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To be honest I’ve been back almost two weeks, but I have been too busy catching up with the garden that I have not had time to post anything. It has been a struggle to catch up especially as we have had to do lots of things for the Church; it is Christmas you know!

The excitement of Christmas and the birth of Jesus is a fantastic time of year; now I wouldn’t like to try and overshadow this, but the big January cut back is coming and I’m counting the sleeps till I can get started. Anyway on with what I euphemistically call the show.

11th December. Things I have been doing lately

☠️ Dealing with damaged Pomegranates. When I left to go back to England for a few weeks I left behind the best of my Pomegranates happily ripening on the tree. Upon my return I fully expected to be enjoying Pomegarante seeds liberally sprinkled on my Porridge. Unfortunately the birds had other ideas and plundered every last seed. Now pomegranates are usually quite immune to bird attack because of their unusually thick skin; Theresa May is a Pomegranate. However, once they become slightly overripe they can crack and this is the birds cue. Birds will visit Pomegranates every day and watch for the slightest crack. Once they see even the smallest crack they will use their beak to open up the whole fruit.

The lesson is to look at your Pomegarantes every day (no pun intended) and at the first signs of cracking harvest and if necesssary ripen off the tree. The photo below shows my poor Pomegarantes. I was about to place them in the compost bin, when Cruella (my wife), pointed out that they reminded her of a necklace of shrunken heads she once had as a child. She asked if she could have them and has since then been wandering around the house wearing them. To be honest they do look quite nice, she pairs them with her frog legs bracelet.

🐶 Repairing the lawn. Having two Labradors means that lawn repairs are a constant chore. To be honest they do not normally dig, they save this for their kennel area where they know it is ok. But when we are away Nero (the black one) suffers from separation anxiety and likes to dig holes and lie in them. The problem this time of year is you cannot plant grass seed. But in my case it is necessary to repair the hole or Nero will take it as permission to head for Australia.

I backfill the hole with a mixture of compost and normal soil and then cover over the restored area with wire mesh. This usually results in the surrounding grass creeping into to cover the bald area; but, if not I will just reseed in March. The first photo below shows the damaged area with the culprit sleeping in the background. The second photo shows the newly repaired and protected area. I have so much metal mesh in my lawns that they remind me of the moment in Terminator when Arnold Schwarzenegger has his skin scratched only to reveal he was a Cyborg.

✂️ Cutting back Cannas. You will remember a few posts ago that my Cannas were damaged by high winds, but I couldn’t cut them back as you have to wait for the leaves to die back. Failure to leave Cannas to die back as much as possible will result in poor growth and flowering next year as you have to let all the goodness from the leaves make their way back into the rhizomes (ugly bulbs).

Well now is is the time, you can cut them back. Cut each large stem back to between 4 and 6 inches from the ground. This length is important. Cut too low  and there is a danger that the stump may become water logged and rot. Cut too high and the plant will try to start growing again and produce weak growth. The first photo below shows the Cannas supported by stakes after the wind damage. The second photo shows the neatly trimmed stems ready to grow again in a few weeks. I intend to lift these plants and separate them next year as they have produced lots of ugly baby rhizomes.

🍂 Cleaning up leaves on gravel. If you have gravelled areas in your garden, and many people do in Spain. Then now is the time to clean fallen leaves off your gravel. If you fail to do this then the leaves will mulch down into a fine tilth and provide a perfect bed for weed seedlings. Failure to clear up leaves over a number of years will  result in your gravelled areas gradually becoming congested weed patches. The easiest way to clear up is to use a blower and blow them on to your lawn and then mow them up. Failing this get out there with your lawn rake and rake them up – it’s good for the waist line fatty.

The first photo below shows a part of my gravelled areas covered in leaves. The second photo shows the leaves blown on to a lawn ready for mowing. I believe this article is both interesting and informative; I showed it to Cruella and she laughed so much wine came down her nose – at least I think it’s wine.

