My garden blog

For anyone interested we have posted a couple of updates, including one about the plants that have come inside for winter.

link to blog

 

We generally dont have to dig plats up plants for winter the ones tht come in are pot grown, so its just a case of moving them about. It probbaly looks more work than it is. The majority of the garden is hardy and does not need much in the way of protection. We could achieve pretty much the same look without having the tender plants that come inside,

Greenhouse heating is kept as low as possible, the 'warmest' is kept at a minimum of +3 to +5 so will be +3 on coldest nights, this is well insulated with bubble wrap (several layers) and on cold nights a couple of old sleeping bags are secured over the roof to keep the heat in. The other greenhouse has a heater set up but this is only turned on in extreme weather - this one the aim is just to keep things froest free, and hopefully at 0 or above. It probably does cost more than I would like but we do our best to mitigate any costs. The unheated greenhouse dropped down to about zero last night and picked up to a few degrees above so far today.

Its a tricky balance between being sensible and not spending silly money and keeping things alive. many of the plants in the greenhouse will drop leaves and be looking quite sorry for themselves come spring.

The outbuilding we have - the old workshop - is well insulated and double glazed, so a quick blast of a fan heater on a time in the middle of the night (on the low rate tariff) keeps that just wrm enough. Id love to have a propper heated conservatory for plants but have to make do with what we can provide.

 

It looks great to me Gaz, wish I had your planning skills and determination.

How many acres do you have?:D

And looking at the kitchen, can you still use it to cook?

 

Hi Gaz........What a fabulous garden....Well Done.
I have seen you around on this site for ages,I had no idea you were such a hell of a gardener.
Thanks for sharing your super blog,will be having a regular look :gnthb:.

 

Thanks for all the comments guys!

The garden is a typical 1930s garden in terms of size, its about 130 feet long and the width of the house (although it does get a bit wider at the end)

Fortunately the kitchen is big enough for the plants and so on on one side and the more typical kitchen set up on the other. Although we do normally need to move the kitchen table to one side in winter to get past.

If this cold weather continues it will be a bit fuller due to a few potted plants that will come in for shelter and then go back out again.

 

Very nice blog, Gaz .. you and Mark have done wonders ... I dream of having a garden like yours. Welcome to the gorgeous little poppet, Knickers ... love the name. k-l

 

Thanks for the kind comments Victoria, I have seen how pretty your garden is so its great to hear such praise!

The cats name was Marks idea, I wanted something a bit more sensible lol, but it does now seem to work quite well, although I tend to call him Nick most of the time. (and his name at the Vets was also put down as Nick )

 

Oh, Gaz, what a cop-out at the Vet with the name ... Our Cal's sister Candi (Candida who died at 11 months because she was a tart and a half and got run over having visited one of her boyfriends across the orchard) was registered at the Vet as Candida ... which is the feminine version of Candido which means innocence ... however, as most people know, it also means the female malardy called 'thrush' ... :ntwrth: ... so the Vet preferred to call her Candi ... :rotfl:

PS The majority of Vets here are female.