The stumpery and raised bed in May.

03/06/2020plants, raised bed, stumperyJackie Elwin

The view of these areas from my (wheelchair user’s) eye height must be quite different from my Husband’s who is over 6ft tall. He would be able to see over some of the plants and see what lies beyond, whereas I, being closer to the ground, see more of the weeds, slugs and snails. This April and May have been extremely hot and sunny, with very little rain so most of my time has been spent keeping things watered well (young, new plants especially). In 2014 we put a lot of paving in the stumpery area for me to be able to access most of it, but in doing so it looks quite bare and brown during the winter months. Come spring however it becomes lush and awash with colour.
Along the back of the garage there are 2 small apple trees with a few crocus and iris reticulata bulbs, and cyclamen. I have tried a variety of plants to brighten that area without adding too much competition n to the apple trees. This year I was looking forward to a tulip and wallflower combination from Sarah Raven. Hmmmm it didn’t quite match Sarah’s website image. Beautiful tulips and wallflowers, but, the Tulips Menton flowered way after the Tulips Sarah Raven, and were very tall – 32 inches (81.5cm)!
The old curling stone had blue ajuga all around it, but it started to look very straggly in places so I added a little white saxafrage (unknown).
The purple knapweed is doing well but the plant has a habit of keeling out to the side leaving the middle bare, and also getting mildew so doesn’t look too attractive at times. But it is flowering and the bees love it. Also the forgot-me-nots and the brunneras, and some of the honesty are covered in flowers. The stumpery is left to go a bit wild and I have left a lot of nettles all along the side wall. Other so called weeds are more or less tolerated here, and just get dead-headed before they seed everywhere.

Stumpery looking to back wall.

Stumpery looking towards bench.

Stumpery from the brunnera side.

Curling stone with blue ajuga reptans and white saxafrage.

Purple centaurea (knapweed)

Tulip Sarah Raven

Tulip Sarah Raven, and Menton with the Ruby wallflowers.

Very tall Tulip Menton.

Tulip Sarah Raven, and Menton with the Ruby wallflowers.

What it should have looked like. (Image from Sarah Raven’s website)

The raised bed is looking pretty full and overgrown, but I love it like that. It isn’t your typical raised bed for disabled people. I have filled it with woodland plants so I can get that feeling of being right inside the woodland. I can see, feel and smell the plants up close. The syringa is in full flower and smelling gorgeous. Shame the flowers are all at the top now. It will have to have a good prune so that it can produce flowers slightly lower down so that I can experience them more.

The combination of the bright green of the saxifrage against the deep purple of the acer is fabulous and these delicate flowers just flutter and quiver in the breeze.

My favourite fern had been chopped back as usual and is looking scrumptious right now and it will continue to billow out over the next month or so. There is a lovely purple aquilegia growing far too close to it and kind of spoils the look of the fern, so the aquilegia is going to be howked out once it has finished flowering.

And it isn’t just the big plants that I adore – have a look at the mosses on the wall. The furry moss is so tactile and I stroke it every time a go past. The tiny sporophytes of some moss species are just as beautiful and fascinating.

Now that the rain has come – so too have the slugs and snails. Back to the early morning and evening slug patrol to keep these blighters at bay.

Raised bed from the back corner.

Raised bed looking from back towards door.

Raised bed from right side.

Raised bed, Saxifraga umbrosa and Acer palmatum ‘dissectum garnet’

Furry moss on the raised bed wall.

Tiny moss sporophytes on the raised bed wall.

May Aquilegias

29/05/2020Aquilegia, flowers, house plantsJackie Elwin

These beautiful aquilegias add a touch of the ‘cottage garden’
style to the garden. They flower during spring and keep their foliage
for most of the summer and autumn and although they look quite delicate,
they are quite hardy. They love the shade in the stumpery area and the
raised bed, but are equally at home in the side border too. One pink
one has grown quite tall – 1m35cm which is as tall as I am (wheelchair
user). I love the way that, as the flower matures, it raises it’s head until the seed heads point upwards like little jester hats.

I don’t remember all their names and they have
been quite promiscuous so who knows what will come up next year. I did
have to take quite a few out as they had seeded in the wrong place, but
they have been potted up ready to be sold whenever the Duddingston Kirk
Garden Club starts up again after lockdown.

Baby pink aquilegia

Deep pink aquilegia

Pink aquilegia

Purple aquilegia

Purple aquilegia face on

Purple and white aquilegia

White aquilegia

Ruby aquilegia

Pale blue aquilegia

Pink and white aquilegia

Tall pink aquilegia

Sunniest April on record!

