear from the gardeners what they are trying to achieve and everyone can give and receive tips. Everything is free including the refreshments all we ask is a small donation to Campoverde Church. All was going well I had tidied up the garden using my blower. There was not a leaf or unsightly twig in sight, Cruella (my wife) had brushed all around the swimming pool, we were looking good. That was until enormous winds swept through Campoverde. When I say winds, I mean the type that carried Dorothy to Oz. The end result was that the garden was covered in Pine needles and other tree detritus, to add insult to injury it rained, but not your normal rain; we had the dreaded Sahara rain that brings sand with it!. So not only did we have Pine needles but also sand dunes. Hey ho, the joys of gardening.

24th May: Things I have been doing lately

Making sure Marigolds flower abundantly. Marigolds love it here in Spain and we gardeners reciprocate that love. But first you have to be cruel to be kind. Marigolds will try and give you one single flower, but we obviously want more. To achieve this you must pinch out the main flower as soon as it becomes visible. You can do this either with secateurs or if you are a real gardener by using your long specially grown thumbnails (see previous post). But it gets worse, not only do you need to pinch out this first flower, you also need to pinch out the next two side shoot flowers that will appear within a week or so. By doing this you will send the plant into panic mode and it will proceed to send out multiple flowering stems all over the plant. After this you need only deadhead as normal when the flowers are spent. We will return to this topic in a few weeks time, but in the meantime the photo below shows a lead flower ready for pinching out.

A warning about using old seed. You may remember that I did some repair work to an area of lawn the other week. I put a layer of new topsoil onto a patch where the dogs had decided to dig, I sprinkled it with seed and duly covered it with fleece to protect it from birds. What I didn’t tell you because I was too ashamed, was that I decided to use some old grass seed left in the bottom of a box in my shed. To be honest I think it was about two years old. But as it was only a small patch of lawn I was too mean to buy another whole box. Well, false economy, a month later, despite dutiful twice daily watering I removed the fleeece to reveal not nice new grass, but the same seed lying there staring back at me. I could kick myself because it is now too late to reseed as the heat would just cook it. So the moral of the story is throw away old seed as it will probably be unviable after a year or so. The photo below shows my bald patch which Cruella considers quite funny and tells everyone I now have two bald patches.

Early crop figs removal. Those of you who are regular readers of this blog know that I love figs with a passion. Figs coupled with goat’s cheese is my favourite. Having said that you may find it surprising that I am to be found cutting out the early crop of figs on one of my fig trees. Well the truth of the matter is that it was difficult and emotional. For the first time this year one of my fig trees has produced an early crop of figs. Mature figs will normally produce two crops, this usually happens when the tree is over 5 years old. Well, it happened this year the fig tree produced its first early crop for its birthday. Unfortunately, this early crop doesn’t really mature on a young tree and the danger is that if you leave this crop on the tree too long, then it will stymie the growth of the second crop which is the one you really want.

Are you with me? I feel I’m losing some of you. To repeat if I leave the early crop on we will end up with a small unripe second crop, which in turn means no figs and goat’s cheese for me. So I had to take drastic action and cut out the early crop. The first picture below shows some of the early crop waiting at the bottom of a trug to be condemned to the compost bin – I know they look healthy but they taste like cardboard. The second picture shows the early crop on the tree before removal if you look carefully where the big red circles are you can see the second crop coming through. Let’s hope I’m not making a mistake.

Some pictures of my garden. This year for Open Garden Day we added the great innovation of overhead drone pictures of the gardens. My friend David (who is not a gardener) has a “state of the art” drone and I managed to convince him to stop wasting his time making his drone follow him around as he usually does, and instead step into the giddy world of gardening. Armed with David’s technical expertise and lovely gardens we managed to get stunning photographs of most of the gardens. The photos below show some areas of my garden, and if you look carefully that figure clad in a white vest standing in the outside kitchen; yes you’ve guessed it it’s me; Cruella is standing next to me, but unfortunately she is not visible in daylight. Click on each picture to see it full size.

I’m leaving Cruella in charge of the garden. I’m going back to our English house for just over a week and have to leave Cruella in charge of the garden. I have given her strict written instructions and have walked her through everything. But, I’ll be frank, this is a bit like leaving a Fox in charge of a hen house; no good can come of it.   Cruella has just read this over my shoulder and has started calling herself “foxy”, heaven help us.

The photo below shows the potting bench as it should be, I spent last night praying with all the plants for deliverance from evil.

 

The above headline is a clarion call to all gardeners. If your thumbnails aren’t long in May, then you are not a real gardener! So for all you fancy Dans and Doras this post is your last chance to grow those nails.

17th May: Things I have been doing lately

🧟‍♂️ Deadheading. By now you should have started summer deadheading of various flowers. If you want repeat flowering then you must deadhead on a daily basis. This is especially important with Roses, but all plants will stop flowering once more than 50% of the plant has gone to seed. At this point the plant believes that its job is done and it can just shut down. By deadheading daily you are forcing the plant to continue  flowering to make seed.

At the moment I am deadheading Roses every morning and sometimes I have to do it twice a day as one of my Roses “Blythe Spirit” flowers so profusely. I am also deadheading Carnations on a daily basis and soon it will be the turn of Marigolds. Right, this is where the thumbnails come in; just in case you were wondering. By growing your thumbnails long at this time of year you have with you at all times your very own personal pair of secateurs. As you stroll round the garden you can deadhead wherever necessary just by pinching the flower head between your thumbnail and your forefinger. By way of a health warning don’t try this with Roses, it hurts, instead use a pair of sharp secateurs.

