Diary entry 6) Cherry Walk planting

On to the fun part. Plants! (and a bit of weeding with the hoe)

We began our planting in January as we got back after Christmas. They were mostly hardy, winter flowering shrubs including Mahonia, Daphne, holly and some ground coverers to help keep the weeds down.

We've planted in classic odd numbers, trying to place the scented plants near the paths.
We've had to put rabbit guards up around each plant to protect them whilst they get established. For this we used chicken wire and canes.

We spent one day clearing the smaller borders around the main beds using mainly lawn rakes and forks, as well as trimming back with secateurs. This was mainly clearing dead grasses and making space for the bulbs and hellebore's that were flowering. We dug up as much as we could of the clumps of stinking irises that were invading. There was a beautiful magnolia tree that needed pruning of its lower branches to create a more even shape.

Last week we planted another large number of plants. These included the bright green stems of Kerria, bright flame-like branches of Cornus (dogwood), scented flowers of Viburnum x bodnantense 'Dawn' as well as many others. We fenced everything we planted once again to protect from hungry rabbits. 

I will update this post further once I get back to college and take some more photos and pick up some more names of plants that I've missed out. With any luck it will be good weather.

Diary entry 5) Taking Pelargonium Cuttings (softwood cuttings)

Pelargoniums are the genus which includes geraniums. They are ideal for taking softwood cuttings and have a good success rate.

Our tutor, David, bought in a massive load of bedding pelargoniums that he had lifted from a garden he works in. His client was happy he was using them as they would otherwise have been thrown out or composted. There were numerous plants, the ten of us had around five each. These 'parent' plants were now our stock plants from which the cutting material is taken. Each cutting is a 'clone' of the parent plant as you're using part of it to make a new plant without any external genes coming in. So a cutting from a specific red geranium will grow into a plant with the same characteristics.

How to take softwood cuttings

1. These cuttings can be done in the autumn or spring ( we will probably do both from the same stock plants)
2. Select healthy, shortish, fat shoots. Remove them from the parent plant by cutting with sharp secateurs immediately above a node (a type of swelling in the stem) or bud. Leave a few good stems on the parent plant.
3. Remove flower buds, lower leaves on the bottom half of the cutting and any leaves with brown flecks (these can be diseased). Cut the stem just below a node where there is the highest concentration of the plant's hormones.
4. Fill pots with seed compost, mixed with horticultural grit or perlite to aid drainage. Insert two or three cutting around the edge of the pot, angling the leaves outward so they don't interfere with each other. Water the compost and stand the pots in a light position indoors or in a green house. Don't cover the pots, they need air circulation to keep them disease free. The more humid the environment the better for pathogens, fungus and mildew.
   
5. In a few weeks,  the cut will have callused over and roots will begin to grow. A good root system should develop after six to eight weeks.
6. In the spring (March or April if the cuttings were done in the autumn)  knock the cuttings out of the pot and transplant into larger individual pots of multi-purpose compost. Keep them well watered. Plant out into beds or containers once risk of frost is gone.

Diary entry 4) Top dressing the Cherry Walk

After digging the borders in the Cherry Walk we top dressed them with well rotted farmyard manure. You don't want the fresh stuff as it can scorch plant's roots and damage rather than being beneficial.

As you can see from the photos, it took a lot of muck but it should enrich the soil for a long period, therefore subsequent courses wont have to disturb the plants to top dress the soil again for several years. We left the fallen leaves from the cherry trees as they will eventually be taken down into the soil by the worms and become good organic matter.

Some of the bulbs that had been planted when the borders were first dug are already in flower. I think these were autumn crocuses but I can't remember for certain - but the label's there somewhere!

This panorama shows just how big the area that we're working on is, but also how beautiful it is and the potential it's got to be a great place to visit and enjoy.

After that long day we were blessed with a beautiful autumn sunset in the evening.

Diary entry 3) Planting spring bulb containers

5th October 2014

I bought these metal containers at Clas Olfsen really cheap as I liked the hot pink colour. I thought they would make great spring bulb containers, for a bit of early colour. I'd already bought a selection of bulbs, including a purple mix of tulips, crocuses, a couple of hyacinths and the 'classic white' collection. I wanted a mix of colour and height with a range of bulbs over the spring months from late Feb to April.

Before adding the compost I had to make some drainage holes near the base of the containers and I added a small amount of 'crocs' (broken pots) to aid drainage.