29/04/2020ferns, flowers, plantsJackie Elwin

My goodness what a change from the extremely wet winter. I have been out with the hose a few times to keep some of the recently planted shrubs and small plants hydrated. The later of the narcissi have now flowered, most of them beat the slugs, but a few have been nibbled before they flowered, some flowers nibbled while in full flower, and a couple chewed down to about 2 inches high!
The Actea is a very tall slender narcissi with a subtle scent. The Pipit is a small petite variety which also have a nice scent. The centre and cup of Pipit fades to a pale creamy yellow.

Narcissus ‘Actaea’ poeticus

Narcissus jonquil ‘Pipit’

The rhododendron looks fine after it’s move at the end of last year. The pieris which was leaning over to the right and was very top heavy has now been chopped quite far down. There was already new growth from the trunk further down, so after a good feed and water I am hoping it will bush out from the base.

leaning Pieris japonica ‘Forest flame’

chopped Pieris japonica ‘Forest flame’

The ivy-leaved toadflax is looking good just now and although some other plants are gradually coming into flower, most of the narcissi are over, so too are the corydalis, and some primroses. I am waiting rather impatiently to see if the nepeta and coreopsis have made it through the winter, as I don’t see any signs of growth yet.

Cymbalaria muralis (ivy-leaved toadflax)

And now for the mistake: I had originally thought of putting the sarcoccoca (winter flowering with fabulous scent) at the back of the garden where it would get quite a lot of shade, but a bit of sun in the morning. I then changed my mind and thought it would be nice to have the scent drift up onto the patio area and so I asked Harry to plant it just in front of the patio. WHY DID I DO THAT?? It gets much more sun there, and every day I checked on it, and it just looked sadder, and sadder. It finally dawned on me that it didn’t like that much sun, so it is now in the shadier stumpery area of the garden. So far a few of the branches look like they are perking up, so hopefully it will survive.

very sad looking Sarcococca hookerian var. digyna ‘Purple stem’

Now is the time of year for the ferns to start uncurling their croziers, and each fern unfurls differently. Oh how I wish I could remember all my ferns names! I will attempt the names of these ones.
Now I am just waiting for some rain, it might just be a shower, in which case I may have to get the hose out tomorrow.

Osmunda regalis ‘Purpuraascens’

Asplenium of some sort

Polystichum ?

Dryopteris crispa congesta

Spring flowers in a chilly Edinburgh garden.

11/04/2020flowers, plants, springJackie Elwin

There are a few plants just gone over, and many plants almost in flower, but right at this minute there are plenty of spring plants that give lots of welcome colour. In my back garden few of the shrubs that are in flower now are the Spirea Arguta ‘Bridal wreath’, Pieris japonica ‘Forest flame’, Prunus Shiroto ‘Mount Fugi’, Osmanthus burkwoodii, Viburnum x Bodnantense Dawn, Corylus avellana contorta catkins, and Berberis darwinii
or x lologensis apricot queen. In the front garden is the Mahonia Wagneri pinnacle. I won’t photograph them all but here a few:

Pieris japonica Forest flame

Pieris with fresh leaves

Spirea Arguta Bridal wreath

Prunus Shiroto Mount Fugi

Prunus Shiroto Mount Fugi close up

Berberis Darwinii or x lologensis apricot queen

The Pieris will have to be lopped off once it has flowered I am afraid, because it is leaning all the way over to the right as it is very top heavy. The good news is that around the base is lots of new growth so it won’t be long before it gains height.
The spring plants are dotted around the garden: Anemone blanda white, Brunnera macrophylla and Jack frost, Fritillaria meleagris snakes head, Hellebores (various), Lamium hybridum, Lunaria annua, Myosotis, Narcissi (various), Oxalis acetosella, Primulas (various), Pulmonaria Lewis Palmer, Vinca major and minor, Viola, Corydalis solida pink, Dicentra formosa, Cymbalaria muralis, Epimedium sulphureum, and Tulips Mystic Van Eijk. There are quite a few just ready to come into flower soon.

