Upper ramp arch made from coppiced sycamores, the white Jasmine will be trained to grow up and over it.
January bows out with little fuss and the gardeners
of the UK await with bated breath on the arrival of the New Spring! However, before then we have February to traverse and although the month has the shortest number of days, the weather may make it seem longer than it is.
We expect you are wondering what is happening at the Nanpean-Gardens? Well, the truth is we are hampered a little by the wet weather, but fortunately, we are getting ahead of the building chores before we turn our attention to the new growing season as it begins. Paul is now working on the last section of the garden wall and it is nearly finished bar one more day's block laying left to do. Once done, he will be working on the three metal gates for the garden's access points, one in the flower garden area which will allow you to go straight into the flower garden. A smaller gate will be placed by the hut on the west wall at the top of the steps there to finish that entry to the gardens, and the last gate is for the North wall by the composting area.
The gates are to be constructed from Box Steel 30mm square (1 inch), made to the size of the relevant openings, welded in the workshop, covered with galvanised steel net, then an ornate steel panel showing spring flowers will be welded to the front of the gate and painted with metal paints for protection from the weather. We have a different flower panel for each of the gates which should look very nice when finished.
Metal panel of flowers. The three flower heads are to be painted in red to finish it off.
The new panels for the gates are as follows. I get these from a firm called DC Iron, well worth a visit. Great prices, great range.
A different panel for each gate to add variation to the garden. They do take a lot of work to prep. They have to be primed with metal paint, 2 coats. Then each colour is put on to highlight the various parts of the panel, i.e., Leaves = green, flowers = red or yellow, stems/scrolls = black. We shall post photos of them when they are in situ on the gates and installed on the entrances.
Loraine had the chance to get out on her mini tractor and give the grass a quick cut on the orchard, the road, and the fruit field as we had difficulty getting it cut before the end of last year as it was so damp/wet which made cutting it almost impossible at that time. From the photos below you can see she is getting on famously with driving it around the fields, and she does a great job getting the grass cut as well.
The RED devil hits the orchard at a sizzling 5 miles per hour! Blooming hell's angels........
We have masses of our flower bulbs just bursting out all over and in the next few weeks we should be inundated with flowers everywhere, the Crocus and Daffodils will be first up, followed by Hyacinths and so on. We also got our four fruit trees for the area outside of the hut, two plums (minarettes), and two cherries (dwarf), supplied as bare-root, and these have been planted in their respective places, so it is just waiting to see how they grow and what they look like around the seating area. The following photo shows the new trees in place, identified by the white tags that are on them and there are one in each corner of the seating area, we shall plant perennials and bulbs in the beds around the trees and along the beds to provide lots of colour during the year.
The seating area at the front of the hut with flower beds all the way around.
As February is looming closer, Loraine is getting impatient to plant something, but credit to her for resisting the temptation to do so, as trying to get ahead of the curve nearly always gets halted due to a downturn in the weather which tends to surface around April - May, and any headway you make by then is usually lost because of this. And later planting works well as the plants tend to catch up on early ones anyway, although there is the odd exception. We shall be using our winter vegetables for months yet before we start to run out as we hit 'the hungry gap', known to all gardeners because of the lean times of cropping.
That's the catch-up for now and you are now up-to-date with our antics down here in Cornwall. You ALL take care and will post in February.