Tool tips for Spring.

Many gardeners will be admiring the display of spring flowering shrubs in the coming weeks. Those blooms are the result of careful pruning of the shrub following the flowering period, and because the sap is rising at this time of year the tools you use to maintain the form of your shrub soon becomes sticky with sap which can spoil the cutting action.

Essential garden tools like pruning shears or secateurs benefit from frequent cleaning and sharpening which will prolong the life of the product; as well as ensuring that plant material is cut cleanly and therefore minimising the risk of disease affecting your plant. My own choice is the Felco Brand.

The company website produces a useful guide to dismantling and servicing their products which

can be found on the web site.

Felco

The transplantable rose.

Transplanting roses whilst they are in bloom is never recommended by 'garden experts'.

When we were settling into our first home we had three large Queen Elizabeth shrub roses, which though covered in large pink blooms were never the less in the wrong place, at least in our view. In high summer we dug out the flowering shrubs and transplanted them to a more suitable location. Everyday we sprayed them with a water mist and kept the roots damp. Those roses hardly noticed the move and thrived in their new home.

Many years later and we were faced with another badly positioned and established rose, (which despite the label had turned out to be a climber), in this our 'Mediterranean jardin'. We decided to relocate the offending specimen from it's position in the shrubbery on the west side of the villa to a new home in front of the stable block. Despite frequent watering, the move combined with a much harsher Mediterranean climate did shock the plant, which dropped both flowers and leaves.

A few weeks later and the rose had recuperated and now scrambles up the stable wall. Never say never.

A bonus for us was that in digging the rose out of the rocky soil part of the root was left behind, the root has generated a new rose now we have to decide when to move that one.

Farming Malarkey

This Farming Malarkey is not as easy as it appears.

Chances of a fig from Figueres are looking quite slim at the moment, with little evidence of fruit having formed on our lone fig tree. The tree looks healthy enough and has good leaf coverage after the late winter rainfall. I enjoy the figs direct from the tree for the freshest of tastes or served with the Iberian ham of Spain’s signature dish. Carol prefers dried figs and lunches on them almost daily with Fazia her friend and fellow fruit-bat. We dried out the figs produced in 2005 and 2006 using a combination of sunshine and the low heat of an oven. In the short term the jammy dried figs were a success but they did not store well.

Pruning carried out by us and as advised by our Moroccan tiler friend was light and should not have damaged the fruit production; further pruning as performed by Francisco’s sheep has only refined the shape of the fig. It is I suppose possible that the previous year’s drought has stopped this year’s fruit from developing on the fig tree. On a positive note there are tiny fruit buds that have set and will go on to produce next season’s fruit. The abundance of fig leaves means that we will have to seek out recipes which use those leaves. Any leaves that remain could be supplied to the naturists who cavort upon the Costa Brava beaches.

Our solitary almond tree survived the drought despite some pillock having excavated the embankment on which it stands. The guy who sold us the house had dumped his manure pile on the embankment, and somebody had dug out the stash whilst we were away from the property. The tree had only four nuts this year but a crop is a crop is it not? Now though that crop has been decimated by either weather or predator and only half the nuts remain.

The pomegranate tree we planted two years ago is flowering again but alas it has not provided us with any fruit to date. Last year I struck half a dozen cuttings from the original tree and although they are now thriving they are not yet flowering. As they mature and flower cross pollination should ensure a healthy crop.

The olive cuttings are now established young plants though their shapes are wildly different. One is almost a standard whilst the others savaged by the severe weather are shrubbier. Pruning should sort out the shapes and we will try to propagate the material we have to remove. Who knows in a thousand years or so they may all be beautiful old trees.

Progress is slow

The telescopic pruner was earning it´s keep, all around me timber fell about my ears and soon the ground was covered in the pruned timber from the Mullberry trees. It now appears that there was rather more tree in the sky then I first thought! I am giving the tree a severe Spanish style pruning cutting back into the crown of the trees.

