Hello 2023 - what kind of year will you be?

By now we have eaten, drunk, been merry, been full of festive spirit and cheer and are all Christmas-ed out. Hopefully you all had a merry Christmas and a happy new year. Once the festivities are over and because I have two weeks off at Christmas I keep my fingers crossed we have some reasonable weather and I can get out and start tidying up the gardens for spring. Some gardeners start this in autumn once everything goes over, but I like to leave the garden to slide gracefully into winter, enjoying the frost on the seed heads, late flowers and also giving plants extra protection if we have very cold weather and deep frosts. But it is also important to get it all done before the bulbs and herbaceous start growing and emerging from the ground. For now I am making the most of any dry days to do landscaping in our new home front garden, then I can get planting - exciting. Still a lot of slabs to lift but the excesrise is good for me post christmas! 

Starting the new year in style my usual porridge with fruit and maple syrup, with added baileys this morning.

New years day is always a strange one now the kids are away doing their own thing and its only me and old bah humbug in the house. In the past 2 or 3 years I've made sure we go out for a nice walk, so at least we've done something. This new year we explored another new to us walk from the house. Up the hill to what I believe is called spoon wood between Southpark wood and Cademuir. A lovely walk through plantation forest and native woodland, a circular walk with views out across the valleys and hills around Peebles.

View from the Sware across the manor valley

Into the woods

Mad Maisie

A view over Peebles

Do as I say and not as I do, even the professionals get behind and don't get their bulbs in the ground in a timely fashion. These narcissus and tulips are destined for the new borders in the front garden but due to epic flu and weather in December I didn't get as much done as I hoped with the landscaping. So I have potted the bulbs up into big pots and popped them in the back garden for now. Once the borders are ready the bulbs can be planted out but at least for now they can grow away and I won't lose them. 

First painting of 2023, perspective of a boat and water are
always challenging, fairly happy with this

Today’s efforts: it was so good to have a dry sunny day, all be it frosty and a day in our garden again at long last. My plan was to get rid of the uneven top part of the slab path and replace with the gravel I’d reclaimed from the areas I planted up against the wall. In the end David came out to help and we got the whole slab path removed and the new gravel path put in (more gravel reclaimed from another part of the front garden). We used the rest of the stone lying around in the front garden to create an edge to the new border and path. Now instead of being out of line between the gate and front door, the path sweeps round and links the two. How good does it look now. I placed the plants to get a feel for the width of path and will plant when they and the ground are no longer frozen. Another few hours which have transformed this area even. The only thing we’ve bought were some bags of compost to improve the soil under the shrubs against the wall, everything else has been re-used from the garden. Last photos are what it was like when we moved in. Can't wait to get the borders planted

Maisie keeping an eye on things

Plants placed to get an idea of path width

Just the plants to plant when they defrost

Before we moved in

I am determined to master painting roses, I refuse to be thwarted by a plant. Still not perfect but a VAST improvement on the last rose I painted.

Back to work tomorrow, always amazed how quickly two months goes and as usual I haven't done a fraction of my winter to do list but i am up to date on nursery admin. At least this year I've the excuse of 4 weeks of flu and 2 weeks of artic conditions in my defence

BUT today we installed the new shower we bought 6 weeks ago and I finished off the area of front garden I started yesterday, so two wins at the last gasp of holidays the new shower is amazing, won't go into how bad the old one was and how good does the front garden look with its new path?

Back to work today can't remember when I last saw sunrise I always find the first day back easy, its all the days after that that are the problem

A frustrating morning where things didn't work or go to plan and the plan of tasks to do didn't go as planned. But there's plenty of work to do, so a shift of plan and on with other things. I got the last of the seeds gathered from the gardens cleaned and put in seed packets for sowing in spring. Plenty admin to do and watering in the tunnels. I wasn't bored!

A study of leaves

Paperwhites (Narcissus papyraceus)

Most people are familiar with paperwhites as a pot plant, often forced for blooming at Christmas time. With their strong scent they can fill a room with a heady scent which some people love or hate, they are a marmite plant when it comes to their perfume. They can grow outdoors in the garden, here in Scotland a sheltered spot is better, especially as late frosts can be damaging. Paperwhites can be grown in soil or even in a hyacincth vase where the bulb is suspended above the water but not in it. If you don’t have a suitable vase you can fill a vase or glass container with pebbles and sit the bulbs on the gravel and keep the water level below the bulbs. Once planted make sure your paperwhites are not too warm and have sufficient light or they will stretch and become floppy. If they do get stretched you can support them with canes and string or you can get them tipsy! A four to six percent alcohol solution (gin works) will keep them shorter.

A lovely day off. I made egg benedict for brunch, a walk to the viaduct and back, getting on with some DIY in the house and then dinner out at Francos , a 5 minute stroll along the river. Great food, service and atmosphere as always

Polypodium vulgare on our walk

Sunday and in amongst domestic chores and nursery admin we went for a walk up through Southpark woods doing a circular route, managed to dodge the rain and enjoyed the woodland walk. It might be January but there is colour.

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