Diary of a weekend gardener: December 2006

GOTY blog

I kept a blog diary before and during the filming of GOTY 2006. So if you're interested in the 'behind the scenes' story, here it is....

Read my GOTY 2006 Blog...

I've still got a few more pictures to upload but Blogger seems a bit slow tonight. Or maybe it's me....

BBC Gardener of the Year

Well, if you saw the programme you'll know by now that I won...

I found out for the first time tonight how we'd all done in the individual elements, and understood for the first time just how close it had been. So here are my immediate thoughts on the competition and the programme.

Mike should be very pleased with how well he did on the pest quiz - he simply didn't believe it when a BBC crew member told him he had top scored on that element. And with such a difficult brief he still did brilliantly.

Kirby is such an all round gardener - I'm really not sure why he didn't do so well on the quizzes. I was filmed saying I thought they were struggling to implement their design. This was in response to a specific question about the others' gardens. But the reason Kirby and Rosie had to change theirs was because the plot dimensions differed from the plans they had been sent. Taken out of context, my comments seemed mean - but they were meant to be sympathetic!

Martin - I really thought he would come through as winner or second. I thought his design structure worked well and I guessed that he'd scored high on the tests - he's such a cool, calm person. And I'm so impressed with his garden at home. Beats mine hands down.

Lorraine - well what an inspired design. It's clear from the final scores that she got the top design score - how else would she leap from 5th to second? Winning the competition meant such a lot to her, yet she was composed enough to congratulate me warmly and to send me a bouquet of flowers afterwards.

Anyway - after four months of waiting, I can finally publish this photo...

Tonight's the night....

The four month wait is nearly over - GOTY is to be broadcast tonight at 8.15. Although I know the result, I still feel very apprehensive about the programme content. We have had no sneak preview - I'll see the programme for the first time tonight, along with about 30 family and friends who will be here for the evening - a kind of early New Year party. Best wishes to all the other finalists - it's been a long wait.

Most of today was spent shopping and cooking, but there was a brief bright spell this morning, just long enough to take a few quick pictures.

Variegated evergreens finally earning their keep in the dead of winter

My cyclamen have finally merged into something like a carpet

I was amazed to find these Romanesco broccoli producing bright new shoots in their trademark fractal pattern.

Christmas cheer

It's Boxing Day night and Christmas has been lovely. DB had pheasant while the girls and I had home-made wild mushroom escalopes with all the trimmings. I am now the proud owner of a pair of proper professional Felco No.7 secateurs and a beautiful book by Anna Pavord on the history of plant naming. With luck the secateurs will get their first outing tomorrow, weather permitting. From the girls I got a photo frame and a 2007 calendar printed using photos I've taken in the garden (they've been trawling my PC when I wasn't looking). The cover picture is the Echinacea 'Art's Pride' shot that I use as my signature photo at the top of this blog. I was pleasantly surprised at how good the photos look in print, if I say so myself!

We had a walk out today but it was far too overcast and dark to take photos. With luck there'll be some sunshine before Saturday to take some final shots in 2006.

A very happy Christmas and New Year to everyone.

My first cycad

I have been very badly behaved and bought myself a present three days before Christmas. In my defence, I was shopping for family presents and saw this plant, buried and neglected in a corner. It is Cycas revoluta, a baby compared to the huge ones we saw near Cairns, but if I can find a good home for it for 20 years or so, it might just compare.

The new arrival...

but I doubt it will ever get as big as this beauty.

The longest night - and a tribute to Christopher Lloyd

The official midwinter point was at 22 minutes past midnight last night. I have no doubt that this winter has yet to deliver its worst in terms of low temperatures, but the shortest day marks a pivotal moment in the gardener's annual cycle.

Christopher Lloyd was the subject of a one-off special programme tonight. Earlier this year I went to Great Dixter for the first time, some 8 months after his death. I was blown away and inspired in equal measure, as every other person I know has been after their first visit. I was impressed, yes, but also made to laugh aloud by the man's audacity, his thumbed nose to the conventional, his disregard for establishment and keen sense of innovation. I hope that when I'm 90 (liver permitting...) I am kicking over the traces of authority with equal vigour. But I know there is such a fine line between successful innovation and simply getting it wrong. Well, what the heck. Experiment and be damned - I'm sure he'd approve.

