With storms and high winds predicted for tonight, today was oddly calm and sunny, with just the occasional threatening cloud and a few icy spots of rain. In the sunshine it was T-shirt weather and Dave and I had a clear up around the nursery entrance, getting rid of old paving slabs and rubbish from the building work.
The 20 ton pile of council mulch is slowly shrinking and being distributed around the garden. At least you can walk straight into the nursery from the car park now without having to veer round the smouldering pile. It’s impressively hot when you dig into it, if slightly disconcerting to see bits of smoking charcoal emerge from the centre. The borders look wonderful with their smart dark brown coating – the narcissus and hemerocallis shoots especially look very fresh against it.
We finally got round to fixing the loose slate ahead of the storm this time so with any luck I’ll not be laying awake reading Wuthering Heights. Talking of which, yesterday was the BBC Gardening Message Boarders trip to Harlow Carr. Great fun and very inspirational – especially as we were shown round personally by Matthew Wilson, looking every inch deserving of his ‘Heathcliff’ nickname. Two plants I must find – Salix acutifolia ‘Blue Streak’ and Salix gracilistyla ‘Melanostachys’ with black catkins opening to red. The planting combination that really caught my eye was Cornus Kessilringii with Rubus thibetanus – black and white stems intermingling in an open border – gorgeous.
One Response to “Calm before the storm”
Hope you haven’t suffered too much damage Sue, I think your side of the country has had it much worse than ours. Today remains strong winds but thankfully we have not even had glass out of the glasshouses.