Springhill Stories

I have to admit I haven’t been updating the blog lately. Partly that is because of the whole lockdown and not being able to visit other gardens, partly because I rather spent my days working in the garden instead of writing about it. But here it is… a small update on the garden.

Vegetable Garden

As you might have read in my last post, the raised beds of the vegetable garden have been moved up the hill, next to the glasshouse. It makes it more easy to have it all together at one spot. Exception is the salad raised bed that moved to a place that has a bit more shade during the day. I am quite pleased with the new raised beds. Because of the slope I have a 60 cm of height at the front, making it much easier to work in. The salads and radishes do very well this year (which was not the case last year). All is planted out now, bell peppers, different kind of cucumber, carrot, parsnip, beet, kohlrabi and a lot more.

In the glasshouse I got one side full with tomatoes (also some outside) and on the other side I have melon, eggplant, bell pepper and okra (nice in curries). The hot peppers (calcutta and cayenne) are planted in pots this year. Let’s see how everything turns out.

In the front of the house I did some little bit of terracing to create a new space for the strawberries and courgettes.

Perennial garden

The border next to the pond is doing well and last autumn I added even more alliums and they slowly start to open up. Also the other existing borders are doing quite well.

Where the vegetable garden used to be a new ornamental garden was created. Two bigger dogwoods bring some structure and in the middle I have put a whole bunch of pots. In the future I hope to make a small water feature there. When it was time to plant up the new borders the lockdown kicked in and my normal supplier had to close the doors. Luckily I found a great online provider ( https://perennials.be/ ) and within a week I had the plants delivered at our doorstep. They are specialized in prairie planting and other perennials. Ideal for what I had in mind. I planted more or less the same plants I used in the rest of the garden to create unity, but played a bit with just slight different kinds.

Shadow garden

The shadow garden at the front door is being its lush self again. Ferns unfold their leafs, and the geraniums start to bloom. The Camelia got quite some frost damage last winter…which worries me a bit as it was a very mild winter. We’ll see how that goes next winter.

Swimming Pond

This year the pond seems to warm up quite slowly. But there was a lot of life. Toads and frogs were having the time of their lives. Until earlier this week we had a lot of tadpoles, but I think the fish have eaten most of them. Nature can be cruel 🙂 Hopefully we can start the swimming season soon !

The last two months were extremely dry again and although the garden got really dry the wet winter made the problem not that big. Last year I planted a fig cactus in the garden to see how it would do and if it would get through the winter (yes it did). No need to say Mr. Cactus didn’t mind the dry period . This week we finally got some rain again… so happy about that. I could write a lot more, but pictures say sometimes more. If you have any questions or remarks, always welcome !

Stay home, Stay safe … and don’t forget, tomorrow is naked gardener day 🙂