Before we leave deadheading and go on to another thrilling topic, let me finish this by explaining the importance of proper deadheading. When you cut or pinch the dead flower out, don’t do it just below the flower itself. Instead follow down the stem until you come to the next leaf and cut just above this instead. In this way you are not leaving an unsightly dead piece of stem that can be easily infected.

And lastly the thumbnails; the first photo below shows them in all their grandeur. Notice the slightly green tinge to each nail and the nicks in each one caused by deadheading. The second photo shows Cruella (my wife) thumbs. She insisted that if I was having a photo of my thumb nail she wanted one as well. As you can see she doesn’t garden.

🚿 Spraying for garden pests. Some of you may be organic gardeners and never use chemicals in your garden. I, on the other hand would use nuclear weapons if I could get away with it. Don’t get me wrong I like the idea of chemical free gardening and I know all the arguments in favour. However, faced by a bed of Marigolds destroyed by snails or Roses sucked dry by Aphids, I would rather get my retaliation in first.

There are a few pests you should be watching out for at the moment. Slugs and snails will chomp through any newly planted out seedlings, so use slug pellets, but make sure they are bird and child friendly. Watch out for scale bugs on Oleander. If you are like me you will need to put your spectacles on. Scale will show up as a series of orange coloured dots. But put your glasses on and each little dot can be seen as a tiny bug. Last, but not least you have greenfly which can quickly infest Roses in their thousands. Greenfly also like Dame de Noche, Pink Trumpet Vine and strangely Lemon trees. The photo below shows the gardeners best friend at this time of the year.

🛌 Preparing bulbs for bed. By now all of your bulbs should have died back. If you have done as I recommended and left the stems on after deadheading, then the stalks should now be ready for cutting down. If you have cut them before now then you are a bloody idiot and a disgrace to gardening. It is only by leaving the stems intact to feed the bulb that we refresh the bulb for next year. Anyway, it’s time for the bulbs to go to bed for the Summer.

Cut the stems off as close to the ground as you can, but, try not to cut below the ground as you may let infection into the bulb. Once the stems have been cut off, place a thin layer of compost over the top and then give them a nice liquid feed. Don’t forget to say “goodnight, see you next year” it’s only polite and sends them to sleep knowing that you love them. The first photo below shows the bulbs shorn of their stems, whilst the second shows them tucked up in bed.

🖼 Making minor repairs to the lawn. Regular readers of this blog will know that my garden contains two great big lumbering Labradors who will roll, fight and generally cavort all across our lawns. They particularly like the small lawn right in front of our Naya (covered terrace) where they sleep most of the day. The end result is lumps, bumps and bare areas all over the place. To repair this I simply sieve some top soil and throw it over the lawn, then brush it in with a hard broom. This more or less levels the surface and I just allow the grass to begin mending itself. Where the patches are too bare or they have dug a hole, then I have to reseed and cover with fleece to stop the birds feasting on the seed.

The first photo below shows the small lawn after its new coat of soil. The second photo shows Tango dreaming of digging up the lawn.

🌱 Repotting seedlings and cuttings.  By now your seedlings and cuttings should be ready for potting on. If you have taken lots of cuttings (and I told you to) then you will have a range of new plants for free. You need to leave cuttings in their pot until such time as you can see roots coming out the bottom of the pot. Then, if you have planted four in each pot, you need to separate them out and place them in larger pots. Similarly with seeds. If by now your seeds haven’t come through then it is likely that they won’t. If only a few have grown, don’t hang around waiting for the rest to grow as it won’t happen. In my case I needed  to pot on some Lantana cuttings that had all taken successfully and some Pink Trumpet Vine seedlings, where only two had come through.

The first photo below shows the plants on my potting bench awaiting their transition to the next phase of their life. The second photo shows them happily seconded with the rest of the new plants waiting to be bedded out in a few weeks. Such joy!

🐴 Spreading horse poo. Horse poo or more politely “manure”, is widely recognised as a great garden elixir. I was overjoyed to be given a bag by a friend from Church and couldn’t wait to get muck spreading. However, a word of caution horse manure is fantastic, but not for all plants. Roses are ideal, as they are very hungry feeders and can easily cope with the strength of manure. Many other plants cannot so don’t just put it anywhere as you can badly burn and kill lots of plants. Also horse manure can contain lots of weed seeds because unlike cows with their four stomaches that effectively kill weed seeds, horses like humans have only one. So be prepared for extra hoeing.

The photo below shows Rosa “Creme de la Creme” avidly awaiting its three shovels full of poo.

🌋Spreading ash from log fires. Log burners are very popular in Spain and many people don’t realise that the ash byproduct of burning can be spread on to the garden to provide a beneficial feed. Burned wood doesn’t contain nitrogen, but it does provide phosphorous, potassium, calcium, boron and other elements that growing plants need. It’s also very alkaline and useful for raising the pH in gardens. You’ll need about twice as much of it as lime, but it will supply nutrients at the same time, and if you have a wood-burner it’s free.

Now I don’t have a wood burner, but I do have an outside fire pit (sort of) which we use beside our outside kitchen if the evening is a bit chilly. The last few nights have provided lots of ash and I have duly recycled it back into the garden. The photo below shows a fig tree becoming the happy recipient of ash.

I forgot to mention I was going away, but I’m a modest type of guy. Anyway I’ve been in Northern Ireland for a week with friends. We flew over and had a lovely time Cruella (my wife) came by broomstick. Now that I am back there is so much to do in the garden and I’ve barely had time to stop and write anything. Without further ado let’s get on with the garden stuff.