Cut and thrust

Pruning those Mulberry trees probably means loosing the best part of this years fruit crop, however as so many of those rather tall branches place much of their produce out of gathering range and into the realm of insects and birds, maybe there is not so much to loose. If you watch the Mulberry trees twisting and turning under the effects of the Tramontana winds you can see their crowns straining the very fibres that make up the trucks of those trees. Buds are already beginning to break on the branches evidence that the sap is rising though probably not as fast as my blood pressure will be by the end of the day!

In the final week of what used to be called winter, the weather should be cool enough to tackle the work. Armed with a telescopic tree pruner, pruning saw, loppers, and secateurs I would guesstimate that a couple of hours should be enough to at least fell the longer branches if not complete the pruning.

Add it to the list

Pruning our three Mulberry trees has risen to the top of the jobs to do list. The longer branches nearest the house are now long enough to strike the fascia of the building when whipped up by the too frequent winds. Another years growth will thicken up the timber and and this could result in storm damage next winter. It is the sort of task that needs addressing every three years though I don´t think the previous owner was to enthusiastic about pruning as he was equally unenthusiastic about any obvious endeavor.

Timberland!

The Cedar Deodora is no more! This time the actual felling of the tree went smoothly, the 12” diameter softwood trunk yielded easily to the bow saw’s blade. Tree loppers made the removal of the smaller branches fairly easy too with the saw ripping through the thicker branches of the tree. My Felco secateurs worked overtime in stripping the branches down to the sort of size that would fit the feeding shoot of the Scheppach Biostar shredder. And so began the day long conversion of the cedar tree into a woodchip mulch for use around the base of neighbouring trees. Now I’m left with a very large stump to dig out. I did contact a local firm of tree surgeons to see if they could grind the stump out but the machine the ‘stump-muncher’ they had to hire in from a neighbouring town, was much too large to gain access to the stump of the cedar tree. So, I will tackle it by severing the roots as I uncover them and then try to lever the bowl of the tree out using a bar and a pick axe. Deep joy!

The larger sections of the tree trunk was dispatched to the local council recycle programme and once composted maybe sold back to me in the near future. Funny thing is they can deal with big and chunky timber sections like the cedar but they can’t handle tea bags and other easily compost-able waste materials. “Because they make the wrong type of compost”; I kid you not. Still they are offering a subsidised compost bin and you can not have too many of those can you?

Hacking and Slashing

Spending a little time in our UK garden where some serious work needs to be undertaken.

 Recent gale force winds have delayed the renewal of fence panels which have become damaged over the years. Close feather-boarded panels are the most common type of panels in use though not really the most suitable. Something that filters the wind and yet maintains our privacy would be better. Another problem is that heavy rain combined with clay soil takes its toll of the fence posts. The fence is situated behind our mature shrubs which need to be pruned so that we can get to the fence. 

Carol loves to hack and slash at the shrubs and trees in our garden so she is always first to reach for the loppers and secateurs. 

I often have to send search and rescue parties out to untangle her from the undergrowth on those occasions when she gets carried away with the pruning.

Tough love

The Brugmansia has done really well this year producing wave after wave of 10” long fluted and delicate blooms which are often 4” wide. It is in a bed on the south side of the house and has limited protection from the wind on the northern side but is exposed on all other fronts. The boughs of the Brugmansia have thickened up and it looks like a substantial shrub. I know a method of striking cuttings from this plant but as I will not be around all winter I think that’s a task best suited to the springtime.

This being an El Nino year we could be in for a rough and long winter and there could be casualties in the garden. This plant is getting towards the stage of being too big to move around easily so I have decided to leave it in situ over the winter. Brugmansia do shed their leaves and there should be just enough moisture in the soil to keep it ticking over. I have resisted the temptation to shorten the branching stems as I expect there to be some die back due to the cold. Come springtime I will cut the stems back to remove any die back and this should also encourage the plant to form a nicer shape. I think six to seven feet would be the best height for this specimen; allowing us to view the flowers at a reasonable level whilst the plant adds a bit more structure to the flower bed.