I am sure the pink tulips were darker last year.
I managed to decapitate one of the tiny Narcissus Segovia as my wheelchair spokes just caught the flower head. Some of the other Narcissi have succumbed to slug or snail damage. Only one Anemone coronaria Bordeaux is in bloom just now. I love the combination of the purple hellebores with the purple stems of hebe, just as the flowers go over on the hellebore, the hebe flowers bloom, although there are a few hebe flowers out just now. The Pulmonaria has lovely pink and blue combo flowers and pretty spotted leaves. Don’t you just LOVE spring!!
The pond however is rather bare as the lockdown due to the coronavirus meant that the pond edges had been tidied up and the overgrown grasses etc taken away, however, the company could not work during lockdown so I am still waiting for the new plants. Only the yellow marsh marigold is in flower at the pond edges.

Hellebore alongside Hebe Pink paradise (about to flower)

Pulmonaria Lewis Palmer.

Helleborus argutifolius

Corydalis solida with Munstead wood rose.

Oxalis acetosella

Lamium hybridum

Narcissus pontresina

Narcissus cheerfulness

Narcissus Segovia

Anemone coronaria Bordeaux

Tulips Van Eijk

Hellebores for early spring colour.

07/03/2020flowers, plantsJackie Elwin

Finally a bit of warm sunshine – warm enough for me to get a spot of gardening done and tidying up of the patio. February was such a wet month, the ground has not been able to dry off for months now. The patio is full of plants at the moment: some of which need to be planted in the back garden, while others are in little pots to be sold in May at the Duddingston Kirk Garden Club.
I have been waiting for my six double Hellebores to flower before I plant them as I couldn’t see any labels on them when they arrived from the nursery last year. They were only small plants and so were nice and cheap. Three have now flowered and have been planted, but three are still to flower. I do love Hellebores as they give great colour at this time of year and they clump up well. I had a couple of old large clumps that needed a bit of rejuvenation so I split the old large white clump so that I could have some in the stumpery as well as in the main bed. They didn’t mind at all being split and moved.

Helleborus niger white

I split the purple clump to have some at the back of the garden, raised bed and also the main bed. This one is in the raised bed which is much drier and shadier than the main bed so it doesn’t put on as good a show.

Helleborus niger purple

The one in the main bed is also in the shade, but it gets more rain than the raised bed, and the soil is more moisture retentive too. It loves it there.

Helleborus niger purple

Of the six Hellebores that I bought last year, the Helleborus Double Ellen white spotted is doing ok (a little bedraggled but ok) and was not on the list – it may have been substituted instead of the double white but I won’t know until the others have flowered.


Helleborus Double Ellen white spotted

This next photo may be the Double form of Picotee but is is not in great shape so is pretty hard to tell.

(Just after I took the photo my new dog had a mad run around the garden and took both flower heads off! Grrrrrrrr!)

Helleborus Double Ellen Picotee?

The Double purple one is looking good and I can’t wait for them to clump up and put on a good display in the coming years.

Helleborus Double Ellen purple

The Helleborus argutifolius is situated in the stumpery and is just starting to flower now. Their flowers last such a long time and are a quite bright, pale green that show up well against their very dark green foliage.

Helleborus argutifolius

Now I mentioned a new dog, well, he is a force to be reckoned with in the garden. He has already charged into my lovely Acer palmatum Dissectum atropurpureum and broken off a very large branch. He has trampled a few tulips (not in flower yet). He has ripped out a Verbena bonariensis, and has chewed on a few shrubs and just loves to leap about in my favourite fern! Argh! He is six years old (from the dog home) and still requires a bit of training so here’s hoping he will calm down a bit in the garden eventually. I have already removed my beautiful dark red rose (‘Erotica’) as it had extremely big lethal jaggy prickles and I didn’t want the dog to get hurt. The good news is that my good pals (neighbours) now have it in a position to deter opportunistic crooks.

There are a few bulbs in flower in the garden, like the purple crocus, but still waiting for the Narcissi and tulips. The conservatory is looking colourful just now with the reds of the cyclamen, yellow Narcissus Tete-a-Tete, purple Oxalis, green Selaginella Kraussiana and Soleirolia Soleirolli (mind your own business plant) and various Sempervivums, cacti and ferns. The greenfly are around already so I have to regularly check my plants to just keep the blighters from getting out of control.

Conservatory colour

There is still no sign of frog spawn yet although the heron has been spotted on the garage roof again, and Harry did find a frog in the front garden. The first spawn in 2018, was on 20th March, then in 2019, it was 27th February. Wonder when it will be this year? The pond is very overgrown at one side and really needs dug out and replanted. That will be the next big job.

My tips on cleaning houseplants.

