UK gardening - let the deluge begin!!!!

Author

let the deluge begin!!!!

madgardener

2005-12-28, 6:21 pm

I got home from taking my little mini-cat, Maggie (Xena around mama <g> ) to
the vet's to be spayed, and stopped at the top of the ridge beside the
mailboxes. The view southwards towards English Mountain was awesome. The
thick clouds had gathered midway up the mountain side's, clinging to the
trees and cedar needles in soft grays and blueish white clumps and wads. On
the ridge where I was, the sky was crispy blue but starting to dirty up with
the approaching rain storms the meteorologist had promised last night.

Birds were winging across the pasture hillsides below and around me, and I
turned off the radio and put the windows down and listened to their calls
back and forth as they cut thru the airways and played with one another. I
wondered where the little fairy air traffic controlers were, and had a humor
moment as I pictured little folk trying to orchestrate the flight patterns
of the birds that were everywhere, and snapped out of my daydream as I
noticed the changing colors of the clouds before me.

They were bulking up and moving heavily southeastwards towards the French
Broad River that makes up the body of Douglas Lake, and on towards North
Carolina. Snaking around the hillsides, I was inspired to see the sunlight
was giving the clouds a texture and pattern of soft rose and orange.

While I was sitting there, my mind gathered about me and I reached to open
the huge door of my farmer's mailbox, and the deluge has officially
begun........garden cataloges. Burpee, Territorial Seed Company, Seeds of
change,Vermont Bean seed company,Seymour's Selected Seeds, another Bluestone
Perennial book, the new One Green World fruit catalog (woo hoo!!!!!!),
Totally Tomato's!, McClure and Zimmerman spring bulbs, and R. H. Shumway's
Garden Guide wrapped around all of those and rubber banded. WoW!!

The smell of the rains that were coming was rushing inside the window and
smoothing my face and getting my mind to thinking of garden things. With the
warm temperatures, I bet I could dislodge some more of that Vinca major and
plant those Scillia bulbs that a friend gave me a couple of weeks ago for a
winter present. All my containers and the ground was quite frozen and
wouldn't even allow the dibble to poke a hole for the little purple bulbs.

As I lifted up the mass of catalogs, I noticed just past the mailboxes in
the pasture beyond a huge mass of robins. At the end of December? So soon?
This winter is going to be interesting.

As I put the car into drive and carefully pulled into the gravel driveway
that leads past Miz Mary's house, avoiding the deep puddles that dotted the
driveway the whole length, I noticed she had more beauty berry bushes this
year than she did last. Apparently her's are making seedling shrubs in her
main flowerbed. But the purpleness of the berries on all the arching
branches was most pleasant to observe, and I made mental note to ask if she
wanted me to lift a few of them later on before she winds up having a mass
of shrubs in the great circular bed. Three or five are alright, but more
than ten gets to be a bit much, don't you think? <gbseg>

I stopped for the birds that were bathing in the last large puddle near my
entrance gate and huge clump of Zebra grass and watched them fluff and preen
and dabble in the water. Put the car into park and let them carry on for
several minutes until they finally noticed me and fluttered off in huffs.

Arms loaded, my eyes were looking for garden sign. Green leaves errupting
up thru the older, darker green leathery leaves of the hellebore under the
Black Cherry tree in that shade bed were greeting me as I had pulled in and
parked. The little old lady garden gnome with the frogs in her hands and at
her feet and pockets of her skirt was just visible because the new growth of
Hellebore leaves was almost as tall as she is. And the last threads of
perennial begonia's seedpods flapped and twisted and shook in the winds,
like little tan triangles on tethers.

I could hear the dogs wailing their dismay at my ditching them to take
Maggie to the vet's, but she was much more complacent and calm riding with
me without the hounds in tow than if I'd had them along as usual.

Across the driveway thru the wet leaves (I had snatched her up so quickly
that I'd forgotten my shoes.......), my toes briefly enjoyed the wet,
coolness of the not yet decayed leaves as I padded quickly to the nook's
mini deck. The dogs almost bowled me over as I pushed the door open as my
hands were loaded with so many catalogs. Toenails scrambling on the deck
boards, they raced past me and sat next to the car as if waiting for me to
let them in so they could go riding. Later kids, when we take Mike to work.

Thru the den, catch a glimmer of the electric pink flamingo in the south
window with all the cacti and tropical plants, I noticed something red and
realized it was red flowers on Kalanchole. As I knelt to look at the little
flowers closer, the Crown of Thorns next to it had more flowers, of a more
orange red and much larger, as if to show up the Kalanchole flowers. So the
winter fairies have moved inside and are settling down and doing their
magic.

It's going to be a great New Year.

