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The Mitcheldean Garden 2024 |
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This page is part of a series of garden blogs from 2024. Click here for the index. I shall be glad to see the back of 2024. For all sorts of reasons it's been a year to forget, the only beacon of hope throughout has been our garden and until the last couple of days that hasn't looked too great either as the FoD and most of England has been covered in a Stygian Gloom, a sunless world caused by the wrong kind of anticyclone squatting above us. On the other hand, it has stopped raining and the ground is now nicely damp instead of being waterlogged. On the face of it, things didn't look too bad at the end of August, but close up the dahlia bed was not its usual self.
Click on a picture for a larger version and click on that to return to this page. Autumn didn't start too badly, with the sun firmly in the southern hemisphere, we got sunrises at a civilised hour and bang on time, 3 weeks later, our acer did the business.
The white phlox is extremely happy and the vegetable patch dahlias had some high spots. They didn't know it at the time, but the plan was to leave them in situ over the winter. It's a 'Death or Glory' experiment as last winter the garage proved to be too warm. The supply of baby begonias was a problem in 2024, we were unable to buy any locally initially and an internet order took far longer than normal but, when it came, the resulting display was magnificent. The local sourced ones, on the other hand, were distinctly 'average'.
I think that Tua Pek Kong has been sulking because he has heard about all the ghastly 'reclamation work' that is going on around Penang. 'Reclamation' is actually the wrong word, just how you describe dumping rocks and earth into the sea, I don't know, but I do know that there is a fair chance that the money men behind it are wrecking a fair proportion of Penang's beaches in the process. Anyway, in mid-October it clouded over here in the UK and it was well into November before the sun reappeared and I took the camera out again, hence the sparse coverage on this page. The snapdragons had obviously not been too bothered about the gloom because they were still flowering profusely. As always, it will be heartbreaking to eject them shortly as the Spring tulips have to go in before we leave for Penang. There are some baby begonias in there too but they had been firmly trumped by this year's lobelia and won't be missed.
When Yuehong cleared the patio, she found that one tub of begonias and two tubs of baby begonias hadn't read the script and for the last few weeks we have had a display to enjoy over breakfast and a chance to pretend that summer is still around.
It's been too wet to cut the grass (honestly!!) but the back looks reasonably tidy and I have a large quantity of leaves bagged up for Spring digging, they are the best thing going to keep the clay rich beds from getting too heavy. What looks like bare earth has tulips underneath. As I type this, we are about to remove the snapdragons and plant the last of the tulips. The hyacinths would love to join them, but they have to will wait a little longer.
The dahlias in the vegetable patch have been cut back (only) as explained and the rest have been dug up, stripped and cleaned although I'm not very optimistic in the light of recent experience. These purple specimen at the top are near feral and our giant orange one next to the house has also been left in.
I confess that many of Yuehong's surplus lilies from near the summer house have been reassigned to the bed next to #31 and at the bottom just above our parking space which means less effort for me in the future. Frankly, there doesn't seem to have been enough daylight for the dahlias I used to plant there, the nearby shrubs have grown too tall and in a dry summer there's not enough water for them. Compared to a normal late summer the area around the summer house would be nothing to shout about but on the other hand we don't have any competition. The one really good bit of news is that the sheep have reappeared in the field behind which means that it won't be joining the one on the right which is behind the trees. The gum tree on the left was no more than 2 metres tall when we arrived, it sways alarmingly when a strong wind blows but so far it seems very happy with life. It hasn't looked back since we removed the giant leylandii and ghastly sycamore which used to shadow it.
So farewell UK 2024, we're off to Penang where Yuehong will now be able to share the driving with me. It's just as well, because I found last year's traffic chaos almost unbearable. I never thought that I would say that I would prefer to drive in Java, but of course it's probably got worse since the last time I did it more than 15 years ago. The day before departure, the gloom returned and this time it brought snow; being still in mid-November it was probably the earliest such event since we arrived in Mitcheldean more than 10 years ago. Next morning there were still a few flurries but they quickly blew away leaving a beautiful winter wonderland. I can safely say that no-one else in the village has a view like this from their living room, it was pure magic...
The view from the front was similarly glorious if maybe not unique. Yuehong had left a group of snapdragons next to the front door where they will pass the winter, quite what will be needed to stop them flowering, I don't know...
We've seen dahlias and fuchsias in gardens at the top of Penang Hill in Penang, maybe there are snapdragons too! In the end it was a happy omen for the next few months. Click here for the 2024 index. |
