Late December at Alternative Eden

As parts of Northern England suffer from the effects of multiple storms bringing flooding its easy in our part of the world to think we are having a kind winter. We have only had a couple of light frosts and they were back in November, other than that it has been unseasonally warm, with day time temperatures regularly in the mid teens Celsius (high 50s/low 60s Fahrenheit). For our part of the country we have not seen the storms bringing damage but warm temperatures.

As a result the garden seems somewhat confused with hostas poking up from their extremely short winter slumber and neighbouring spring flowering trees showing blooms already.

If the cold does come it may be with quite damaging effects as plants suffer less when dormant but for now its giving us an easy time of it - nicer walk to the station in the morning and not having to put the heating on as much giving our wallet a well earned rest.

Tetrapanax rex pushing out new leaves

Middle patio area... this is honestly how it looks today.

The path past the Jungle Hut, still looking lush

Ensete maurelii planted as summer bedding, pushing out new leaves after November frost

We have added an additional member to our household that many of you will not have met yet.



This is Cotton, she's about 4 months old now and making her presence known with the other two cats. Knickers and her seem quite friendly despite her regularly tormenting him. Twinkles on the other hand does not seem best pleased to have a new kitten in the household and mostly just tolerates Cottons existence.

We haven't let her outside yet, but I'm sure she will have lots of adventures in the garden when she does finally get out!

Gaz

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The Snow Returns

The winter weather continues, with the UK suffering the worst winter for many years.

Not much gardening can be done which is quite frustrating as we are very much outdoors people and love spending time in our garden, however we braved the subzero temperatures and took a few photos instead.

Knickers seems to enjoy the snow which is good as he has so much energy to burn off!

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Wordless Wednesday

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Winter Homes for Garden Houseplants

A few plants in the kitchen.

Every winter a number of plants that spend summer in the garden have to find homes away from the cold, the damp and the snow of a typical British winter. Every year we try to reduce the number of plants requiring homes but somehow the numbers never seem to get any smaller.

We are fortunate in having two greenhouses, plus a temporary plastic greenhouse to overwinter some plants, as well as using the jungle hut (See here). However a number of other plants come into the kitchen and occupy window sills in the house.

Many gardeners might wish their partner was more interested and encouraging of their hobby, sometimes it has its drawbacks. As we both are keen gardeners we are not very good at self restraint, so every windowsill and spare space in the house will have some plants in.

Knickers is fascinated by the Phoenix.

We are fortunate that our kitchen has a particularly high ceiling so can be home to a large palm, Howea fosteriana that would be far too tender to live outside, other potted palms such as Phoenix roebelenii and a selection of Chamedoreas also find homes in the kitchen.

A small number of Aloes spend winter months in the lounge bay window - often relegated to a tighter spot elsewhere over the festive season to fit in a Christmas tree, windowsills in the bedrooms all find small pots of unusual and rare Agaves occupying every spare inch.

Only the most tender plants find homes inside, other plants are grouped into the greenhouses depending on the temperature they need.

The first greenhouse we have is home to various Aloes and Agaves, as well as a few more leafy plants such as Begonia luxurians. This greenhouse is well insulated with bubble wrap and has a small fan heater set to keep the temperature between 3 and 5C (37 to 41F).

 

The second greenhouse has hardier plants inside, most of these will eventually be planted out, but with them still being smallish plants in pots we keep them under cover for winter with a heater set to keep these above 0C (32F). For the majority of winter this heater will not be needed as average winter temperatures will be above freezing.

We also take advantage of the wooden workshop we have in the garden, this building is insulated and double glazed and in summer is occupied by a home gym. However in winter a selection of Palms and Ferns take advantage of the protection offered (3 to 5C minimum) and will cope well with the low light levels.

Inside the workshop

The key considerations when planning the winter homes for plants are the light, heat and humidity requirements. Each plant will have different requirements and juggling this can be quite a skill to ensure everything that needs a home can find a suitable one. Balanced against this is the costs of providing heat, if money was no object then heating the greenhouses to 10 or 15C would reduce the risks and avoid having to have as many plants inside the house, but this would be very expensive. Therefore the most tender generally find homes in the house - except those that hate the dry conditions.

We need to have a regular routine of watering the houseplants - many of the palms require a lot of water in the house over winter as the dry air from central heating quickly removes all the moisture from the compost.

It is always a welcome relief at the end of winter when the plants go back outside and the house regains a light and airy feel!

Gaz

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Bountiful Harvest, Fit for the Bin

One of the garden tasks I had to do today was to harvest all the grapes hanging on our pergola. It was a bumper crop, much like last year. The difference though is that last years crop were all eaten by birds the very day most of them started to ripen, not a single fruit was left. This year however, they were virtually untouched for some reason, and all these grapes were still hanging there just rotting away.

                           
I couldn't just leave them there to slowly rot away during the winter. If I did, it's just bound to make more mess on the patio underneath, and with its proximity to our Koi pond it's best to remove them to prevent any fruit falling into the pond and consequently polluting it.

So I spent a good hour harvesting away all these succulent grapes, in the middle of a cold, wet November day, far from the southern European conditions you normally associate grape harvesting with.

Also today is a landmark day for our new kitten Knickers (I know, but life's too short to just use serious names for your pets), he's been allowed to go outside for the first time! A bigger, wider world out there for him to explore and use up his very high kitty energy levels. He was having a good time, jumping and running about exploring our 'jungle'. Here he is, on top of our temporary plastic greenhouse which seems to be one of his favourite spots so far.

Knickers also experienced his first misadventure in the garden today. Whilst I was in the middle of harvesting grapes, I heard a loud splash on our natural pond, and within seconds out comes Knickers nearly flying away towards me absolutely dripping wet!!! Poor Knickers, absolutely soaked in smelly pond water and shivering away in the cold air. I thought it was funny though, but what followed was probably just as traumatic for him, a wash in the bath! I couldn't just let smelly pond water naturally dry out from his fur, so my garden task had to be interrupted by doing a kitten bath. And like most cats, he hates water and giving him a bath has given me a fair share of bites and scratches!

Oh well, that's one new lesson learnt by him today. I think he'll be extra careful next time he goes near that pond.

Back to my grape harvesting and after another half an hour, Voila!, a big tub full of succulent white grapes, ready to be tipped into the rubbish bin. It seems a shame to bin all of these grapes but they're wine grapes, Vitis vinifera 'Chardonnay' and too sour to be eaten even when fully ripe. We grow them for the lovely foliage rather than the fruits so it doesn't matter, and certainly we won't use them to make wine!

A little tip if you're thinking of growing grapes for the foliage rather than the fruits: It's best to choose white grapes over purple ones, so when the birds do eat them you don't end up having purple droppings in the garden.



 Mark

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