May 6th: Things I have been doing lately

✂️ Trimming and shaping a Jasmine arch. Jasmine grows spectacularly well in Spain and I am sure you have some. But as well as having lovely scent, Jasmine can also be used to drape or grow over man made or natural features in your garden. In other words it’s a good sprawler and coverer of the unsightly if required (what I call clothes). I have various Jasmine plants throughout the garden and I have been growing some over an arch by my gate. This has taken about two years to get it right and I am almost there. The first photo shows the Jasmine before its annual trim up. If you are growing Jasmine over a structure such as the aforesaid Arch, then it is best to tuck it in, wind it around, and only then start to trim any branches sticking out that offend your sensibilities or shape. The second photo shows the newly trimmed Jasmine. At the end of this growing season the arch should be complete. If it looks good I will show you a photo, if not, you will never hear of it again.

🙈 Trimming fig espalier. Those of you who are regular readers of this blog will know that another long term project of mine is to grow an espalier fig up the wall of our outside kitchen. This takes time and patience as the first shock of the espalier cut sets the plant back a bit. The fig and I have had a discussion and we have decided that this is the year for real growth. I have promised feed and it has promised growth. Forget all that North/South Korea stuff the tension is building here in my garden.

The first photo shows the current state of the fig; and I have to admit it is trying its best. To keep the espalier going you need to trim all the leaves that are growing against the wall as these will do nothing for the plant. Secondly you need to tie in the new growth along wires. Tie in when the branches are still green and “whippy”. You will have to do this little and often. If you leave the branches till they “Brown” and harden up, they will just break when you try to bend them. The second photo shows the fig trimmed and tied in. What do you mean you can’t see any difference! I can and that’s what counts; I don’t get paid for this you know.

🌱 Tieing in the lovely Solanum. Regular readers will know that I have been growing this Solanum from cuttings from my friend Margarita. To say it is flourishing would be an understatement. Planted out as a rooted cutting earlier this year, it must be almost 20 foot and growing like Topsy (literary allusion to famous slave era novel in the USA, c’mon look it up). Anyway, the aforesaid Solanum is now growing horizontally along wires, but like all plants, it yearns for the vertical. So to keep it going the way I want it to, I regularly have to get out my ladder and tie it along the wires. This plant is going so well that I am taking cuttings for elsewhere in my garden and also for my friend David, who is to gardening what Atilla the Hun was to world peace.

The first photo below shows the Solanum trying to creep over the roof of the outside kitchen. The second photo shows the Solanum tied in (at least for the moment). The third photo shows the new front I have opened up (military gardening term) whereby I am training the Solanum around a corner and along another wall. Click each photo to see an enlarged version.

🌳Trimming back hedges. Now at this time of the year hedges can begin to look a bit straggly, but in the case of most of my hedges they are made up of flowering plants such as: Jasmine, Bignonia, Hibiscus etc and obviously whilst I want them to look tidy I don’t want to lose the flowers. All to often as I walk around our village I see people trimming their hedges right back to a nice neat square shape for Summer, not realising that they are cutting out all the potential flowering stems. What you need to do is just trim back the leading shoots (those that are longest) but don’t cut into the body of the hedge. In this way you will get the basic shape, but you won’t lose the flowers.

This first photo below shows a straggly section of hedge that looks untidy, the second photo shows it trimmed back but not scalped.

🌿 Tidying up the Mulberry tree. We have been shaping our Mulberry tree for a few years to make it a focal feature of one part of the garden. By trimming out  the under canopy branches we have been able to make a nice seating area where we have placed a circular metal bench we had made specially. This provides a lovely shaded area to sit and take in the view over this part of the garden. However, Mulberries need trimming up or they begin to look like someone with a bad fringe.

The first photo below shows the untrimmed Mulberry looking like the missing Beatle (Musical sixties allusion, apologies to all young gardeners). The second photo shows the tree ready to face the world with its new sensible haircut.

🍈 Trimming the topiary Olive tree. Regular readers (both of you), will remember that I have given up processing my own olives ever since Cruella (my wife) pointed out that we had cornered the market in out of date bottled jars of olives. Instead I cut the olive tree back and am aiming for a topiary effect. Well the picture below shows my first effort. I cut the tree back last year and have been letting it regrow in selected areas. I did the first trim the other day, but it will gradually fill out and I think it will be quite spectacular. Watch this space. The photo below shows the olive in all its glory. I have entitle my creation “spheres”, Cruella calls it “balls”.

Finally to finish off this post here is something really cute. Whilst Cruella and I were sitting having our morning cup of tea on the terrace; which in itself is unusual as Cruella doesn’t normally come out in the daylight! We were surprised to see one of the Red squirrels that frequent our garden admiring himself in a water feature. I thought how nice, Cruella thought it would make nice mittens.

 

Because of the heading above I bet you thought you had clicked on one of those New Age blogs that are full of philosophical adages and instructions on how to live a more meaningful life. Well you certainly hit the wrong button there, it’s just plain old gardening stuff, but I am trying to make the whole thing more edgy; I’m going for a Scandi noire type thing, what do you think? Anyway enough of my literary pretensions, let’s talk real life and death in the garden: deadheading, cuttings and seedlings. There I go again that could easily be a name for a firm of lawyers in my next book.

22nd April: Things I have been doing lately.

Deadheading Irises. By now most of your Irises and other bulbs will have died back and it is time to deadhead them and get them ready for next year. The first photo below shows one of my stands of Irises that has finished blooming and need to be prepared for bed. The key thing with all bulbs is to let them die back naturally by leaving the foliage on as long as possible to allow this to transfer all the goodness of the Sun back down into the bulb. But first you must cut off the seed head. If you don’t do this then the plant will put all its effort into producing seed and the bulb will suffer and probably not flower next year. The simplest way to do this is just cut the whole seed head off; making sure you get it all, but still leave plenty of foliage for the plant. The second photo below shows the newly deadheaded Irises neatly cut and tied back so that they don’t flop on to the litttle Carnation sitting in the bed beside them.

