Mafeking is relieved: I found a six pack of mince pies in the back of the pantry cupboard.  Late afternoon, teeming rain outside, and I thought I was going to have to push the six o’clock first beer of the day schedule forward just to relieve the frustration.  When you garden and are forced indoors hours before you are ready, then it’s always a toss up between late afternoon tea party or an early boozing session.

But as it’s to be tea, then I shall resize pictures and show a few slides.

Here are a few pictures from just one morning’s walk up the hill at my parent’s house in Sydney. A seaside hill, plenty of green, and quite a few planting schemes that I found fetching.  And it’s the natural Australian plants that feature predominantly.  Why fight nature? Something I have to learn here.

It’s a shame that Westringias aren’t able to withstand cold winter temperatures, I’d swoop on them like a shot if I could and plant them here. Quiet white flowers, but a lovely domed shape.

Droughts and water restrictions mean that few people seem to labour over fussy flowers in their front gardens. But stretlitzias abound. And I like the way these bulbs add a bit of colour to this textural scheme.  Hard to do pastels is such searing heat. But one of the most popular plants is plumbago. And it romps away. If I ever get better winter protection, I would love to do some plumbago in pots for the courtyard in summer.

The scented hedge of choice is a wonderful orange jessamine, or jasmine, called Murraya. An Australian native but found all over Asia. It is similar to mock orange in perfume and deliciously pervasive.  I couldn’t resist plucking blooms from almost every hedge I passed en route to the beach. And then found faded and squished samples in my beach bag days later and much the worse for wear.

With foliage predominating, sometimes a simple addition such as this daisy, an erigion I suppose, makes quite a difference.  My poor phormium here in the French garden has not enjoyed the cold snowy winter. I lifted its protective fleece off first thing this week, and found some very sorry stalks underneath.  Shan’t do anything until May or so in case there is a faint sign of life.  But needless to say, you don’t get a photograph of such a failure. Enjoy the Sydney one instead.

One of the most striking trees in the street is not one that would win any beauty contests: it’s a banksia. And this particular specimen I am told is older than white Australian settlement. Over two hundred and fifty years old and still gnarling its way up and out. And right beside it are some fine young eucalypts which arch over the street and will happily grow another fifty foot or more unless the electricity company decide they are too close to power lines and hack them down.

And speaking of monsters, (power companies, not trees) here is the bane of my mother’s gardening experience. Somewhere in here is a plant or even a tree. Morning glory was one of those sweet little annual plants brought out from Britain and introduced to a climate that meant it never dies. Just grows and grows and smothers and thrives. There is a little council owned wilderness in front of my parents house and I figure that if my mother’s secateurs ever stay idle for half a year, then the plant will creep over the wall, cover the garden and eventually the house.

Control is a common feature of many introduced plants. Lantana is another pest that prettily invades.  But this may seem an extreme form of weed control: these are metal sheets from a scrapped ship at the Cockatoo Island shipyard in the centre of Sydney Harbour. I actually think it looks rather glam. But hope the eucalypt corralled inside doesn’t mind the heavy metal tang.

And to finish – not Sydney but outside Melbourne at a winery garden called Yerang Station: I just can’t keep my camera’s view finder far away from fluffy ornamental grasses and trees.

Fleecy weather and quite an irksome wind accompanying the outdoor chores.  The news of the day is I have done the roses.  Scary work. And that wasn’t the worry about pronging myself in the eye with the thorns. I had spoken to Nicolas earlier and he encouraged me with the words: ‘when in doubt reduce to three buds’.  And I am quietly pleased with the results; even though I suspect I have erred on the side of caution.

Mainly because there were just so many sprouting buds on the stems already. And I had to hold back the thought that each of these was a future flower bloom that I was cutting off.  I may do more of the big picture pruning in autumn this year rather than holding back until now.  Because that way I could be more ruthless and look at the plant as a whole rather than fussing about the flowers.

I have lots of prunings which I will put in a trench and see if I get any free rose bushes later. I have already had one success with propagating from last year and pleased that I might increase my crop.

Right. Miso soup, warmer headgear, and back out to pick up yesterday’s prunings.

A slow start, but I have now planted up the Calabert bed.  As the eragrostis curvula proved to be the star ornamental grass last season, it wins the prize position of the calabert bed.   When you walk from the house and look towards the rest of the garden, this is the main feature that catches your eye.   It sweeps in a curve and mirrors the curve of Alice’s path that skirts the mirabelle trees and leads on to the swimming pool.