 

 

Yes, you’ve guessed it, we are at our English house at the moment and the weather is appalling. It rains every day, there are freezing cold winds and it is dark by 4pm in the afternoon. This wouldn’t be too bad, but my body is programmed to automatically seek wine once it gets dark. If we have many more cloudy dark days I will be an alcoholic.

Our reason for being here, apart from drinking too much wine, was twofold. Firstly to welcome home from Japan the idiot son, where he has been single handedly saving the Japanese economy – at least that’s how he tells it. But also to see the mighty Tottenham Hotspur beat Inter Milan in the Champions league.

Now in between all this excitement I couldn’t wait to get out into the garden. Despite the cold and the wet, gardening must be done. I asked Cruella (my wife) if she wanted to come out to help, but she refused saying she would rather remain hanging upside down from the ceiling as it was warm up there. To be honest she prefers this time of year as it gives her so much more time without daylight.

28th November: Things I have been doing lately

✂️ Tidying up the front garden. If you have followed previous posts about the English house, you will remember that I try to keep things simple here. The front garden is mainly shrubs and trees set amongst pebbles with a low stone walled bed to the front with a smal hedge and other plantings. Meanwhile the backgarden is walled with flagstones and various climbers covering the walls.

Both gardens are small and easily maintained. In effect this is the ideal way to garden when you split your time between houses. The Spanish house has the large garden and takes a lot of love and maintenance. Whilst the English garden requires only a big winter cut back and a mid summer tidy up.

Anyway, I digress. From the photos below you can see that the front garden was becoming a bit overgrown and needed a cutback and tidy up.

From the photos above you can see there are a number of things that need tidying.

– The hedge in the raised walled bed needs trimming back. When doing this you should aim for a square top but make sure you camber the sides out slightly so that the lower edges of the hedge still get sun and there is no die back.

– The Yucca flowering spikes need trimming off. When handling Yucca always wear eye protection and gloves. Push long handled croppers right to the base of the spike and cut it back cleanly. Only leave flower spikes that that still have flowers. As soon as the flowering is over take off the spike.

– The small Yew by the front door (Taxus Media) is beginning to lose shape. It backs on to a wall and not enough sun is getting to the rear and one side. You have to trim these very carefully and make sure you do not cut into the brown, otherwise the plant may not grow back in these areas. As this plant grows it is becoming less shapely, despite my best efforts. It may have to go in the next year or two.

– Trimming back the large trees that are attempting to climb through the lounge window is the big job. This requires me to stand precariously on my small stepladder placed on unstable pebbles and wield an electric hedge trimmer at the full extent of my reach. I do not recommend this to those of you at home. I did promise myself that     I would get into the centre of the tree and trim back the branches to make a new lower and more manageable shape. But it was freezing out there so I gave up.

The photos below show the newly cutback and re-shaped front garden. What do you mean “you can’t see any difference”. Cruella said that when she eventually ventured out to pick poisonous mushrooms. If you look carefully at the second photo you can just see her foot sticking out of the ground; the ground was too hard to dig deeper. Three bloody hours that took me – no difference indeed!!

Those of you who are assiduous in your attention to this blog will remember the great skiing disaster of earlier this year, when Cruella (my wife) and I were persuaded to trying skiing in Austria by our idiot son. The outcome could have been disastrous to people of our advanced years, but luckily we had the good sense to quit attempting to try and ski after just one day and instead became professionals at Apré  Ski.

Anyway the whole point of this introduction is to offer you a host of things you could be doing in your garden rather than attempting skiing, or other extreme sports.

7th November: Things I have been doing lately.

💨 Rescuing wind damaged Cannas. Given that we live in lovely temperate Spain, there seems to be a lot of extreme weather about. Following the great drought, we had floods, then following the floods we had high winds. All we need now is a plague of locusts and I will be convinced that it is “the end of days”.