07/02/2020cleaning, house plantsJackie Elwin

House-plants collect just as much dust and debris as your furniture, shelves and ornaments do. This dust can not only affect the appearance, making them dull and lifeless, but can also prevent the plants from respiring by clogging up the stoma. (Respiration facilitates gaseous exchange via stoma which are small pores in the leaves). This dust can also prevent sunlight falling on the leaves which can reduce the photosynthesis by reducing the light levels.
Some plants with large, flattish leaves can be easily sponged with clean tepid water one leaf at a time, but I prefer to stick a few plants together in the bath and give them a tepid shower. It is best to do this in the morning so they have time to dry off before the cooler night. Make sure to drain them well – you could even put a rack underneath them while they are in the bath so they don’t get water-logged. Or you could hold them at an angle while using the shower head over, and under, the leaves. While the plants are draining you can check the decorative pots or saucers for any damage and give them a clean too. Before replacing your plants back in their decorative pots, check the plant for any signs of pests or disease, and remove any tatty looking foliage or dead material. Check if the roots are showing out through the bottom of the pot as this may be a sign that they need re-potting or dividing. Give them a gentle shake to get remaining water droplets off, and be careful of positioning your plants just in case any droplets could fall onto a wooden surface, or worse – an electrical appliance. Water and electricity don’t mix!
You can buy products that contain wax or oils to polish some leaves to give a high shine. You would just use a soft cloth or cotton wool to apply, or it may be sprayed if it is an aerosol, but, I would suggest that this could actually clog up the pores that you have just cleaned. I have also heard of people using milk or oil (such as olive oil or coconut oil) to shine leaves. In nature, usually only the young leaves look glossy and they tend to get duller as they age, so in my opinion, if the whole plant looks shiny then it doesn’t look natural. I would avoid putting any product on the leaves.

plants in the bath having a shower

Some plants shouldn’t be showered, such as, some succulents or cacti, or those that have hairy leaves. I clean them using an old, soft watercolour brush or a clean blusher brush. These soft brushes can remove the dust easily. To get some bits of debris from very hairy cacti, I use my tweezers. The cacti hairs tend to act like nets and collect all sorts of seeds blown in from the garden or discarded fragments of a spider’s feast such as wings and heads. My conservatory is home to many spiders so I am constantly picking bits out from my cacti. I have even found slug eggs at the base of a cactus plant during a routine clean and inspection. If you clean your plants regularly then you prevent any infestation of pests or disease occurring and your plants will stay looking their best.

cacti debris can be removed using tweezers

The importance of evergreens in the winter garden.

26/01/2020evergreens, plantsJackie Elwin

I hate seeing just a load of brown in the garden at this time of year, it is so dismal when the quality of light isn’t great either. Now that the perennials are closing down for the winter there are a lot of bare patches in the garden so it is nice to have some ‘greenery’ that lasts all year round. (For the sake of argument I am using the term ‘evergreen’ to describe a plant that is not deciduous ie. it keeps it’s leaves on throughout the year. They may not necessarily be green.) Not only do evergreens provide a focal point, when you scan the garden your eyes jump form one focal point to the next rather than to the bare earth, but they also help to form structure in the garden. They are good for the wildlife, not only by providing some protection from the harsh winter weather, but also protection from predators. Often people think of evergreens as being just shrubs, but there are plenty plants that are classed as evergreen that are not shrubs. They all give the garden some much needed colour during the dull, grey, winter days. In my garden the winter colour of the evergreens comes from a variety of plants: a few different types of ivies adorning the ugly walls, golden grasses, gold and green holy, berberis, purple huecheras, carpets of dark green cyclamen foliage, periwinkle, epimedium foliage, mahonia, privet hedge, mosses, ferns, hellebores, osmanthus, rhododendron, pieris, chiastophylum, saxifrages, hebe, tree heath, heather, some succulents, and rosemary to name a few. Don’t forget the lawn! Many gardens now have lots of decking and slabbing and can look very drab and dead, but even just a small lawn can add a touch of evergreen life.
There are some plants which are classed as semi-evergreen, which means they may hold onto their leaves in mild winters but shed them if the weather gets too cold. And just to confuse things there are some plants that hold onto their dead leaves during winter but shed them once the new growth starts such as beech trees. As far as I know beech is not classed as evergreen because the leaves they hold onto are dead.

Ferns, epimedium, chiastophylum, purple heuchera, and ivy.