Thanks for letting me share a moment before the rain storms move in.

madgardene up on the ridge, back in Fairy Holler, overlooking English
Mountain in Eastern Tennessee, zone 7, Sunset zone 36

Chuckie

2005-12-29, 9:21 am

Yes it will be an interresting winter.
Had a thunderstorm yesterday.
Chuckie in a thawed out but soon to be frozen again north, zone 5

Klara

2005-12-29, 4:21 pm

In message <43b304c7$1_1@news.vic.com>, madgardener <madgard@vic.com>
writes
>Thanks for letting me share a moment before the rain storms move in.

And thanks for making me feel better - Feeling sorry for myself with a
bad cold and the family here and unable to say a word...

But the garden looked lovely this morning, with the snow and the frost:
the ring-necked doves and the woodpigeons are just the right colour for
winter! But the rest of the garden is feeling as sorry for itself as I
am ... more frost recently than we've had for maybe a decade. It'll be
interesting to see what survives...

--
Klara, Gatwick basin

madgardener

2005-12-29, 8:21 pm

"Klara" <klara@nospams.co.uk> wrote in message
news:muInhMKvXDtDFwI9@comcrafts.demon.co.uk...
> In message <43b304c7$1_1@news.vic.com>, madgardener <madgard@vic.com>
> writes
>
> And thanks for making me feel better - Feeling sorry for myself with a bad
> cold and the family here and unable to say a word...

but the GOOD news is that you were there able to enjoy being with family,
despite not being able to say a word. You could have carried around a pad
and made notes and been funny <g> as much as I talk, it's interesting when
I lose my voice and listen more of what's going on...........LOL
>
> But the garden looked lovely this morning, with the snow and the frost:
> the ring-necked doves and the woodpigeons are just the right colour for
> winter! But the rest of the garden is feeling as sorry for itself as I am
> ... more frost recently than we've had for maybe a decade. It'll be
> interesting to see what survives...

I wonder what growing zone you're in? Here zone 7 (which I always say it
here, but I'm really straddling zone's 6 and 7 with my micro-climate)
is -23o to -18o C and 7 is -18o to -12o C (my wonderous book converts
temperatures for me! ) realistically it CAN go as cold as -18o C and has
actually gotten snaps that were colder in years past. But there is no
allowance for below freezing in zone 7. I tend to have plants that have
acclimated a bit. Like my fig tree, that doesn't read the book that says it
shouldn't be living up here on my ridge, except that I planted it where it
would get full southwestern exposure, and in a raised bed where it's roots
would be warmer than the actual ground's is. Thanks for hollering back at
me! There will be more rambles as things start waking up..........
madgardener up on the chilly and damp ridge, back in Fairy Holler,
overlooking English Mountain in Eastern Tennessee, where we WILL be getting
frost tonight, maybe even snow flurries!
>
> --
> Klara, Gatwick basin

Klara

2005-12-30, 3:21 pm

In message <43b472f1$1_2@news.vic.com>, madgardener <madgard@vic.com>
writes
>I wonder what growing zone you're in? Here zone 7 (which I always say
>it here, but I'm really straddling zone's 6 and 7 with my
>micro-climate) is -23o to -18o C and 7 is -18o to -12o C (my wonderous
>book converts temperatures for me! ) realistically it CAN go as cold
>as -18o C and has actually gotten snaps that were colder in years past.
>But there is no allowance for below freezing in zone 7. I tend to have
>plants that have acclimated a bit. Like my fig tree, that doesn't read
>the book that says it shouldn't be living up here on my ridge, except
>that I planted it where it would get full southwestern exposure, and in
>a raised bed where it's roots would be warmer than the actual ground's
>is. Thanks for hollering back at me! There will be more rambles as
>things start waking up.......... madgardener up on the chilly and damp
>ridge, back in Fairy Holler, overlooking English Mountain in Eastern
>Tennessee, where we WILL be getting frost tonight, maybe even snow flurries!

US zones don't really apply here - going by, say, New York, it's a lot
warmer in the winter and colder in the summer, and both winter and
summer it's a lot less sunny. I was amazed when I first came (35 years
ago) at the flowers and vegetables in the winter - all kinds of
winter-flowering cherries and jasmines - and how early and beautiful and
long spring was. (I was also amazed to see people sometimes in shorts in
winter and in fur coats in the middle of summer!) But in those days
there weren't so many garden centres yet, and so generally only people
who knew what they were doing grew plants outside their natural range.
Now garden centres are everywhere, and many people try everything - and
as it's warmer, lots of things do survive, at least for a while. But
although spring gets earlier and earlier, there are still occasional
late frosts (and more so in the frost pocket where we live), and so
those early buds have been getting frosted. The wisteria has budded
earlier and earlier, with the result that most years the buds are killed
off.

This year, though, was different: frost (and frozen bird bath) almost
every day since the beginning of November, and so many of the more
delicate plants (and with luck the incredible numbers of slugs and
snails and diseases) will have been killed off.

But the snow has now gone, and I think we're also in for a deluge....

--
Klara, Gatwick basin

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