The winds have damaged a lot of tall plants including my lovely Cannas. Now the big problem here is that Cannas need time for all the goodness from their leaves to go back down into their Corm (ugly bulb). If this doesn’t happen then next years leaves and flowers will be much reduced. So you can’t cut the leaves off just to tidy the plant up. Instead you have to tie up the plant so that the leaves can fulfill the function that God intended for them.You can cut them down in January.

The first two photos below show my poor damaged Cannas. The third photo shows the Cannas tied up with one of Cruella’s old broomsticks. The shed is full of them, when they lose their twigs she puts them in there and I have to spend most of my time in there avoiding their erratic attempts at flight.

🗡 De-spiking Yucca. Tidying Yucca is similar to a military exercise. You first need to get fully kitted out. If you fail to do this, then prepare to bleed, because you most certainly will, or at the extremes get ready to lose an eye. The spikey leaves of Yucca are one of the most vicious weapons in the plant kingdom so you must be prepared. You will need, thick gardening gloves, good eye protection, sharp secateurs and a lot of luck. The easiest way to remove old Yucca leaves is to get below the plant and pull sharply down on each leaf one at a time. Given a good yank they should come away, those that don’t can be cut by your secateurs.

The first photo below show an untidy little Yucca that I have grown from a cutting. The second photo shows the same plant tidied up and looking rather handsome.

🛏 Tidying my Winter borders ready for Spring growth. I tend to leave my borders after the heady heights of Summer, so that I can let all the plants that self seed deliver some nice new little plants for me – and it never fails. Margeurites are great self seeders, yet I find it difficult to grow them from seed, so the solution is let them do the hard work. The photo below shows my untidy beds after Summer; to think Tracey Emin was shortlisted for the Turner Prize for her unmade bed, there’s no justice.

From this photo you can see that there are thousands of self seeded Margeurites of various sizes. Now the trick here is to weed and clear the bed at the same time as you are sowing the largest and most mature seedlings. When you dig the seedlings up you must ensure that you do not handle them by the stem, instead hold them by the leaves (it’s a bit like someone picking you up by the throat as opposed to holding your arm). Stems are easily damaged, you might not notice it, but the plant will not perform if it is damaged.

The first photo below shows the lovely root structure that the seedlings have grown. The second photo shows how to hold them as you gently ease them into their new home. The final photo shows my lovely “made” bed. (Click on each photo for a larger view).

 

🎖 Extreme weeding around bulbs. Welcome to the world of extreme weeding. I tend to liken it to the “Special Forces” area of gardening and actually consider myself more or less in the SAS, our motto is “who dares weeds”. Anyway, what I am trying to say that as bulbs start to show themselves by popping up at this time of year, you must be careful not to carelessly remove their growing tips by just hoeing over the top of them. Extreme weeding calls for the abandonment of the hoe and foresaking the trowel; yes, I mean hand-to-hand combat.

When bulb tips first appear they can look just like a blade of grass, and as they are usually surrounded by grass and weeds, this is an easy mistake to make. However, what you must do is get your hands in there, no gloves, and feel each stalk. Bulbs will have a more rounded and robust feel in as much as they will not bend very much. Grass on the other hand is thin and blade like and bends easily. You need to pull up all the grass blades growing around and between your bulbs so that they are not competing for nutrients. You will probably need to do this two or three times, until the stems of the bulbs are big enough to shade out the grass.

The photo below shows an area of bulbs that has benefited from “special forces” action. I wear my uniform when I am doing this and I have even awarded myself a medal; Cruella refused to attend the award ceremony, but both dogs and the cat were there.

 

 

 

Hooray its that time of year again when I regale you with advice on the merits of composting. Remember that Coca Cola advert that appears on the television every Christmas, where a large truck with a picture of Santa Claus on the side goes through towns accompanied by the sound track singing “holidays are coming…holidays are coming”. Well that has been me for the past few weeks I have been singing “compost special is coming…compost special is coming”. To say this has annoyed Cruella (my wife) would be an understatement, so much so that I now mumble it under my breath, and when she says what did you just say, I reply “nothing”. I know it’s not much, but I count that as a small victory.

