Border Patrol – December 2017

 

I am keeping track of each of my borders on a monthly basis. My idea was to see what changed from season to season, and eventually to compare from year. Not a great deal has changed since last time, but lets take a quick spin.

Rear Garden

Border 1 – Recently mulched with well rotted horse manure, this border is looking bare. Much of the planting is dormant for the winter, but I have also removed the unlovely carex from the left side.

 

Border 2 – the long sunny border. Or on the day I took the photos, the long gloomy border.  Also recently mulched, this border is waiting for new planting as soon as it’s ready.  I have planted a honeysuckle at the far right end, just behind the cornus ‘midwinter fire’. I am hoping it will cover some of that fence.  This time next month I should be able to prune back the dozen or so clematis. I am hoping for better things from this rabble next year.  There is some sign of bulb action, but I doubt we’ll see flowers till February time.  The mess of carnation mixed with weedy grass has gone, I just dug the lot up and binned it. I have plenty of things that can use the space better.

Border 3 – bare, waiting for the spring.

Border 4 – all cut back and waiting for winter to be over. I am increasingly of the view that the lavender on the left of this border is no longer lovely and must go. No room in this garden for laggards or dullards.

Border 5 – aside from a good thick mulch, nothing has changed here except for total loss of foliage on any deciduous shrubs.   Much pruning to be done here in two or three months.  The abelia, always a bit wayward, is leaning ever more drunkenly – an after effect of a cm or two of snow we had a few weeks back.

Border 6 – the weeny border, it remains unextended, still a job for another month. Mulch aside, the only changes are the tiarella and the gaura finally giving up the ghost and admitting it might be winter. I need to tidy them up a bit I think. The penstemon still looks curiously perky, very lush. I must find something to grow up that bit of trellis. It’s only four or five feet high. There is a clematis planted at the base, but it has always struggled in that spot, I do not hold out much hope for it next year.

Front Garden

I’ll do the lot in one hit rather than border by border. I didn’t quite have enough rotted manure to mulch it all, but several bags have been spread on it.  I’m not too worried, the soil was improved a fair bit in the middle of this year when I dug the new borders. I’ll add more mulch as and when I get hold of it.  In general, things are in wait mode. There are a lot of perennials in here which did not do much last year, new plants that they were, which are healthily biding there time, lots of nice greenery and fresh growth beginning to emerge. There are also good signs of bulbs emerging, planted a couple of months ago.  Border 10, my encroachment into the verge on the pavement side of my front wall, is looking pretty bedraggled. Last month I said I have pansies and/or violas to plant out – I still do, haven’t got around to it yet.

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I feel like the garden is pretty well prepared for the winter.

I’ll be back next month for another Border Patrol.