Any Port In A Storm
The end of an era, the old greenhouse has come down.
Mike carefully loosened each piece of glass, recruiting an assistant to climb the ladder, teeter thereupon and attempt to keep a grip on the sections of glass while he removed their fixings from the safety of solid ground. The side nearest the camera was easy enough. The ladder held firm on paving slabs. On the far side of the greenhouse the assistant had to balance the ladder and herself in the shifting sands of the ex lavender bed, spreading her weight to find that all important centre of gravity such that the whole set up didn’t collapse and tip her inelegantly face first into the dirt.
There may have been a wobble. “DON’T let that ladder tip towards the greenhouse” cried he, “horticultural glass is very brittle you know..” Sigh.
Having removed the glass without too much incident Mike and his able assistant carried the aluminium frame (still heavier than you’d think), down the hill and across the path to the relative safety of the patio. And there it still sits. A sort of greenhouse graveyard. Lest Plan A turns into some sort of doomsday Plan B and we might need it again.
Enter the digger man.
Of course when all this was planned several weeks ago it seemed perfectly safe to assume that by mid May we would be out of the danger zone for frost. Well that’s all right then. Not. Because every time I’ve checked the forecast over the last few days the night time temperature has dropped another degree nearer the negative. And a greenhouse without glass is about as much friggin’ use as a garden fork without tines. Which has also been part of the fun this week so don’t let’s go there.
Fear not Dear Reader, the Strelitzia is safe. Mike had a brainwave and a cunning plan. What other space do we have where plants can be stored under cover and frost free?
No late lie-ins allowed, for the plants or us. The sitting room had to be vacated again before the builders arrived back with the sparrows the following day.
But I didn’t even need to hoover up the mess.
The new terraces are taking shape.
Quite a difference already..
As you know it saddens me to remove any tree but the oak tree, centre of shot, was only six feet from the house. Quite apart from the loss of light it could well have caused structural problems had it got much larger. We managed to remove the stumps with the digger. Or to describe it more accurately, the digger man did.
Armeria juniperifolia ‘New Zealand Form’, a really pretty thrift.
The strawberry bed, freshly lined with ‘straw’.
Woodrow Woodpecker has been up to his old tricks again. If only he could confine his activities to the pecking of wood. It would be marginally less bad if the woodpeckers used the bits of our roof in the process of building a nest. But no, they just winkle out the three foot lengths of wheat reed and let them fall to the ground. It is expensive and inconvenient to get a thatcher back each time to replace them but at least I can make use of the end product. It lacks the suppleness of normal straw but in the absence of the real stuff it will have to do.
Phormium ‘Chocomint’
This is a first for me.. a flower spike on a phormium. Immediately adjacent, Itoh peony ‘Pastel Splendor’. I’ve counted at least nine buds.
The Bay Tree with the spiral truck was a gift to my mother many moons ago. Sadly, in her later years, it got rather neglected and was returned to me barely clinging to life itself. I did my best but last year gave in to the inevitable and chopped it off at the top. The thing about bay though is that it suckers. I was forever cutting the shoots off at soil level but have trained one of them, growing close to the old trunk, up through the spiral. It’s now at the point where I have stopped the vertical growth and let it fill out to form a new head. So far so good..
And finally, Strelitzia reginae
Squueeeeeee!
I burst out laughing when I scrolled down and suddenly saw Mike’s genius solution of the problem of frost and no greenhouse…. especially the way that blue cylinder exploded onto my rather large pc screen! Thanks for sharing!
That blue cylinder takes up a huge amount of space whichever way you look at it! It’s the compressor for blasting lime slurry onto the walls.
Oh my goodness, you’re so brave doing all that work! It’s going to look amazing! I can’t wait to see it all finished (I bet you can’t either!). X
The end of all this can’t come soon enough for me. The projects seem to get ever more challenging as we go along.
Those new terraces are going to be so wonderful. Even at this rough stage one can picture the future. We have a lot of 60+ year old trees that are on their last legs. The people who built our house and planted them I am sure could not picture 60 years down the road. We’ve been here 25 years and did not imagine that we might have to cut a few of them down, but some of them are now dying.
Many of the misplaced trees here I suspect came about through self seeding. No-one in their right mind would surely plant an oak tree six feet from the wall of their house. It’s just a shame they weren’t dealt with when they were much much smaller. I am forever digging up baby oaks and have long since run out of sensible places to replant them.
So tactful of you not to name the person teetering so precariously nursing the delicate glass. Good to see the house in context
The context is improving as we finish the process of opening it out. At least, I hope we’ve finished. Tree work is eye-wateringly expensive.
The terraces will be amazing. I visited a garden last week with lots of different levels and it adds so much to a design. Almost makes me wish I’d terraced my slope. The cost scared me off. Fingers crossed for no more cold nights for you. We’re still having cold nights here, but gradually the temperatures are trying to pick up.
There is no way we could afford to terrace the whole plot here either, even though it would make gardening a whole lot easier. But I agree, slopes and terraces literally do add a new dimension to a design. It’s trickier to pull off successfully, but I’m enjoying the process of trial and error. And learning much about how and when plants can best be moved!