Before we leave Iris, you will no doubt remember that last year I has some spare Iris bulbs and decided to plant them in a corner of my lawn that was a bit scrawny. Well look at the photo below, haven’t they done well, and there will be lots more next year.

Keep taking cuttings. I know I have mentioned it lately, but keep taking cuttings. This is the time of year when most plants are thrusting out fresh, new, strong shoots. In most cases a lot of the cuttings will not take, but you should get a 50/50 ratio of dead to live. And remember every live cuttings is a free plant for you, or your friends. I am taking cuttings from: Solanum, Jasmine, Plumbago and Bignonia. If you don’t know which are best parts to take a cutting from, then look at the photo below of my Solanum. The wispy shoots sticking out at the side are crying out “cut me I’m ready to become my own plant”; that is what I hear anyway! This plant was itself a cutting from my friend Margarita, eventually planted out in February and it is now fifteen foot high.

Pricking out seedlings. Those of you who are paying attention – and this means you – will remember that a month or so ago I sowed seeds of Marigold, Butternut Squash and a few other things in my little mini greenhouse. As the photo below shows, well here we are just a few weeks later and we are ready to prick out and plant up.

To prick out seedlings I use a pencil to ease them out of their initial seed tray. It is very important that when handling seedlings you always hold them by the leaves and never by the stem. If you hold the stem and damage it then the plant will die; and new stems are very delicate. It is a bit like me taking you by the hand or by the throat, which would you prefer?

The photo below shows my workings half way through pricking out the Marigolds. You can see the tools needed: pencil to lift out, dibber to make holes for the new seedlings (planted 12 to a half seed tray) and a square tamper to even off the compost before planting.

The photos below show the Butternut Squash being pricked out. Here, the technique is different, as is the equipment you will need. Yes, the trusty pencil is still there, but instead of seed trays I am using individual Coir pots that are bio degradable which means I will be able to plant the whole pot into the ground in a couple of weeks without disturbing and potentially damaging the roots. They have been planted individually into long case seed tray. This allows for the development of a much bigger and better root stock that this size plant demands. By growing in this type of seed tray you get much better root development as seen in the second photo below. The final photo shows the Butternut Squash all potted up ready to go into the ground in about two weeks.

Planting out Marigolds. It was only a few paragraphs ago we were pricking out Marigolds, and here we are planting them out!  Marigolds are the ideal flower for Spain, they grow quickly from seed, they love full Sun, and, if deadheaded will flower for most of the Summer. The photo below shows me ready to get planting. All you need is a trowel, a kneeler  (if you are old – like me)  and some irrigation points ready to place near where the plants are. I use the red headed screw ones which you can see in a lot of my photos.The benefit of these is that they can be turned off completely and new ones added where the plants are now this year.

Once the plants are safely in the soil then water copiously as this will give them a good start. Then whether you like it or not you have to add slug pellets around each plant. I use the bird friendly type before you ask. If you don’t do this then all you are doing is providing salad for slugs and snails. The first photo below show the Marigolds surrounded by their ring of protective slug pellets. The second photo shows the Marigold plants after one night of snail siege. Click on this photo to enlarge and you will see the dozens of dead snails around each plant. All it takes is one snail to get through and you don’t have a plant, you have a “stalk”.

The final photo shows some of the Marigolds safely in their beds with cross canes placed over them to protect against that other great gardening pest, The great marauding Labrador.

 

 

I intended the above heading to sound philosophical and deep, but on reading it again it could be misconstrued as a lonely person with unhygienic toilet habits. Anyway, on with the show, Cruella my wife is away in England visiting our son and I have been making the proverbial hay whilst the sun shines. This not only means 24 hour gardening, but also being able to purchase various gardening accoutrements (good word eh!), without having to sneak them into the shed under cover of darkness. I can also go shopping in my gardening clothes, which is normally frowned upon; mind you I have been thrown out of two shops and people keep giving me money to buy food.

16th April, Things I have been doing lately

🍴Feeding plants: My starting heading was meant to highlight the fact that plants need more then just being stuck in the soil. A key ingredient this time of the year is to start feeding to ensure that all your plants get a boost ready for Summer. Now you can feed a general purpose feed for everything and I won’t report you to the authorities for neglect. However, it is better to use specialised feeds that target the particular needs of individual plants. Just as you prefer different types of food, so do plants. The photo below shows the main types of feed that I use in my garden, there are others – such as iron – but the main ones are shown in the photo.

All of these plant foods are readily available in Spain and one bottle of each should last you most of the Summer. From the left:

1. A granulated universal feed that should be sprinkled through borders and under trees. You must water this in, but it should last about three months. I use this just as a starter background feed, but still use others.

2. Again a general feed, but more intense. This Guano (bird poo) feed is a bit more expensive than the normal general liquid feed, and doesn’t make up such large quantities. Feed this once a week to border plants.

3. This is a specialist fruit feed.  I use it for Figs, Persimmons, Olives, Pomegranates and Butter nut squash. Again feed once a week at the hight of the summer.

4. This is a specialist citrus feed. Don’t be tempted to feed a general food to Citrus as it won’t do much good. I use this for Oranges and Lemons. Feed it from now through to about September.

5. The last one isn’t really a feed, but is an essential part of any new bare root plantings; especially Roses etc. Mycorrhizal Fungi should be applied to wet roots and sprinkled in the planting hole, it helps the plant to get established very quickly.

There you have it, get feeding and your plants will love you.