Anyway, on with the show let’s keep the excitement bubbling.

30th October: Things I have been doing lately

🧠 Why compost. All garden soil gets depleted over time and lose micro nutrients either they just get washed away by the rain or the plants take them up and the soil needs replenishing. Composting can help improve soil by adding back these nutrients and encouraging helpful bacteria that will break down and improve your soil. When added to your garden compost will help suppress weeds, lessen the need for chemical fertilisers, retain moisture and give you a warm feeling that you are doing a “green thing”. So no matter what your motivation, by composting you will be improving your garden.

👨‍🎓 How to compost. You don’t have to make a big deal out of composting and anyone can do it. Whether you have a large garden or just a little patio garden with pots adding compost will improve your garden. The basic need is to have compost bin, or compost heap where you can store your compost. This can be very basic such as a little patch of your garden where you tip excess produce and cuttings etc. You could just have a heap in the corner covered by an old carpet, or if you like make a basic container out of chicken wire.  It might be easier just to buy a compost bin from a store and there are thousands of them, from basic one simple bin, right up to multi-bin purpose built composting systems.

As you would expect, I have a purpose built composting system consisting of two large bins with lid for easy access and doors that can be raised to allow me to get at the compost from the bottom. The photo below shows my composting system.

Now, I don’t want you getting compost bin envy, that’s not the idea. I designed these and had them built when we first moved to this house because this size garden calls for this amount of compost. There are fruit trees to be mulched, lots of beds that need seasonal replenishing, lawns that need some topping and all the planting and stuff on the potting bench.

🌿 What to compost. Now you can compost most organic material. Examples would be:

– all plant cuttings and mown grass

– vegetable trimmings etc from your kitchen

– old newspapers and cardboard

– hair and fur from your dog, cat, hamster or velociraptor

– twigs and branches up to about an inch thick

– eggshells, coffee grounds and filters, tea bags

– fruit, but not too many lemons or oranges as they will make the heap acidic

☠️ What not to compost. You must be careful not to compost the following:

– cooked food of any sort (this will encourage rats and cockroaches). This includes: meat, bones, fish, fat or dairy

– leaves or cuttings from plants that have been infected with disease or pathogens such as rust on Roses or mildew. If you compost these then you will infect the heap.

– dog or cat poo; and don’t even think of human poo.

🔐 The key ingredients of compost. Quite simply good composting requires four things:

1. Green items: that add nitrogen (grass, leaves etc)

2. Brown items: that add carbon (twigs, branches, newspapers etc)

3. Water: to keep the heap moist but not wet (don’t let it dry out, but don’t over soak it)

4. Air: oxygen is needed to encourage the composting process, so once a month you need to stir your compost with a fork or spade to keep the air circulating.

There is one other vital ingredient that you can choose to add to your compost heap, and that is “compost accelerator”. This is normally added as a powder which encourages the development of microbes in your compost heap and speeds up the composting process. The photo below shows all the key ingredients apart from air; but I assure you it is there. In the photo you will also see a special compost turning tool that I bought some 20 years ago. You just push this into your compost heap then the two little wings at the bottom of the rod come out as you pull up and the whole heap is lifted and turned. If you can find one, buy it.

🔭 What should  compost look like? A question I am always asked (I lead an interesting life). The photos below show the current state of my compost bins. The first photo is the bin currently in use, and you can see all the ingredients I talked about above. The second photo shows the resting bin that is just about ready for use. You can see from this photo that the bin is half empty, and this is because all the insects and beneficial microbes will have eaten stuff whilst making the compost. The final photo shows the finished compost; or as I call it black gold. Each of these bins will on average give me 20 wheel barrow loads of compost each year.

Gettting in the compost bin. One of the great joys at the end of a hard days gardening of trimming and cutting is to get in the compost bin and tread it all down. What do you mean you’ve never done this, just me then. The photo below shows me happily stomping up and down in one of my bins. Just after she took this photo, Cruella slammed the lid down and I was in there for two days. I must say they where the happiest two days of my life. She only got me out because the dishwasher needed emptying.