It’s going to look fantastic! A lot easier to garden too. Our old garden was terraced – it certainly made it fun for our children when they were small. Lots of nooks and crannies to hide behind – like different levels of secret gardens! I don’t envy you the task of greenhouse demolition assistant. Yes – fleecy stuff is now over quite a few hillsides near Wellington (and on my parsnips!) so I think we are not out of the woods yet for cold nights. I do like your new indoor garden! 😉 Lots of buds giving us the promise of more beautiful flower photos. Many thanks.
It seems crazy to be worrying about cold nights this late in May. I’m noticing quite a few trees and shrubs that have suffered now, like acers and magnolias. And it looks like I’ve lost a lovely stachyurus which flowered so prolifically at the beginning of the year. It was only young and the new leaves got knocked back repeatedly by the late frosts.
I’m envious of your terraces. My back slope isn’t wide enough to do anything on that level (unless perhaps we took out the concrete stairway my husband took such pains to install years ago and I don’t think I could bring myself to ask for that). And then there’s the fact that getting a digger like that into the area would be impossible (unless we took out both the mimosa tree and a large area of the Xylosma hedge which I couldn’t bear to do). I’m glad your Strelitzia is bearing up under the renovations.
Getting heavy machinery into a mature garden is always a frightening prospect. To get the digger in here they’ve basically covered a flight of steps with a layer of earth to convert the steps into a slope. Fortunately it was a set of steps that is going to be replaced because quite a few of the slabs are now broken.
Industrious happenings! I love the strategy with the Bay. Well done, you! Cheers, Ben
It will be interesting to see how the bay tree will develop in the future. I’m hoping the original trunk will eventually rot away, leaving me with a single spiral.
You certainly don’t like an easy life do you? But I guess we knew that.
I keep hoping next year will be easier.. but it never is!
I love the “indoor greenhouse’. great plan. we are flirting with frost this week too. your terraces are going to be heavenly.
I hope you’ll soon be free of frost. I think we almost are. Night time temperatures up to double figures here later this week. Then I’ll be worried about sun scorch I suppose. There’s always something.
Your new terraces are going to be wonderful, by next year all this will seem a bad dream! Glad all your plants are safe from the frost overnight, good thinking! When we moved here 30 yrs ago, we were told that the last frost is the 15th, so I hope they are right as I’m wanting to put loads of pots out.
I can’t wait to start planting up the terraces but will need to be patient for a while yet. It is a huge job. Looks like the 15th was about right, although the next couple of nights may still be chilly. By the weekend we should be well and truly balmy.
Mike is lucky not to have discovered the true meaning of ‘brittle’ had the assistant found herself on the ground with a body part other than her feet. Like Henriet, I had a good laugh when scrolling down to the photo of the greenhouse ‘parlour’. Good thing you have lots of pretty plants to divert your attention away from all the chaos–inside and now outside, too. In for a penny, in for a pound…
I think Mike well understands the true meaning of brittle, having encountered it many times before! Yes, we’re well into it now. The place looks like a bomb site inside and out. I thought it couldn’t get any worse but, well, watch this space.
Lots of work going on chez Jessica and Mike !!! Its all going to look wonderful. I reluctantly made the decision to cut the weeping silver birch down { I hate chopping down trees as well !! } …. nothing could grow underneath it in a ten foot circle so it was a waste of garden space and it was over 35 years old and I think it was on the way out as well. Best decision ever ….. it all looks so much better. Sometimes we have to chop the odd tree down.
Your garden always looks wonderful and is full of flowers whatever the season. I look forward to seeing the new terraces all planted up. XXXX
We do have to make hard decisions with trees occasionally. Even in an unmanaged woodland trees fall eventually, allowing the younger ones underneath to thrive in the extra light they need.
The work inside the house, and terraces, too? Do you have the phase “glutton for punishment” in your country?
Very impressive terracing work. That will be an excellent gardening space when finished. Impressive work on the Bay tree. They are incredibly tough here. Mine has been in the same potting soil in the same pot for 20 years. Can’t kill it.
Strelitzia.is looking good!
I am running out of places to escape the mayhem. Perhaps that’s why I was driven to make a start on the bog garden. Down by the river still clings to some measure of tranquility!
John Grimshaw up in Yorkshire had a recent Insta image of overnight “crunchy dew”, and I wondered how widespread the late frost was. Yikes. It’s happened on rare occasions this late here (western Virginia, foothills of the Blue Ridge), but much more typical is a week or so of just chilly weather, days in the fifties and nights in the low forties. The colloquial term is “blackberry winter”, since it’s almost always during their bloom. It can apparently be brought on by planting basils, gingers, and other heat lovers…
Best wishes for swift-ish completion of your many re-do’s. Some people would be driven entirely mad by teardowns inside and out, but you appear to be made of sterner stuff. In a few years you’ll be having G&Ts on the terrace and chuckling at the only faintly nightmarish memory!
I have learned to wait a long time before planting out such tender things and it often tests my patience to the limit. But there have been too many losses over the years. This year even hardy plants, established in the ground over many years, have been damaged by the succession of late frosts just as their leaves are emerging.
It’s turning into quite a year and far from over yet. To some extent it was intentional, for exactly the reason that we could get it all over with then sit back to relax and enjoy it. As ever I underestimated just how bad it could be.