How blessed we Gardeners and Farmers have been in receiving fantastic heavy rain on Tuesday, it saved me such a lot of much needed non watering time. I was out in the rain with the fertiliser for the gardens and lawns, but even without, the soaking will do so much good to growth at this time of the year when most will be leaving gardens and farms to head off for a break.
This week has been another cutting back time for me, peony roses, late spring and early summer perennials and annuals that are past their best.
The plants I have cut back are already starting to bush up again with fresh new growth and will soon fill the gaps, but before they do compost can be added to hungry ground.
My delphiniums have grown so tall and strong this year they pushed over the supports, its hard to stand them up again with out damaging them. I cut them back to the point where they have bent, usually removing the strong center stem, the remainder will put out smaller flower heads once the main bloom has been taken. Delphiniums respond well to feeding, compost containing old stable manure encourages roots to spread and increase the clumps.
Dead heading roses starts now, (hybrid tea's) once a bloom is over you need to prune the spent bloom as well as a third of the stem back to an out facing leaf/bud, by doing this the new bloom will grow to the right height. For the cluster type (floribunda) remove spent blooms one at a time then prune as above
Vegetable garden: So much is ready for picking in the veg garden right now, Christmas dinner tables will be laden with fresh produce.
Fruit: cover the black current and raspberry bushes from the birds if you are heading off, maybe someone you know could pick and use what may be other wise wasted in your garden, a gift of good health.
That's it from me for this year, I have hung up the tools, our tree is ready and waiting for the break of dawn patter of tiny feet on Christmas morning and not one of them will need to hunt for Nana in the garden.
I wish everyone a very merry Christmas and all the very best for 2016.