 

What happened was this, I was happily walking under a large Bay tree in my garden when a couple of brown leaves fell on my head. Given that they shouldn’t be falling this time of year and the fact that I am a fan of the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and I was aware of Sherlock’s famous dictum “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth”. Therefore “cogito ergo sum” as my old friend Descartes used to say … it must be bloody white fly.

Now that opening paragraph is a tour de force of shoehorning literary allusions into a gardening blog and we haven’t even got to the plants yet. Anyway, on with the show there is work to be done.

22nd October: Things I have been doing lately

🚿 Spraying white fly. After the fateful leaf fall mentioned above, I looked up and the Bay tree was infested so heavily with White fly that you could barely see the leaves in some areas. There where millions of the buggers, and to be fair I should have seen this before as the area under the tree was covered with dead leaves. The first photo below shows a part of the infestation, whilst the second photo shows the ground under the tree. Click on each photo for a larger view.  It can be difficult to identify an infestation such as this because it could be Aphids or Mealy Bugs. But the tell tale sign is the clouds of small flys that take off when you disturb the plant.

Now, to be honest, white fly are immune to most insect sprays and ideally you should just try and knock them off with a jet of water. But this infestation was mega and needed drastic action. The photo below shows me in my full super hero garb as I battled the White fly. Hopefully I didn’t kill too many beneficial insects.

👃 Enjoying the scent of Dame de Noche. Because of the great drought and the subsequent heavy rains we are now enjoying the best ever blooming and therefore scent of our Dame de Noche (sometimes Galan de Noche). This night scenting Jasmine is a glorious addition to any garden as it gives off a very heady perfume at night. The plant itself is relatively plain and the flowers are more or less non descript. However, the scent at night is wonderful. It is worth planting near to a sitting out area or barbecue so that you can enjoy the beautiful scent. The photo below shows the Dame de Noche in full bloom; but if you sniff it during the day there is absolutely no scent, it is only at night that it releases its glorious smell.

🍊 Getting ready to harvest Persimmon. If you don’t grow Persimmons, then you should. Sometimes known as Sharon Fruits, this is a very tasty orange size fruit which when it is ripe can be scooped straight out of its skin. Cruella (my wife) says it has the consistency  of a tomato and the taste of a Peach (but then again she eats dead bats; sometimes before they die). The fruit ripens on the tree after the leaves have dropped, and you need to be patient and wait till the fruit turns a pinky red. If you pick it too early it has a strong astringent taste and it will suck all the moisture out of your mouth leaving you with puckered lips and a disapproving look. The photo below shows some of my Persimmon patiently waiting to turn pinky red.

🌿 Planting out Bush Lily. I had a plant growing under a North facing wall which meant it had lots of shade. Also it was growing under a substantial hedge of greedy Hibiscus etc but it seemed to be thriving and flowered with lovely deep orange flowers that then turned to berries. I took the opportunity to split the plant to create lots of new ones. The cuttings have been happily sitting on my potting bench for about five months (May the cuttings were taken) but I still didn’t know what it was. After extensive detective work (books, internet, plant finder sites) it is Bush Lily (Clivia miniata) that comes from South Africa.

This is an excellent plant for shady spots or under trees (not Pine; too acid) it’s bright flowers light up dark spaces. The first photos below show Bush Lily when it first arrived on the potting bench. The second photo shows the strong fibrous roots it grew over it’s time in a pot. The final photo shows some of the five Bush Lilies that I have planted out (plants for free, what’s not to like).