⚱️ Renewing compost in pots: If you have plants in pots, and who doesn’t, then this is the time of year to refresh their compost. Whilst succulents and cactus will happily sit in the same soil for years, everything else needs replenishing every year if you want them to give of their best. Don’t worry I am not asking you to redo the whole pot. In most cases this would be impossible because of the root ball, but try and replace the top three or four inches of compost.

The first photo below shows how I have removed the top portion of compost in one of my pots to expose the root ball. You must be careful not to damage too many of the fine feeding roots , just expose as much as you can without causing damage (if only Arnold Weinstein had heeded my counsel).

The second photo shows where I have applied a general feed directly around the roots. This will need to be watered in, but only when you have covered the roots with nice new compost.

The final photo shows my standards all ready for Summer with new compost and plenty of food.

🚰 Adjusting and checking irrigation: Dont assume that your irrigation systems will function as they have been all Winter. There are a number of problems you have to take account of. Firstly, here in Spain as the population rises in the summer with holiday makers, so the water pressure gets reduced as there are more households to supply. This means that your irrigation settings will have to be adjusted to take this into account, either by opening individual irrigation points a bit more to let more through, or setting your timer for longer to take into account the reduction in pressure. Lastly, you should run your irrigation system now just to check that there are no individual points blocked up with soil or leaves.

I have eleven individual irrigation systems throughout the garden; they provide hours of fun just with adjustments and seasonal alterations. The photos below show just a few of the various configurations. And Cruella thinks I’m not interesting, any woman would be lucky to have me.

 

In this age of bullying I don’t want to add to anyone’s problems or perceived inequities; nor do I want to be the cause of a gardener’s “me to” campaign, but we have to get on, there is so much gardening to do before summer. I have told you all before, March and April are the foundation months for the garden year, get them right and your garden will be lovely, get a bit behind (like me) and you will always have the same problem as the Red Queen in “Through the Looking Glass” (I trust to the literary knowledge of my readers).

6th April: Things I have been doing lately.

🌿 Never give a sucker an even break.

I am conscious I have used the above double entendre before, but I just love it, so expect it as an annual event. By now you should have picked all the fruit off your orange trees, lemons can be left a while yet. The trees themselves should be in blossom, so it is time to do a little bit of preparation. In total we have 9 fruit trees – a mixture of orange, lemon, persimmon, fig and pomegranate. See the photo below for a view of what I grandly call the orchard and my wife Cruella calls “some trees”.

The first thing you need to do is go around all your trees and pull of suckers that will be growing from the bottom of the tree or along lower branches. These can be identified by the fact that they are usually bright green and growing straight up from the branch. The easiest way to take these off is just to pull downward on each one with your gardening gloves on and it should come away very easily. If you don’t do this, then the suckers will quite quickly gain brown wood and be more difficult to remove. If the suckers are left they will take the goodness from the tree and ensure you get a much lower crop of fruit. The photo below shows some suckers on an orange tree.

🖼 Cutting the lawn

Hooray lawn cutting time has come around again. You should be doing your first cut anytime now. The grass will soon start to grow strongly, so make sure you get the first cut in before it gets away from you. The first cut should always be high, just enough to take off the ends of the longest bits of grass and even everything up. The mown grass should be placed on your compost heap and interspersed with wooden and carbon rich cuttings. Don’t worry if you are not keeping up we will have the delights of a “compost special” post in a few weeks time – such fun. The photo below shows the newly mown lawn.

💊 Feeding the lawn

After the first cut it is time to give your lawn its first feed. Although the grass has not yet got into full growth, it will be weakened after the Winter, and this first feed will urge it into a growth spurt. I use a feed that contains all the main ingredients that plants need: nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. This gives the grass a great boost though it may cause your lawn to fail an Olympic drugs test. The best way to apply this feed to a largish area is by using a feed spreader. This gives a nice even distribution of the feed across the lawn and stops you putting too much in any one area thereby causing grass scorching. If you are broadcasting by hand then use much less than you think you need; there is a danger in overestimating and ending up with burnt patches all across your lawn. Nine times out of ten the scorching will grow back, but sometimes it doesn’t resulting in lots of reseeding. The photo below shows my lawn feeding equipment ready to go.

✂️ Taking cuttings

Now is the time to start taking cuttings from plants. Most plants will be showing signs of that lovely new growth, will not yet have flowered and are ripe for cuttings. By taking cuttings now you can get them established before the heat of summer though you may have to use a cold frame or a mini greenhouse to keep them warm at night.

Over the next few weeks I intend to take lots of cuttings, but I have started with Carnations. I bought one carnation plant about 5 years ago and ever since then have propagated it by cuttings. To take cuttings from Carnations you don’t actually “cut”. Instead, you gently tug on a non flowering healthy stem and eventually the stem will come apart leaving you with a short stem in your hand. Peel off all the bottom leaves so that you just have two or three left at the top. Then using a knife (never secateurs as these will crush the stem) create a fresh cut in the stem and dip the bottom of the stem in hormone rooting liquid or powder; this last bit is not absolutely necessary, but it helps. Then either place all the cuttings around the edge of a four inch pot, or, as I have done in this case place each cutting singly into a small pot.

The photos below show the key stages of taking Carnation cuttings. First the stems pulled off from the mother plant, then the stems stripped of their lower leaves, cut and dipped in hormone liquid. Finally, the cuttings in the new dinky little pots and later place in a mini greenhouse.

 

Our skiing exploits in Austria at the behest of our son has meant that I have been away from the garden for almost two weeks at the most important time of the year. March and early April is the time when you lay down the foundations for summer so I have had a lost of catching up to do. Just to get the skiing thing out of the way no I didn’t break any bones, no I still can’t ski, both Cruella (my wife) and I were great disappointments to our son as neither of us could stand up, stop, or otherwise show any competence in skiing. To be honest we gave up halfway through our second lesson and contented ourselves with Apres Ski. The photo below shows our son James giving us his disappointed look.