I planted the larger bulbs at the recommended depth but then planted the smaller bulbs like the crocuses lower than recommended so they would pop up slightly later than normal - just to add more impact.

I just just ordinary peat free compost, lightly watered them and left them in our un-heated greenhouse over the autumn and winter. Writing this post in February I can say that all of the bulbs have come through and I've got flowering crocuses already with everything else just peeking through the surface. I had planted another couple of larger containers with bulbs in the autumn but left them outside and I would say they are only about a week behind those that over wintered in the greenhouse. I guess that because we have had a mild winter, they've not really had a great disadvantage by being outside. I'll take some photos of the pots as they are at the moment and then later on in the spring too. I think this autumn, after planting the bulbs I will add some winter pansies and other plants over the top so we've got some instant, long lasting colour in the pots through the winter.

Diary entry 2) Introduction to The Cherry Walk

The Cherry Walk will appear quite a bit on this blog. It's where, as a course, we do a lot of our practical work and assessments. It used to be a set of meandering paths through a wooded area with large informal flower beds. However, over time it had become neglected and overgrown with weeds and scraggy shrubs and old tree stumps. Our tutor David had, in the summer, decided to lay claim to the area and bring it back to life. The college were more than happy for someone to work on the area and bring some beauty back. the structure was there, beautifully shaped beds and paths, all under the canopy of various trees, predominantly prunus's (cherry trees).

So, on the 23rd September 2014 we were introduced to the Cherry Walk. Over the summer the college technicians had sprayed weed killer several times. We saw this mass of dead and dying plant matter and not a lot of hope!

Our first task was to clear the 'trash' (the dead material) with rakes to get down to the soil.

The beds had been so neglected for so long that they were incredibly compacted and poor quality. We then needed to dig the area to break up the soil structure, encourage water, air and worms in to rejuvenate it. We split into teams and, using mainly border spades began digging in pairs from the middle of the border, out.

This was back breaking work, even for a team of around ten people. September was a beautiful month, full of sunshine but this meant the ground (clay soil) had been baked hard for a long period of time making digging a lot of work. It took us three days of digging to cover the whole area. We then left it a week or so, by then October was bringing a little light rain, to allow the soil to take up a little water and give the chance for worms to move in and start working for us!

We then began to top dress the soil with farmyard manure. This was readily available by the barrow- load straight from the colleges' resident horses and cows. Again, this took several days of work. We used scaffold boards as planks, careful not to compact the ground we'd worked hard to dig. As the manure was loaded, generously and evenly, onto the beds we gently mixed it into the soil using forks. The aim was to allow the nutrients to enrich the soil over the winter, allowing the worms and the weather (rain and frosts) to break down the material and, by Spring, have a wonderful, rich soil with a light 'fryable' (that nice crubly texture you see in nice borders and gardens) texture for planting into.

Just before we left the borders to their own devices for the winter, we did plant some bulbs in large patches.
this was a lovely reward for a couple of months' labour!

These included (I've forgotton some!) :

Iris reticulata

Galanthus ( snowdrops)

Hyacinthoides non-scripta (bluebells)

Cyclamen

Daffodils

Lilium martagon (Martagon Lily)

Once, the bulbs were planted at the right depth (just check the planting instructions) we labelled the area so we would know what we planted, and then ringed the planted areas with stakes so that, in the spring when we were planting/ weeding etc we could avoid disturbing the bulbs.

Diary entry 1) A little idea...

Ok, so I've been into gardens and gardening from a young age. I love being rewarded with flowers or edibles after all that work and time that has been invested. All the sun, the rain, the digging and weeding.

Last September I took my interest and hobby a step further by enrolling on a horticulture course at Easton and Otley College. This college has two campuses - I go to Otley, near Woodbridge in Suffolk. The college is a well respected and established centre for courses in argriculture, horticulture, building trades and animal studies. They have fantastic facilities, students and staff which creates a fantastic atmosphere.

I enrolled on a one day per week course so that I could carry on working. This was the City and Guilds level 2 in Gardening. Hopefully, this blog can tell the story of the course, help me keep a diary and even pass on any tips that I pick up along the way.

I also hope to add some posts about what I'm up to at home, and how my newest project of an overgrown and neglected allotment gets along.
Anyway, so stay tuned for proper posts which I will hopefully get under way soon.