⛈ From drought to deluge. Many of you will have been fed up with me moaning about the great drought we have suffered here in Spain. The last few months have seen plants die and the lawn turn into the Sahara desert. But, as is the way with gardening it has all turned around and we have had torrential rain on a number of occasions. I have gone from having no water to having too much. I have filled every water butt, box, receptacle, dog bowl. Everything is bursting out, including the weeds which are enjoying a late summer renaissance, even my gravelled areas are beginning to look like meadows. The photo below shows just some of my water bounty – I have lots more. I am thinking of selling it back to the government.

Sometimes gardening can be a bit depressing. Things that you grew from seed or nurtured from a cutting, one day they just die on you. No note, no goodbye, one day they are there then they are gone. It’s true it’s always worse for those of us left behind. We are left wondering why? was it something I did or said; or didn’t do or say. Anyway the upshot of the depressing start to this post is that I have lost two of my favourite plants a Rose and Plumbago. I will try to cheer up, but this could end up reading like the most depressing book in history: Thomas Hardy “Jude the Obscure”

2nd October. Things I have been doing lately

🧟‍♂️ Dealing with dead plants. Sometimes death may not mean death (reference Jesus Christ) and there can be a way back. Anyway I went out one morning lately and found two dead plants. A lovely large Plumbago that I had grown from a cutting had suddenly turned brown literally over night. Normally I would suspect Cruella (my wife) had poisoned it or had been using it in spells, but, she swears she is innocent. This particular plant is part of an extensive hedge to the front of our house that also has a few more Plumbago but none of the others were affected.

Now Plumbago is very hardy and it takes a lot to kill it off. My first suspect was Whitefly, which can suck all the sap out of the leaves and debilitate the whole plant to the point of killing it. But I would have seen this happening. My next suspicion was that the irrigation under the plant had malfunctioned and delivered too much water that would eventually drown the roots. But I checked round the roots and it was not unduly wet. Nevertheless action needed to be taken.

When faced with this type of situation you have to be bold if there is any chance of saving the plant. Some plants such as Jasmine, the answer is to cut them right down to the ground. But this would not work with Plumbago, so I have cut it down to about two foot and hope that it may shoot from there, or suckers may come true from the root. I will let you know what happens.

The first photo below shows the Plumbago in its distressed state (if it was a horse it would have been shot). The second photo shows the Plumbago cut back and in intensive care. I have fed it some Iron to assist the roots to take up nourishment (in liquid form of course I’m not an idiot).

The Rose that appears to have died is Rosa Blythe Spirit, this is one of my favourite Roses which is a prolific flowerer and sometimes in the height of Summer needs to be deadheaded twice a day. Anyway, just like the Plumbago it went brown more or less overnight. Again like the Plumbago, the other Blythe Spirits in the same row did not die back. I have checked for all the usual suspects and I even sprayed for “Rust” in case it was an extreme case.

The photo below shows the poor Rose in its distressed state. Since I took this photo all the leaves have fallen off. I plan to collect up all the fallen leaves from under the plant in case they are harbouring a pathogen. I will then do a drastic prune and see if I can bring it back. But I fear this one may be gone and it will have to come out. I may then purchase another Rose to fill the gap or, I think I will try and take a cutting from one of the other Blythe Spirits.

🗡 Taking off Yucca flower spikes. By now most of your Yuccas will have flowered, and I hope you took the opportunity to enjoy the flower spikes. They have been fantastic this year because of the drought. If your flower spikes are too high because your Yucca has become too large, then it is time to consider chopping it back (but that’s for another day). You need to cut the dead flower spikes off now, as they will only go on to produce seed that you do not want, besides dead dried Yucca flower spikes are not a thing of beauty. Using long handled shears cut at the very base of the flower spike trying not to cut too many green fronds. If you need to get close to The plant then make sure you wear protective glasses as Yucca leaves are notoriously spikey and will easily damage your eyes.

The photo below shows one of my large Yuccas that I cut back a few years ago to create a more rounded shape. You can see that it has flowered profusely this year and therefore there are lots of dead flower spikes. Put the dead flower spikes on your compost heap.