2nd April: Things I have been doing lately

Right back to gardening. There is so much to tell you and so little time before the heat of summer, so we just better get on with it.

🌱 Planting seeds for annual bedding plants.

In terms of planting seeds I am probably almost a month behind where I should be. As we were going away there was no point leaving the seedlings first few important days with our house sitters; especially as our house sitter was our friend Karl the notorious plant murderer.

Anyway, you can buy bedding plants from Garden Centres etc, but real gardeners grow their own. I grow Marigolds as they are very easy to get going and they make fantastic mid-summer bed fillers. I also grow Pink Trumpet Vine and a few other favourites just to plug areas of the garden that may die back in summer. All seeds should be planted in a free draining compost with copious quantities of vermiculite to allow for that nice free drainage. In Spain you do not need a greenhouse to get seeds going a small 3 shelf mini greenhouse is fine, just make sure you open it up in the morning or your seedlings will fry, even at this time of the year.

The first photo below shows my seed planting equipment which is very simple: compost, vermiculite, seed trays, dibber and dust pan and brush for cleaning up the mess I always make. The second photo shows the seedlings happily settling in to their new home.

🌹 Weeding, feeding, watering and mulching Roses.

This is one of my least favourite gardening jobs, (I have 26 Roses of various types) but one that must be carried out if you want lovely healthy Roses. I dislike this job as the Roses take great pleasure in scratching, cutting and otherwise hacking at my flesh till I bleed profusely; at the end of this exercise I look like someone who has been feasted upon by Vampires.

Roses are very hungry feeders and require good healthy organic compost to see them through the summertime. This is where all your hard work at creating compost in your bins and heaps comes into play; if you don’t compost then I’m afraid I’m not speaking to you and you should be ashamed. The photo below shows one of my compost bins ready to spill forth its wonderful richness to enhance the garden.

Unfortunately, a full and active compost bin means the return of that old favourite the giant blood oozing maggots that feature so regularly in this blog. I think these come from a fly that must lay the eggs onto the grass and then I transfer the eggs with the grass cuttings to the compost bin. No matter, you cannot allow them back out into your garden so as you empty out the bin you must pick out the maggots and see if they can swim in a trug – none have managed it so far – then recycle them back into the active compost bin. The photo below shows some of the giant blood oozing maggots before their swim.

The process of preparing your Roses is simple. First you must assemble all of the things you need before starting this process, the photo below shows everything you need: compost, feed, water. The reason for this is that you must do this one Rose at a time to ensure you don’t let them dry out between each stage. The three photos below show each of the stages: weeding, feeding and mulching. Only 25 more to go.

🔆 Mulching borders.

Mulching borders and bedding plants is just as important as Roses. In the heat of the Summer most bedding plants will wilt quite badly and in some cases just get overheated and die especially if the your irrigation system fails. This is where mulching comes in. Water each of your bedding plants thoroughly, then, put a donut of mulch around each plant. The mulch will lock in the water and stop the plant drying out in the sun. Also, the mulch will buy you precious time if your irrigation fails and ensure that you do not lose plants. The photo below shows some of my border plants sporting their new donut of mulch. The space between each plant has been left mulch free as this is where I will be planting out my Marigold seedlings; which will be munched at a later date.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, I know it’s been a while between posts, but I have other things in my life; sort of. Actually I just said that to look interesting. But my wife Cruella says it’s pathetic and that everyone knows all I have is gardening. She can talk, all she does is Church administration stuff and torture small furry animals. Anyway, enough of our life of domestic bliss, let’s get on with the show.

Now I know I should be telling you all about Spring planting and getting the garden up and running, but I will have to postpone that for a couple of weeks because I am going skiing. Yup, that’s what I said skiing, we are off to Austria; who said I wasn’t interesting. Cruella and I have been convinced by our son James (of course he is called James) that a skiing adventure is just the thing for us old people. Mind you He does keep asking about our life insurance policies. So the outcome is Spring stuff will be in a couple of weeks.

14th March: Things I have been doing lately.

🌹Planting a new Rose. I hate to lose any plant, but somehow I lost one of my favourite Roses. Blythe Spirit is/was a lovely yellow flowering old English Rose from David Austin. I had 5 of them planted in my Rose beds, but one just up and died on me, and I don’t know why. I was spraying some weeds close to it a while ago, but I am always very careful. Basically what has happened is that it just did not come out the other side of Winter pruning and did not put on new leaves in the Spring.

The first photo below shows Blythe Spirit in its denuded state. It was still showing some green under the bark so I have decided to remove it from the Rose bed and put it in a pot to see what happens. The second photo shows poor Blythe Spirit in its intensive care pot. I am hoping it just has the plant equivalent of “locked in syndrome” and that I will come out one day and it will have sprouted new leaves.

There is no room for sentimentality in gardening, I tell all my plants life has to go on and we must be brave. Anyway, I have always fancied Gertrude Jekyll but I could never find a place for her in my life. I of course mean Gertrude Jekyll the lovely Pink award winning Rose. Well we are together now, we are a love match and we intend to spend the rest of our lives together. She will never quite replace Blythe Spirit but time is a great healer. The first photo below shows me and Gertrude getting to know each other, whilst the second shows her in bed (no pun intended).

I will keep you informed of Gertrude’s progress, and of course I will let you know if Blythe Spirit makes a come back.

