Twelve Months In Jurassic Park

Since everyone else seems to be doing these end-of-the-year reviews, here's what's been going on in the garden for the past 365 days. I'm curling up with a cup of tea to welcome in the new year now.

January


The gardening year got off to a great start with my purchase of the fountain (with money and vouchers from my family for Christmas 2008). It's taken the garden from being mainly visual and tactile and added an auditory aspect.

February


SNOW!!!!!!!

March


Karma the Camellia flowered, showing me that I had managed to keep it watered enough over the summer to get buds forming.

April


The garden started to green up and come back to life, and April was really when it started to be pleasant sitting out in the garden in the evenings.

May


I briefly turned my attention to the front borders, and made a half-arsed attempt to brighten things up. I've been adding bits and pieces since, and there's a possibility that it might look quite nice by next spring!

June


José the Agave decided to indulge in a bit of asexual reproduction, and currently has three "kids", which will leave home as soon as someone lends me a set of leather gauntlets and a welder's mask.

July


I furnished myself with a small pond (a glazed pot with a cork in the bottom), some floating ferns and a Saururus cernuus, and this little pond really burst into life about a month after I filled it.

August


Starting to run out of space in Jurassic Park, I decided to make use of the third dimension and go up, up, up! The result was the Hanging Gardens of Isleworth.

September


For some reason I didn't take any photos of the garden this month. However, I did get some photos around the college where I teach now, and revelled in its great botanical and horticultural link.

October


As autumn drew in, I decided to indulge in some hard landscaping, and using some slabs from my parents, I made myself a patio.

November


Sorting out the indoor part of Jurassic Park, I was pleasantly surprised at how well everything was doing, not least because I nearly lost the Zamia furfuracea six months earlier!

December


And this was what Jurassic Park looked like earlier in December (and probably will do until early March!).

Have a good one folks, hope your Musas survive the winter, and let's do some great gardening in 2010!

Shiny And New

I hope you've all had a very happy Christmas. I have overindulged (as usual), and let's just say I shan't be cooking pheasant for Christmas dinner again unless charcoal-lined underpants appear in both mine and Hubster's stockings. As far as gardening swag goes, I did fairly well - Hubster renewed my subscription to Gardeners' World, and scored me a free set of loppers. His little brother gave me Christopher Lloyd's "Exotic Planting for Adventurous Gardeners", which I have been devouring, and Hubster and his older brother clubbed together to buy me a new greenhouse!


I was in desperate need of a new one - one of the zips on the old one no longer worked and I was running out of space. As you can see, I've managed to get a whole lot more in - all my pots, compost and mulches are in, along with a number of plants. Most importantly, the greenhouse has been able to accommodate José Cuervo, the Agave tequilana.


I was allowed to assemble it before Christmas to get the Agave in, but I'm a little worried that it's too late. We had a bit of snow 10 days ago, and although I shoved a bit of fleece over the top to protect José I've spotted a bit of leaf damage. The temperature hasn't been below -4°C in the Tropic of Isleworth, so I have everything crossed that I got the chap into shelter in time.

We just couldn't get the Agave indoors again this year - it's grown a fair bit, and both of us are trying to save our backs from any further injury. What say you in the blogosphere - will José be alright in the greenhouse until March or so?

All we managed to bring in for winter was Zamia furfuracea, Encephalartos princeps and Asplenium bulbiferum. Everything else has been left outside, either fleeced or ignored. Still, a dead plant is but a space ready to be filled with a new one in the spring...

The Festive Season's Forgotten Victims

It's Christmas in less than two weeks' time, and turkeys all over the British Isles are starting to get nervous.


There is rarely any shortage of jokes acknowledging the humble turkey's ultimate sacrifice for our dinner plates. But what of the conifers?

I confess to getting a bit nervous at this time of year, as I'm sure the owners of pet turkeys and chickens do. Will my beloved Wollemia nobilis be nicked by some feckless youths and turned into a Christmas tree? It would look really rubbish - I know because I put baubles on it the year it spent the winter indoors, and the branches are just not rigid enough to take the weight. I have a friend who threatens to hold my Wollemi pine to ransom if I so much as dare decorate the Agave tequilana like I did last year.

So I empathised completely with Randall Hitchin at the University of Washington Botanical Garden, grieving for the theft of a rare tree, Keteleeria evelynia. No doubt the thieves who cut down the tree had no idea of its botanical significance, and apparently it won't even look like a "proper" Christmas tree, on account of its open, sparse branches.

This year my Wollemia is still fleeced up for the winter - not because it isn't hardy (it's been through 18 ice ages!), but to provide some disguise as our garden is overlooked by a public car park and I don't want it catching someone's eye over the next fortnight!

Magnolia Or No Magnolia?

I have very kindly been given a plant by a friend. He has identified it as Magnolia grandiflora, but I'm not so sure. I have a M. grandiflora, and it doesn't look particularly like the new plant.


So on the left is a leaf from the definite M. grandiflora, and on the right is a leaf from the new plant.


And on the right is the M. grandiflora, and on the left and middle are the new plant.

They don't look very much like each other do they? Any thoughts?