👻 Scarifying the lawn. If you have a lawn now is the time to begin scarifying. Just cutting a lawn is not enough because a thick thatch of cut grass builds up at the roots and stifles new growth. Scarifying at least once a year will remove the thatch and encourage new growth. Now if you have a small lawn you can do this by hand using a lawn rake. It’s tiring but quite fulfilling as you can rake up lots of moss type grass. If you were in England this could be used as lining for hanging baskets; but as we’re  not put it in the compost heap but make sure you layer it in with other things.

I have just bought an electric scarifier and aereater that takes all the back breaking work out of scarifying. However, it gets a frightening amount of thatch out of the lawn and leaves it quite bare; hopefully it will recover. The photo below shows my new scarifier sitting on our biggest lawn at the end of a hard days scarifying. Note the wheel barrow full of thatch, this was one of 9 barrow full I got from this lawn alone.

☠️ Dealing with Cruella’s Creatures. Normally I put up with Cruella’s creatures; she has the cat, an owl a frog/prince and both dogs can be co-opted. The cat is the only true “familiar”, that is until the other night at dinner she suddenly informed me she had taken on something new. Just at that moment I looked down at her wine glass and there it was the “Wine Mantis” when you run out of wine it prays for more. Check the photo below, I have asked her if I can have a “beer bee”.

Cruella (my wife) and I arrived back from our English house to find that we had had a massive thunder storm in Spain whilst we were in England. Hooray, every water butt was full to overflowing, and the grass which I had fed before we went away was so green it could have been in Ireland. With this Great joy comes obvious responsibilities: grass needs to be mown, weeds need to be sprayed, Doves need to be sacrificed (as far as Cruella is concerned). But nevertheless besides these mundane chores there is lots of exciting things to do to keep an old gardener happy.

25th September: Things I have been doing lately.

🌴 Harvesting Dates. After my great success of sun drying figs I am now going to try sun ripening Dates. You will remember in my last post – if you were paying attention – that because of the great drought there was a huge crop of Dates on our Palms this year. Well, I have started to harvest them for the first time. Normally, I just leave them for the squirrels and the birds, but this year there are so many I thought. I deserved some. Dates can be harvested early and then will continue to ripen in the Sun.

The first photo below shows one of our few short Phoenix Palms overflowing with Dates. Most of our trees are about 30/40 feet high and I don’t trust Cruella to hold the ladder. But this one has enough fruit for an experiment in date ripening. You can leave the Dates on the tree to ripen fully, but the chances are that the squirrels and birds will beat you to it. Try not to harvest them when they are green, but wait just that little bit longer till they turn a yellowy colour.

The first job is to cut off the stalks which hold the dates in strands. This is a tricky job as the branches have long strong spikes sticking out all along their length. You should wear strong gardening gloves (but they will still get you). You can either cut the stalks off with a saw or, in my case I used long handled shears. The second photo below shows my crop laid out ready for separating the Dates from the stalks.

The next stage involves sitting in the shade and gently removing the Dates from the stalk by hand. You should only take the best ones with overall continuity of colour. The Dates  come off easily enough with a slight twist. The third photo below shows my Date stripping station (now I read that again it seems slightly creepy) sorry @#me too.

The final stage is to lay the harvested Dates out in the sun to ripen. As you can see from the photo below, I have laid the Dates on tea towels stolen from the kitchen and then covered them with a couple of Cruella’s hats. The idea of the tea towels is that it makes it easier to just wrap up the Dates and bring them in each night. I will let you know how I get on.

🍊 Feeding fruit trees. October is really the last month you should be feeding fruit trees. So, if you haven’t done it yet get out and do it soon. The process is very simple just hoe around the base of the tree to remove any weeds and break up the soil. Then apply the type of feed you prefer, but it must not be just a general feed, you need a specialist food for fruiting trees. You can get this in either liquid or granulated form. My preference is to use liquid form for most of the year, but for this last feed I will use a longer lasting granulated form. Liquid feed is a bit like fast food you eat it quickly, it tastes nice and then it’s gone. Granulated food is like a four course meal at a nice restaurant; you digest it slowly, enjoy every bit and always remember it. I am thinking of giving this garden stuff up and becoming a restaurant critic.