🖼 Removing thatch from the lawn. Grass will start growing very soon, so it is important that you begin your lawn remedial work now. The first thing to do is rake out all the dead grass thatch that has accumulated over Winter. Now there is no really easy way to do this. You can try an electric scarifier that will claw and rake up most of the thatch. I did have one of these in England when I had really large lawns, but I can’t quite justify here. So it’s the hard way, using a lawn rake. To do this properly you have to rake first one way then the other. Don’t rake too hard or you could damage the grass, but hard enough to remove most of the dead thatch. Failure to do this will result in dead areas of grass and yellowing patches. The subsequent raked thatch can be used either to line hanging baskets, or, it can go straight on to the compost heap.

The photo below shows  me in my invisible costume about to pick up a Trug full of grass thatch.

🌴 Treating Palm trees for Palm Weevil. Living in Spain we suffer from the depravations of the terrible Palm Weevil. This terrible creature was brought to Spain  in a batch of Palm trees from Egypt, and has been gaily munching its way through Spanish Palms ever since. It only really affects the Phoenix Palm, but it has been responsible for destroying thousands of Spanish Palms. So much so that historic cities like Elche with its ancient Palm groves is terrified of the Weevil getting through their defences.

The only real treatment is to spray the tops of the Palms with a special chemical that kills the Weevils as they try to munch through the Palm branches. However, if your Palm trees are very high – and most of mine are over 40 feet – then you either need to bring in professionals or come up with another idea. Being a skinflint I opted for another idea. I drilled half way into each of my Palm tree at an angle of about 25 degrees and then fed in section of tubing which I had previously drilled with holes. This forms a reservoir into which I pour the Weevil killing chemical and then let the rising tree sap take this up and feed it into the branches, which means when the Weevils start to try and feed they get a proboscis full of chemicals and die. Clever eh? The photo below shows how the reservoir works.

For all of this clever stuff to work I have to make sure that the tubing is clear at the start of each Spring (this is when the Weevils start to fly), and also that the drilled hole has not scabbed over thereby stopping the uptake of the chemical. To do this I remove each tube, clear the blocked up holes with a nail, and then scrape a metal bar into the tree to create a fresh wound to ensure the take-up of the chemical. The photo below shows the tubing removed and the nail pushed through one of the drilled holes. The green rod is the metal bar that I use to create the fresh wound. There you are that’s what you need to do; but hurry up the Weevils are coming.

🚀 Watching the Solanum grow like Topsy. I know The “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” literally allusion will not be lost on you my erudite readers. But you will remember that Solanum cutting that Cruella and my friend Karl tried to kill. Well look at the photo below it is growing like crazy. I have now placed horizontal wires to send its growth along the outside kitchen. Pretty cool eh? It’s a great addition. The bad news is that Karl is coming to house sit whilst we are away. I have set up cameras!

I returned from my sojourn at our English house with what can only be described as Bubonic Flu/Ebola virus. Or as my wife Cruella called it “a cold”. I of course shrugged off her indifference and continued stoically. Her only attempt to in anyway medicate me was to make Chicken soup; but it had feathers in it, probably because the Chicken tried to climb out of the pot three times.

Anyway enough of this self pity, there was one last job to do before we can call it the end of Winter in Spain. Those who have followed this blog closely will know we have already had two stages of our Winter work: “the big Winter Chop Down”, followed by “the big blow job” and now finally we come to the last stage “shredding and chopping”.

21st February: Things I have been doing lately.

The shredding and chopping stage of the your Winter work starts with a period of patience. If you try to begin this stage whilst the cuttings are still green and the wood freshly cut then all that will happen is that your shredder will become constantly blocked by tree leaves, whilst your chainsaw will only cut slowly through “sappy” branches.

So you need to cut everything down and then leave it stored somewhere for at least a month. This will allow the leaves to become brown and crispy and the branches to dry out. The photos below show some of my mountainous piles of cuttings.

First Stage: Loping and shredding.

The first stage of the process requires you to use lopers to cut out those branches and stems that can be usefully put through your shredder. Anything that is to thick to be put though your shredder should be put to one side ready for the next stage with the chainsaw. I use shreddings in two ways. Firstly , I add a couple of buckets to my compost heap. These will mix nicely with the first mowing of the grass and give wonderful compost in 6-9 months. Secondly, I use the shreddings to line the paths in our wood. This is a cheap and cost effective way to make your paths look interesting and they supress weeds very well.

The photo below shows me in action, having cut the branches off with lopers and running them through the shredder. I have then put the thicker branches to one side for chainsawing later.

Second Stage: Chainsawing.

I know I don’t have to tell you all how dangerous chainsaws are. It only takes a second for you to be minus a finger, hand or leg. So make sure the area is clear of any obstacles; don’t try and chainsaw in the middle of a tangle of branches and never do it on your own; always make sure someone else is around. I have two chainsaws; one electric and the other petrol. I prefer the electric one as it delivers constant power, plus the fact I can never get the petrol one started. If using an electric chainsaw then make sure the cable is over your shoulder and away from any possibility of dangling into the blade.

The photo below shows my work area and all the tools you need for this stage.

Third stage: Clean up

The last stage is the clean up after everything useful has been cut or shredded. As you can see in the photo below I have ended up with piles of small logs cut to size to fit in our outside burner. These are ideal as it allows us to have barbecues outside before we get to the heat of summer.

I wish to point out all of the above stages were carried out against the advice of the World Health Organisation (WHO). Who informed me that a lesser man would have buckled under the strain of my disease. If you look closely in the photos you can see the fortitude and perserverance in my eyes; Cruella says they just look baggy and red.