So, a small tribute to CL follows: a few pictures from his tropical garden (RIP The Rose Garden), taken in a rare downpour in August 2006.

It'll be foggy this Christmas....

I've seen the first forecast for Christmas Day. Foggy, max 0C, min -1C. Not pleasant. Staying in with hubby and daughters in front of a roaring fire seems like a great plan.

In the 10 mins of half-hearted daylight that broke through the murk today I took a couple of pictures. Yes, that's Rosa 'The Times' still offering up late flowers. It will take a break until May then start again. Knautia macedonia also doesn't know when to stop. The Corsican hellebores are flowering right on cue, but I thought the Hamamellis would be breaking bud by now, and it isn't. Perhaps it needs a spell of cold weather to trigger it. Well, it will get that in the next 5 days.

The Times, still going on the shortest day.

Knautia macedonia. I'm going to leave it alone all winter, just to see what it takes to stop it flowering.

The Corsican hellebore, Helleborus argutifolius just starting its winter-long flowering spree.

After the rain, icy fog.

Heavy rain has given way to freezing fog. I've finally managed to get some gardening done, but the light is hopeless for photography so there are no new pictures. I've given next door's wisteria its winter prune and spent a few hours digging thick threads of bindweed root out of the in-laws garden. It's a hopeless task really as the empty property they back onto is thick with it, but at least I felt I'd made some progress on the long backlog of jobs I've promised to do.

Our plans to buy the nursery are progressing fine, but it will probably be mid-Jan before I get in. GOTY is looming - there are video clips on the BBC gardening website now. It's great to see the other competitors' gardens for the first time - and I'm just going to have to get used to seeing myself on film.

I said I'd save some of the Oz pictures for the winter picture 'drought' so here's one to warm things up a bit. I loved the mangroves. It was just such a surreal experience to see mature trees growing straight out of the beach. These are under 3ft of water when the tide is in. (Martin - this one's for you - enjoy your trip to Oz!)

In need of sunshine

We've had another 8mm of rain today, delivered in a depressing, all day drizzle, bringing December's total to date (the 15th) to 70mm. That's already over 50% more than for the whole of December 2005. And this November we had almost three times the rain in November 2005. Of course the gardens and rivers need it. But I need some time outside, catching up with the four gardens I'm supposed to be sorting out. I desperately need a few dry days before the New Year since it looks like I'll be taking over the new nursery in early Jan. Once I get in there, outdoor time will be a precious commodity.

And anyway, I'm just fed up with this continual damp gloom. I need a little sunshine, please?

Wild, mild and windy

It's mid-December and there's no real sign of winter. The papers are putting it down to global warming, which makes a better headline than 'A series of deep lows in the Atlantic'. Well, I'm not getting into that debate here. What I do know is that the wind has been coming from the SW for weeks now, bringing an endless stream of mild, damp air off the summer-warmed Atlantic and that is the immediate cause of December's weather. Take a look at my weather station link to see for yourself. A statistician worked out that the Gulf Stream delivers more heat energy to the UK than all our power stations put together. May it ever flow.

I took these pictures last week. The weather's been too rough to take decent photos since then.

Viburnum bodnantense 'Dawn'. This winter flowerer is sweetly scented and very pretty, but it doesn't always flower reliably for me.

A close-up of the waxy, pale pink flowers.

Cyclamen recycling.

For the past two weeks it seems that every time I was ready to get outside it started pouring. The rain hasn't been continuous, more a series of sharp, cold showers every day - enough to make serious gardening impractical.

But the sun smiles on the good, I'm told, and today I replanted the neighbours' window tubs, taking out the near-dead pelargoniums and planting them with cyclamen kept from last year. I'm quite pleased with these, because I bought them last autumn and they flowered all winter. I took them out in spring, re-potted them, fed them and kept them in part shade and they've flowered again beautifully since late October. I do like a bit of recycling. So far I've failed to keep cuttings from the pelargoniums over winter, but if I get that right they can have endless, free, seasonal window boxes. Anyway, I got my reward. The sun came out as I was setting out the newly planted window boxes, so I reached for the camera, of course.