Hard to explain. The picture makes more sense.  I had also planted gaura behind the grasses, abutting the little rock wall.  And as I was planting I noticed that there are teensy weensy buds poking through the corpses of last year’s growth.  I had hoped to bulk up this small gaura start with lots of cuttings taken last autumn.  But the poor plants were ravaged by the cold winter in the potting shed.  So it won’t be the dense growth I was hoping for.  Not this year anyway.  And here’s hoping that the eragrostis – African lovegrass – will be dramatic and do the visual trick.

Two rows of peas: who would have thought it after the week of rain?  But under a sunny sky I have raked and pegged and now have two rows of peas. The kick off, the season’s opener.  The promise.

But I couldn’t just leap into the veggie bed: I had to some worthy pruning of brambles and cutting back of grasses first. It felt too unseemly to have so much fun all day.  But every now and then you get this wonderful breakfast feeling that the whole day will be spent out in the garden. With occasional forays to the kettle and to replenish the roaring fire inside.

Actually now that I have downloaded the pictures I had completely forgotten that I had started the garden day by planting a jasmine shrub (wishful thinking) up against the stable wall.  It survived the winter quite unscathed, so tis a sign that it might, just might thrive.  I will need to attach wires to the wall to get it inspired to climb the walls, and of course protect it from curious passing deer.

Next up was a foolish attempt to prune the thornless blackberries in the orchard.  A mocking chorus in my head gleefully sang  ‘You don’t know what you doing’ as I set about a speculative secateuring and hacking back.  Twas to be another Nicolas the expert pruner when he next came. But the buds will be up and out by the time he next visits, so I had a go.  Lamentable just about covers it.  If I have time I might consult some learned tomes and find out just what I did wrong.

No trouble with the skill sets on the brambles – same species different pain. I have left the prunings on the ground below the olive trees and will pick them up later.  I couldn’t possibly leave them unattended, becuase they will have rooted this time next week if left alone.

All this pruning was a coy way to get to my prize – the vegetable garden – by circling it with worthy chores. I cut back all the nepeta growth from last year’s burst, tidied the stipa by pulling out random leaves and generally sorting the little bed at the end of the lawn.  It needs some inspiration. Or maybe just prayer: the principle flower in this bed is a hedge of verbena bonariensis. And I just don’t know if any plant has survived the hard winter. I will not cut down the dead stalks until later in March.  And maybe sow more vb seeds in case I have to replace the lot.

And then to the veggie bed.  About half the broad beans I sowed in October are still alive under the cloches. But I won’t speculate as to whether they will thrive. Instead I added two more rows of new beans.  And then raked and tidied and started on the peas.

Sturdier supports was the lesson I learned from last season. So in went the thick tomato stakes for two long long rows of mangetout and early peas.  I have only sown two rows so far. The mice may find these ones, or they may freeze in situ. But at least it’s a start and I will put in the rest another time. I love the idea of successional sowing. But it usually just remains an idea. The reality is when you are only a part time gardener that you have to leap in with both feet and get everything done when the occassion allows.

And as the sun was still shining and I had hauled down the garlic bulbs from the potting shed, I decided to get the allium bed sorted too.  Three rows of garlic and three rows of onion sets.  Tidy or what? Thank goodness I can take a fetching photo now before it all goes downhill.

Being able to sit on the edge of the path to sow and plant the sets is a delight. Just wish I could give myself a body transplant to cope with all the work ahead. Back pain and agricultural pursuits just don’t mix. Wish we had started this caper when I was younger.  And on that grim note I pack away my toys for the day and go and throw logs of wood on the fire.

I’ve been forced indoors for a cup of tea.  There I was, face up to the weak sun, stretching my back after finishing the row of the asparagus bed and before I managed more than a quarter of the raspberries it has started to rain.

The soil is  so soft from all this rain that the weeds are yielding easily.  Fun work, if you forget that the weeds will all push up again in no time.  But I do like to start the season with a clean slate.  And the asparagus look very promising.

***

And the day is done. Tidy plants; messy weedproof fabric.  When I get more time in March I shall remove, rake, and plan for the potatoes.  And move the cranberries down to the edge of the potager where they might get a bit more attention and water this season.  Until then you just have to avoid the unfinished weeding and the ugly black fabric and admire the handiwork.

The mole runs underneath the soil are proving useful. They are the perfect conduit for all the overflow water that is coming down from the mountain side.  Well, the source actually.  Another project for March.

The horses were happy at last. I weeded such huge juicy clumps of grass that I couldn’t resist taking them down by the bucketful for their delectation.