Ferns, moss, grasses, hellebore, osmanthus, ivy, and periwinkle

Of course colour in winter can also come from non evergreen plants too. There are pink flowers on the bare branches of viburnum right now, as are the fiery orange flowers of the witch hazel. There are sporadic pink flowers on the hebe, some of the hellebores are about to flower, and the corkscrew hazel catkins are forming, The bark of my neighbour’s silver birch is very bright and silvery, as are the papery white honesty seed heads. The spring bulbs are just popping through – the snowdrops will be the first to flower in my garden. One plant that has amazed me though by still being in flower in January is the lychnis ‘white robin’. I have 3 little pots of it on my patio table waiting for me to plant them and they look superb just now.

Lychnis, flos – cuculi alba white robin.

Parakeet visitor.

28/12/2019birds, parakeet, wildlifeJackie Elwin

So Christmas is over, I do hope you all had a happy festive time. A few good days with unusually mild weather has certainly brought the squirrels out to play. They are digging in ever plant pot, and pulling out the cyclamen and other small bulbs, and generally being a bit of a pest. Harry put chicken wire over some pots to protect them from little paws, but it can’t really be done over some other pots. It doesn’t look very attractive but it does work.
We did get a rather noisy, colourful visitor over the last few days – a green parakeet! I don’t know if he/she is an escapee from somewhere near, or if it is one of those that have now found a home in Edinburgh. Apparently they originated from the foothills of the Himalayas so they have acclimatised well to living in the UK. So far, I have seen him eating the last few berries of the Rowan tree, and either the buds or flowers (or both) of the Viburnum. He has been getting mobbed by the crows, jackdaws and magpies but he doesn’t seem overly bothered by them. I did read somewhere that in areas where there are flocks of these noisy parakeets, the chattering and vocabulary amongst the other bird species increases. We shall see (or hear). As much as it is nice to see him, I don’t fancy have a flock of them around, making a racket and eating everything in sight.

Green parakeet eating Rowan berries

Green parakeet eating Viburnum buds or flowers (or both)

And cue the rain…

02/12/2019ferns, frostJackie Elwin

well we did have a couple of beautifully sunny, but freezing days here, but now it is back to the drizzly rain. The poor wildlife, the pond and bird bath were frozen over so I have to keep taking out fresh water for them. I do hope my frost-proof terracotta pots will be ok – we have had so much rain that most of my pots are waterlogged despite some of them being on little feet, or under the bench or table. As much as I detest being cold, I love taking frosty photos, so out I go, wearing loads of layers to brave the chilly weather just to take some snaps – so here are just a few. The sun is low at this time of year so a lot of the garden gets no sunshine at all, but when it does hit the frost, it twinkles. The frost crystals on the saxifrage are so long that it makes the normally flat rosettes of leaves look positively fluffy.

frosty fern

frosty saxifrage

sunburst on frost

low sun on frosty branches

frost on rose

low sun on hair fern

Cold and frosty mornings…

20/11/2019frost, plantsJackie Elwin

can make for photo opportunities. The temperatures have been down to -3 C early morning for the last few days and it is just mid November. I really hate being cold but I quite like macro photography so the frosty mornings always look like a great opportunity to take some macro shots of ice crystals. Not only do I shake with the cold, but I have found there is a lot of camera shake just pressing the shutter button so I have been trying out using my mobile phone as a remote control (my mirrorless Sony alpha 5100 doesn’t have a space for one). It works ok but isn’t that great, and I also find that I just can’t get into the best position to take the shot I want. I did however get a couple of good shots of frosty crystals. Need more practise.

Heath and his friend Cobis (sp?) very kindly came round to move the rhododendron for us the other day. It is now in the right hand, back corner (where the Chamaecyparis used to be) and it looks much better already and really fills that corner. They also planted the new Enkianthus campanulatus to the left of it. The Pieris japonica Forest flame, to the right, will get a good prune once it has flowered in the spring, as it has gone into a weird shape and is very top heavy. It has loads of flower buds just now so I would like to enjoy the flowers first if these frosts don’t damage them. I now have a lot of planting space at the front of that border, so I need to think about how I am going to fill it up. That area gets some sun in the morning but is in deep shade by the golf course trees by noon. The tree canopy also means is can get a bit dry there in the summer. In winter once the leaves have fallen the area enjoys more rain.

Next on the ‘to do’ list is to sort out the congested areas by the pond, so, Rosie from Watergems is coming round to see exactly what needs to be done.

Frosty Leptinella squalida Platt’s black

Frosty Saxifraga umbrosa

Frost crystals close up

Rhododendron moved

Cardesque Garden

Gardening from an ageing, paraplegic perspective.