My wife Cruella has just explained to me that the above heading could be misconstrued. I informed her that she was being puerile and that I was talking about the second big winter job of blowing all the dead leaves away after the big Winter Chop Down. I further explained that gardeners eyes and minds are set on higher things than the gutter. I reminded her that Oscar Wilde said “we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking up at the stars”. She asked if this was Kim Wilde’s dad and if Lady Windermere was her greatest fan. Honestly, what more could you ask for in a blog, great literature and gardening. Mind you there has been a huge increase in clicks on this post and I have been invited to lots of parties.

3rd January, Things I have been doing lately:

💨 The big Winter Blow Job.

Anyway, let us turn to other things. I am in England at the moment looking at our English garden and pondering what needs doing. But before I left Spain I did complete the big BJ – I can’t even say it anymore Cruella has ruined it for me.

Those of you who have completed your big Winter Chop Down will know that no matter how well you have cleaned up you will have left leaf detritus behind on both your stoned areas and lawns. It is imperative that you fully clear this away, for if you don’t it will break down to a fine tilth on the stones and encourage weed growth later in the year. Whilst if left on grass the leaves will become wet and rotten and kill patches of grass. If you are lucky enough to have a leaf blower – and every man should – then just use this to blow across the stones and if possible onto the lawn.

The photo below shows me manfully showing those leaves who is boss. As a fashion note I am wearing my cap with the title “head gardener”. Cruella bought me this for me and I got her one that says “kitten murderer”; she wears it with pride.

Once you have successfully blown all your leaves onto the lawn then the best thing to do is to mow them up with your mower. This has two clear benefits. Firstly, it saves you the job of having to rake up and bag all the leaves. Secondly, the resultant leaf mould, which has been chopped to a fine tilth can now be placed on to your compost heap. Normally leaves should be composted separately but the chopping of the mower renders them suitable for compost. Don’t worry if you don’t have a lawn just blow or rake the leaves on to a path or drive and then run the mower over them.

The photo below shows me in the final stages of mowing the last remnants of the leaves.

🌳 Cutting back a tree in England

This next bit is intended for tree specialists and mainly for my fellow garden blogger Tony Tomeo (tonytomeo@wordpress.com). The tree shown in the photo below grows outside one of the windows in our English house. As you can see from the photo it has a propensity to try and grow over the window. This means that every year I have to perch precariously on a ladder and try and reach over to trim it with a hedge trimmer. Ideally what I would like to do next year is to cut it back to about 5ft leaving just bare branches. It has an excellent structure of thick branches which can just be seen in the photo. I assume it would then releaf in the Spring and I would then be able to keep it trimmed at a correct hight to suit me. Comments please.

This is a funny old time of year, all the hard work of the big Winter chop down is behind us and the new gardening year has yet to start. There are only two more big Winter jobs but I will cover these in future posts. In the meantime I am wandering round the garden as it sleeps disconsolately looking at plants, tidying things up and doing little jobs.

22nd January: Things I have been doing lately

🌿 Planting succulent cuttings. At the end of the summer I always take some cuttings from succulents such as Aeoniums. These sit on my potting bench for a few months as they gradually take root; they don’t really grow very fast, but they root soundly. If you plant these out now they will have taken nicely before the heat of Summer. The photo below shows my cuttings planted in a reasonably shady area; this is not ideal for succulents but they will be ok.

🔗 Putting up a wire trellis for the famous Solanum. Regular followers of this blog will know that my wife Cruella and my friend Karl have on a number of occasions stopped me growing Solanum (potato plant) from cuttings. They have regularly tortured and destroyed all my attempts by wilfully: underwatering, overwatering, trampling on (and blaming the dogs) and on one occasion saying the cuttings had been destroyed by aliens. They are both currently on trial at the UN.

Anyway, and eventually I managed to hide a new cutting from them and it has now rooted successfully. My aim is to grow it through trellis up one of the pillars in our outside kitchen. Now you can use wooden trellis here in Spain, if you want to, and I do have some. However, if you are growing plants in full sun then the trellis will soon be destroyed by the sun’s rays and you will be left with the horrible job of disentangling a large mature climber from a rotted wood trellis. Far better to grow climbers in full sun on wires.

I have used Vine ties as tensioners on the wire and used a medium wire. This will ensure that the plant will not make the wire sag as it grows, and also enables me to keep a good tension on the wire as the plant gets heavier. At a future date, assuming all goes well with the Solanum, and Cruella and Karl do not sabotage it, then I can extend the wires horizontally to grow the plant across the top of the outside kitchen wall. The three photos below show how rapidly the Solanum is growing; it went into the ground on December 12th – by Easter it will be at the top of the wires at this rate. (click on each picture to see it enlarged).

💡 Resurrecting bulbs. I have no doubt that you remember that last year I put spent Iris bulbs that I had in pots to bed. This involves letting the foliage completely die back, then cutting it down and covering the surface with compost. I then put the pots away under my potting bench and left them for months, slightly watering about every six weeks or so. I check them all the time at this time of the year, and as soon as a green shoot peeps out I place the pots on the potting bench for few more weeks so that I can keep an eye on them. When they are steadily growing I place them in the position they will be for flowering and then water once a week. The photo below shows one of the pots with the Iris getting into their stride. What a comeback can you think of anyone else who made a spectacular return from death?

🔪 Cleaning and sharpening tools. In our busy world people are increasingly stressed, anxious and burnt out. They seek solace in Mindfulness, Yoga and Psychotherapists. But forget all that rubbish just sharpen your tools. Yep, it’s that easy, sit down with some clean cloths, a light oil and either sand paper or a sand paper pad. There is hours of harmless fun to be had in this way, and not only will you benefit, but also your plants will appreciate your efforts. I have been happily esconsed down by the potting bench for hours sharpening away. Cruella says she wishes it was my wits I was working on. When I think of a clever retort I will let you know.