Right. Outdoors done. In for more painting of the living room walls.

The insistent tock of a woodpecker in the lower terrace trees. A foggy and still day with mist clinging to the mountains opposite. The burble of birds. Mild weather, light drizzle. Bliss. Need I be more purple in the prose than that?

I can, but I won’t. There’s news to report and little time to spare. I want to be outdoors picking up the sticks from the pruned mulberry tree before they get more sodden. And then attacking the sage.

I can’t believe it has been a month since I last wrote. And even a month since the last visit.  An interval in sunny Sydney was the perfect tonic during the coldest winter in Europe for thirty years.  But I was yearning to be back and getting stuck in.  It’s so easy to have garden envy while in Australia. Such verdant growth and extraordinary flora.

If there is a quiet evening I shall add a few pictures of strange trees and scented-all-summer shrubs spied in forests and gardens. Not to mention flowering eucalypts that are so vibrant and racy red they almost make you walk into the trunks of trees while you gawp.

But back to sticks. It’s funny how you can have a burst of gusto picking up a few hundred sticks from the ground when you can blithely walk past dropped laundry, dirty dishes on kitchen bench tops and all sorts of domestic detritus without any desire to tidy indoors.  That’s gardening for you. Much more creative even with the domestic bits.

For me it’s that sign of the rhythm of the season. Spring time pruning, compare with last year, look forward to the year ahead.  Actually one thing I have to look at is the small amounts of white mould on some of the pruned trunks. Surely more than last year. And how to attack it? Vigorously with warm water and a scubbing brush? Or would that spread the infection? If that’s what it is.

And naturally as soon as I typed that it was stray into the nether world of the internet to find out what sort of diseases the mulberry tree could possibly have. And it’s worse than being a hypochondriac and wondering if that twitch is incipient MS.  My poor tree. Is it armillaria root rot, bacterial blight, bacterial leaf scorch, nectria canker, wetwood or slime flux, wood decay, white peach scale or even the dreaded popcorn disease?

None of the above. At least none of the pictures match.  All that time wasted searching the problem, when I could have gone out and scrubbed it off.  But I’m new to this and I don’t want to neglectedly wipe out such an iconic tree in the courtyard with poor garden hygene.

If Nicolas was coming by I would ask him for advice. But the poor man has broken his kneecap and torn ligaments in a skiing accident on the weekend.  He had to give me pruning tips on the roses by phone.  I might phone him for the mystery white stuff on the mulberry tree consult later.  He did say that the only good thing about an enforced three week bed rest was that he could plan his vegetable garden properly for the first time.  And his is a vegetable garden you measure in hectares rather than metres.  I do envy him that. Not the size, but the time.  Even I couldn’t remember what my crop rotation was on my lower vegetable bed today.

Is it garlic in the top right quadrant? Or lower.  It has stopped me from plonking the garlic bulbs out and getting stuck in.  And they are ready to plant out. Bursting out of their little pots after a three week germination while we were away in Australia.

I can’t leave them longer in the pots as their roots start to spiral very quickly. But with a quick look at my rotation notes I can determine their home for the next season: top right quadrant. But here’s the Tuesday dilemna. To weed proof or not to weed proof.  I saved heaps of time last year not having to hoe every few days between the veg with the lovely fabric protecting the soil.   But it wasn’t perfect.  I suspect I harboured grubs… well let’s not be coy. Slugs. And well I remember that boast when we first arrived that the slug population was negligent here after the sea of slugs I had to put up with in the London allotment garden.

But something ate all my carrot crop and I suspect they were hiding under the pefect mulch fabric nearby that I decorated the vegetable bed with last year.  But do have have an aptitude for all that weeding again?

Or should I turn it around and say, do I have an appetite for fresh carrots again.  That really sways it.  I shall hoe, and mutter and live with weeds.

But the design. How to make this beautifully landscaped potager pretty? I shall put off the garlic planting for another day and ponder.

After pruning I took a good long walk about to see if there were any signs of spring worthy of being snapped.  The crocus are traditionally first out, and they don’t disappoint. I had planned to plant these bulbs in the lawn in the east garden to join the ones Jan and I planted two years ago.  But the soil was rock hard and I just got lazy and put them in a half wine barrel instead.

And here are the crocus in the lawn just starting put on flower.  Yes, you do have to squint to get an idea what I’m talking about. They are the distant white dots in the huge expanse of green.

Creaking joints, down to my knees, and here is the close up we all crave: sweet plants. and I pledge next year to plant more.

