Gardener’s Blog – November 2015

There’s never a quiet time in the gardens for Chris and her fellow gardeners and with the threat of the first frosts this month, you’ll find the team is never far away from mountains of horticultural fleece to protect any tender species outside.

Chris will also start to bring in any tender plants that can be transferred from the outside into the nursery to protect from the worst that winter brings.

If we are lucky to enjoy some milder weather during November, the team will also continue to plant shrubs and perennials to keep the borders refreshed and to ensure continuous displays of colour and texture throughout the year.

The gardening team will also continue to do lots of sweeping – great exercise! – to keep the lawns, paths and borders as free from leaves as possible. None of it will go to waste; as always, it will be stored and turned into leaf mould, ready to replenish the nutrients in the soil in about 12 months’ time.

If you’re visiting the gardens this month, make sure you don’t miss the Loudon Terrace, which look down over the garden, or around the rock garden pool. These are Chris’s favourite parts of the gardens at the moment because of the stunning autumn colours.

She says the alternate weeks of warm then cold weather have created an incredible display – the best in recent years.

In the nursery, Wayne will be planting Christmas flowering lily of the valley in pots, ready to go into the Mediterranean House. By keeping them inside, we’re ‘tricking’ them into thinking it’s late spring, so they will flower for the festive period, rather than in May. Did you know that before poinsettias were imported from Mexico and became all the rage as the festive plant to have in your home, lily of the valley were the flowers to have at Christmas?

Wayne will also bring in forced Christmas flowering hyacinths and daffodils from a shaded cold frame into one of the glasshouses to trick them into an early spring.

If you visit the glasshouses this month, you’ll find refreshed floral displays in the Mediterranean House, ready for Christmas. Wayne will be removing the chrysanthemums when they finish flowering and will be replacing them with poinsettia. There will be space, however, to add the Christmas flowering lily of the valley, hyacinths and daffodils in December.

Remember to take photographs of all of your November discoveries on your next trip to the gardens and tweet them to @bhambotanicalgd.