2024 My Gardening Year - Part 1
Find out about my gardening highs and lows of 2024!
What year, 2024!
As the end of the year approaches, this seems like the ideal time to reflect on my gardening year. It’s funny how as humans we often feel compelled to review, analyse and document our last 12 months, especially in a work environment. There is though, I feel, real value in spending sometime reflecting on your own gardening year. Just doing the same thing each year isn’t going to win any awards and isn’t going to make your garden grown any better.
As I’m also still fairly new to Substack there’s lots for me to reflect upon and hopefully learn from too. I’m starting in the spring because the winter months are better spent planning the gardening year ahead.
Spring - High Expectations
I don’t know about you but for me early March is really the start of the gardening year and when things start to get moving in the garden. Every year I’m full excitement at the prospect of watching the borders grow and burst into flower.
I was out early in the year, mulching the ‘Hot Border’ and the ‘Cottage Border’ ready for the spring growth. We have significant tree coverage plus a very free draining soil, so I try to do what I can to improve the soil and moisture retention where I can, particularly after the drought periods we’ve had over the last couple of years.
Through April, most plants were starting to stir and poke their heads above the precipice. Some weren’t growing though. It was very wet, which is usually good for early perennial growth, but it was also unusually cold, which is not so good, slowing down plant growth. However, what I started to realise was that many of my beloved perennials simply weren’t growing at all. The very small shoots poking through just appeared to remain static. I initially put this down to the cold and then realised something much worse was at play. Slugs and snails! And it wasn’t just me, everyone has complained bitterly this year.
Weeks and weeks of wet weather allowed the slugs and snails to grow and flourish, often I think hiding in the very same mulch that I used to improve the soil. Many of my perennials simply never came back, eaten alive by voracious hordes of slugs. Monardas, salvias, achilleas, rudbeckias and catmints all gone, generally the plants that provide most of our summer colour too. I’m not saying slugs are picky eaters, but they knew exactly what they were doing Spring 2024!!
And so, my main winter project this year will be to replan both the ‘Hot border’ and ‘Cottage border’ for both colour and slug resistance!!
April – Blickling Hall, Norfolk
Easter was an opportunity to escape the humdrum of life for a short break with friends to the North Norfolk area. Norfolk is newish to me, and I’ve become quite smitten. Whilst flatter than Devon and Cornwall, it has many charms and lovely places to visit. When we are away, I do love to visit an old country estate, and Blickling is one of those houses with endless fascination. It’s not somewhere I had visited before. For me the great joy of visiting new places is the inspiration and the spirit of a place, that you take away with you. Things that you may revisit in the future.
I love old houses, however, I often have a greater interest in the grounds. I like to think I can spot a Capability Brown landscape from the car park! And invariable I do. The charms of Blickling are less about the rolling park land and more of the formal clipped topiary of the Parterre Garden which flanks the east side of the house. I love the clipped precision and carefully considered vistas. It’s a thoroughly charming house and garden with plenty to do during a visit.
Beware though, parking on a busy day can be tricky. The completely useless parking attendant offered us no advice other than to ‘just move on’, very helpful when you don’t know the area!
For more info on Blickling Hall follow this link blickling-estate.
May – Chelsea Flower Show
There are two things I look forward to in May, Eurovision and the Chelsea Flower Show. One of these I’ve been watching since the mid 70s and the other I’ve been going to on and off since the lates 90s. For a number of reasons, it’s been a few years since I was last at Chelsea and whilst there had been a few changes I found the spirit of the show intact. I’m also greatly hearten with the direction the show takes in highlighting the importance of eco-conservation and climate awareness. These are key messages which need to be shared widely throughout the gardening community.
I have to confess my secret highlight though was spotting Mary Berry filming. She’s a national institution.
You can read about more about my reflections here.
Reflections on the Chelsea Flower Show 2024
It might seem like an odd time to post a review of the Chelsea Flower Show 2024. The logic is simple, I wrote this article for my local parish magazine in June and having only joined Substack in August, I’ve got only a short window to publish it. Plus, I’m working on a review of my gardening year, so this links in nicely to that forthcoming post.
June – A garden without colour
Whilst many will look at the garden and think there’s plenty of interest, I have to admit disappointment with the lack of colour, a direct consequence of the slug and snail attack through out the spring. The colour highlights were the foxgloves, so useful this time of year. Geum ‘Scarlet Tempest’ also made a very welcome appearance, it simply doesn’t stop flowering once it’s started. It’s a fab plant that really easy to grow. I fear next year nocturnal slug hunts will be order of the day.
June – A trip to Lisbon
Hubby and I had our mid-year break this year in Lisbon, Portugal. A really beautiful city full of history and charm. The centre is mostly still historic and relatively unspoilt though quite hilly. Thankfully the population also spotted it’s quite hilly and have installed a handy system of trams and a couple of funicular trams to help you get around. If do you visit my key advice is wear comfy shoes.
Our hotel was very close to the botanical gardens, Jardim Botânico de Lisboa, which made for a handy first excursion out on the afternoon we arrived. The garden offered cool shady glades mid-afternoon, which is what we needed to help acclimatise. Later in the week we visited the MAAT - Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology. This is a really striking building, almost like an alien space craft landed and melded into the ground. It makes for quite a stunning view with the faux Golden Gate bridge in the background. It’s a contemporary art gallery inside with a viewing platform above so you can walk up onto the roof for a commanding view of the river, bridge and the city behind you.
Further long from the MAAT is the Padrão dos Descobrimentos (Monument to the Discoveries), a quite contemporary statue built in 1950 to mark 500 years since the death of Henry the Navigator. He was a central figure in establishing the Portuguese empire. I love the modernist design, with the soaring ship’s bow rising magnificently. The historical figures lining the deck in triumph as the sails billow above them.
One of the highlights of going to Lisbon in June are the Jacaranda mimosifolia, sometimes called Green Ebony tree. It is omnipresent in the city, both lining streets and populating parks. The blue is lavender intense and quite different to any flowering tree at home.
And the rest of the year?
That seems like quite a year so far, I think I need some refreshments so I’m going to tuck into a mince pie and glass or two of sherry whilst watching The Holiday on Netflix. The second part My Gardening Year will follow shortly, with more photo memories.
In the meantime, happy gardening and a very Merry Christmas!
Craig
A wonderful piece Craig.