Other bulbs up and threatening are the daffs. They are only a few inches high so far, but with all this moisture I hope they romp away and try to outgrow all the lush grass around them.  I won’t be able to mow until after they are over so it will be a trying time for She Who Loves to Mow.

I had the pleasure of seeing the lovely Arthur as I plodded past the pool.  He likes to drink the water from the pool cover’s edge. But he seems a bit poorly.  Pretty but not keen to cuddle. I put it down to some ailment of course, not the fact he may feel neglected by the sudden disappearance of the neighbour who likes to spoil him with attention.

And while I am anthropomorphising, the stallions next door aren’t very pleased with my lack of generosity either. No apples to offer them. I must get some from the market on Thursday when I head up to town. They do have such intelligent and friendly faces peering over the fence up near the potting shed.

It may be too early, and the birds might swoop and eat them all, but I decided to sow grass seeds on all the bare bits of filled in lawn that I created last month.  This mild wet weather may be perfect for seed germination, even if it’s only mid Feb.

Indoors to get the last of the fat balls for the milling blue and coal tits who have pecked all the supplies we set out and then on with my list.

And how does it happen when you set out to cut down all the ornamental grasses on the property that you end up transplanting flowers from the cutting garden and doing a spot of potager prep instead?  Goodness knows why, but I decided to lift the lonely sown-last-year flowers that were under the cherry tree beside the potting shed and move them to the new wall of the vegetable garden.

It’s a better spot for them as I actually water the vegetable garden, and this is where I will put the majority of my flowers.  They were too neglected behind the shed, especially as the hose didn’t quite reach and they had to rely on their nourishment from a watering can when I had free time.  (Oh, reminder to self. Must buy new watering can. Old one split in the hard frosts of winter.)

And then it was off with all the protective plastic covering the overwintering plants in the potting shed and assess.  Hmm. Not that many survivors among the gaura and verbena. But the clematis and lonicera look fine.

The clematis looked so good that I have recklessly planted them out too.  Up against the old grape vines in the, you guessed it, vegetable bed.

And then suddenly the heavens opened and I found myself stuck in the potting shed listening to the din on the roof.  Nothing to do but sow seeds.  Too early I suspect, but it’s such a joy to go through this process that you share with a huge population of gardeners all over the planet. I find there is a deep pleasure to be had in this fiddly but mechanical process, and the hope. It pervades every seed tray and label and packet of promise.  Will this be a crop of eragrostis curvula grasses in a few months time? Who knows? 

I also did a few trays of cabbage seeds: Tarpoy, Greyhound, Autumn Queen.  Some more Cleome (Colour Fountain mixed this time) and the fiddliest and funnest of them all: about 80 sweet pea seeds.  Soaked overnight as Andrew suggested, and into their root trainers for a hopeful germination.  Mice ate mine when I sowed them in November last year, so I am holding back and hoping that there is more nourishment for small rodents out in the big wide world and not inside my potting shed.

And in case you are wondering why I have the threat of mice in my shed it’s not because I’m dreadfully messy:  I just don’t have any floor to my shed and there is a few inches gap all the way around. I keep all the treasures of the edible kind inside a meat safe away from chewing greeblies, but juicy pea shoots are just too tempting when left out.

In for lunch (and you must be wondering when this enormously long blog is going to end. I know I am.) and then out to cut back the grasses, and give the sage in the herb garden a mighty haircut.  I had kept a note to cut down the sage to the ground in February or March each year, and last year I neglected to do so. I now have a thicket of sage cuttings and am scratching my head as to what to do with them. 

Perhaps I’ll make my own Herbes de Provence mix this year. As soon as I can work out what on earth Sariette is.  It’s one of the main components of the mix, and if I can plant the Oregano, and find this mystery Sariette, then I will have the lot.  Time to put the oven on and pluck away at sage leaves and get them dried.

I’m having a pause: one quarter of the road done and too much to go.

And that was as far as I got. Days and days have gone past. And to put off finishing the blog I have even gone so far as to tidy my desk and write to the French taxation department over a piece of lost paperwork.  But now it’s nose to the grindstone and finish the landscaping news.

It took a weekend of work, but I have managed to move the turf and soil to parts more worthy: first to the edge of the road closer to the house that has a distinct list to the south.  Then up to the orchard for some much needed remedial work.

It’s rather fun knowing that I may be able to mow this part of the orchard in a few months time. There were plenty of annoyingly large stones lurking in the slope, so I built it up first with rock and then filled in with soil and turf. 