The photo below shows the feed that I use (others are available) note my trusty hoe standing near by (no I’m not going there again, I have already apologised), also don’t forget to hoe the feed in and also water it if it does not rain within two days.

Cruella (my wife) and I are currently at our English house, so I thought I would embellish my international gardening credentials by doing a two countries post on the blog. Before we went away I had some things to finish off in our Spanish garden and of course when I got to England I had the usual cutting back issues.

Anyway without any further ado let’s play international gardening.

16th September: Things I have been doing lately.

🍑 Removing nets from soft fruits. By now all your fruits such as figs and grapes should have finished fruiting and you can now take off the protective nets. If you didn’t put nets up then you probably didn’t have any fruit, but the birds did! It is important to take the nets off now as they can always be a hazard to small birds. The best thing to do is cut the nets off, they will probably have some holes in anyway, and if you try and take them off to save for next year you will only damage the tree. Nets are very cheap so don’t be such a cheapskate, buy new ones next year.

If you have Persimmons don’t take the nets off yet, for although the fruit appears hard, as it ripens on the tree so it becomes soft and the birds will be triggered by the bright yellow colour of the ripe fruit. Also don’t worry if all the leaves have fallen off your Persimmon tree this is meant to happen; the leaves are meant to sacrifice themselves for the fruit. A bit like Jesus, if you think about it.

The photo below shows some old bloke cutting the nets off a fig tree. Cruella says this is me, but I have a different image in my minds eye and I don’t believe her.

👅 Letting Mother in Laws Tongue see the light of day. Mother in Laws Tongue or Sansevieria trifasciata is a common plant here in Spain and is loved for its variegated leaves and drought hardiness. I have various clumps here in the garden and I noticed a large lump pushing through the membrane next to one of them. Out of curiosity I slit the membrane open and there were two new little Mother in Laws Tongue. From the photo below you can see they look just like the little creature that popped out of John Hurts chest in “Alien”.

🍇 Picking the grapes of wrath. The photo below shows the sum total of our grape crop this summer. I have three grape vines and this is all I get thanks to the great drought. Luckily I am not relying on this grape harvest for wine.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 And so to England.

As usual when we arrived our English garden is a bit overgrown and wild. But this actually quite suits it as it is set out as a small walled garden with the river as a backdrop.

✂️ Cutting things back in the back garden. The first thing I usually have to do is a gentle cut back of everything. The aim of this is just to shape things up a little bit and make sure we can walk up and down the garden safely.  The main cutback comes in January.

The first photo below shows the back garden just as I am about to cut it back. Apart from a general tidy up, in particular, I cut back the Roses that tend to have Hips at the end of the season. I am not really a fan of hips so I take them off so that the plant does not waste energy on them. Another plant that needs a tiny trim is the Hydrangeas. These grow over the pathway down the garden, but I really barely touch them. You must leave the spent Hydrangeas flowers on till next year’s new growth comes through. These protect the new growth from frost; this of course does not apply in our part of Spain, but in England it is very important.

The Second and third photos below show the Rose hips and the spent Hydrangea flowers. The final photo shows a large Oleander that I had to cut back a few years ago as it suffered in an English snow storm. I think I will cut it back again this year as it got a touch of frost last Winter and is just too big for its position.

✂️ Cutting things back in the front garden. The front garden like the back garden is small “but perfectly formed”. There is a small walled island bed planted with various shrubs lots of Yuccas and various medium size trees and shrubs. The main cut back here does not come till January, so again it is just a matter of tidying and trimming up. The only difference is the Yucca flower spikes. Like Spain the unusual hot weather in England has produced a fantastic and profuse flowering of Yucca. You need to cut these off when the flowering is over so that the plant does not waste its strength on seeds. The photo below shows the Yucca before trimming.

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.