And all this time spent in this part of the grounds had me thinking.  Why not put some of those jostaberry cuttings to good use?  I had struck some cuttings (show off, I just purned them rather hard a few years back and stuck the twigs in the ground) and they were putting on some typical jostaberry growth.

If you don’t know the jostaberry you will not be surprised to learn it’s no beauty.  A cross between a blackcurrant and a gooseberry, it produces wonderfully tart fat berries in the late spring.  But never seems to suit commercial production as its branches grow all over the place. Not a plant for the neat gardener.  But I have plenty of room here, so I planted three cuttings.  There are still enough for Nicolas of the two year old and one year old cuttings still up near the potting shed; but it will be fun to see if these three fruit.

The white powder is wood ash from the fire.  Ought to help things along.

But that brief interlude of creativity was tempered by yet more loads of wheelbarrowing up to the orchard and even further up to the plum trees. I added more topsoil and turf under here too.

And finally, finally it was the last trudge and I could look down the road and see it all clear.  And ready for the next snow plough damage.  Shame about the centre of the road and all those thyme plants that used to be there. But they’ll grow again.  Or weeds will.

Next up was even more punishing heavy work.  Goodness knows why, but the eyesore of the building sand left over from December was irking me.

It was the first thing you saw when you turned the car up to the house and parked.  This time I hadn’t come up with a cunning plan for making use of the sand.   So I have just piled it up near the potting shed.  That’s wheel up and over the pebbles (never easy) run along the rickety path through the calabert, up the slope to the shade garden (mind the rock dead centre in the path that’s too big to move) and then stockpile up against the un-used door of the shed.  Easy peasy.  If you are a builder’s mate.

And I forgot to mention the sand was damp. Playfully heavy on the spade.

For some soothing recovery work I sowed garlic and onion sets into modules of a mix of compost and mole hill soil.  It’s way too cold for them, but if I get a thaw in the next few weeks they may take off a bit earlier than had I planted them directly in the soil.

And of course it’s the question of which predator to avoid: deer in the potager or mice in the potting shed.  I found one small moribund rodent inside the fish blood and bone fertiliser.  Poor thing must have gorged itself to death. It was barely bigger than your thumb, so not a scary thing to dispose of.  But it does remind me that I am providing food in the shed in the form of seeds and bulbs. I have plenty more onion sets to sow directly in the soil when it warms up.

My last task was to remove the sedges that are growng on the edge of the lawn.  The plan will be to plant miscanthus sinensis here instead.  It will be a bit of a scavanging hunt for the first bit: I have about eight or nine grasses elsewhere that can be transplanted.  But with the entire length of the lawn needing the ornamental grass hedge treatment, I may need at least ten more grasses in the spring.

And to finish this rushed post (I have a plane to catch) here is the latest picture of the advance of the wild boar. They were in the east garden last night. About ten metres from the house. Urgh.

There are days when you are reminded that you are sharing this mountain with more than mere humans.  The cold and snow is bringing the wild boar lower and closer to the houses.  I walked up to the source this morning to have a look at our water supply (flowing nicely all your Manon des Sources fans) and found out just who our neighbours are.

They are grubbing about looking for fungi and anything edible under the soil.  But to get to the grubs you would think they are using a snow plough attached to their snouts.  Destructive grubbing indeed.  This main bit of fossicking is about 60 metres from the house up near the forest.  But we have to be resigned to the fact that they may come into the garden itself.  I shall take a long, lingering look at my perfect potager and accept that it amy be laid waste any night now.

I even closed the gate on my top potager.  I haven’t for a year. Daisy doesn’t seem madly keen on the sharp thorns of the raspberry canes, so I have not bothered. But the thought of losing my asparagus to wild boar just when we get the chance to eat the first spears after a patient three year wait will be heart breaking.

And speaking of Daisy: here is (probably) her handiwork on the pillar next to our front door. I am aware that our wild deer get blamed for every destructive force around the farm. But she really is the only one who can reach this high.

And what have I been up to apart from photographing the traces of wild life?  I have made the first of 2010 pots of jam.  Five pots of mirabelle plums.  I found them in the deep freezer when I was hunting for a pint of milk.  No good having them skulking in there; I held some back for stewed fruit for dessert and the rest will go towards my very first stock pile of sweet treats.

Oh yes, and I am wood treating the potting shed.

I’m doing a spot of compulsory landscaping this morning: the snow plough must have come through last week to enable Jean Daniel to escape the Mont Godin ice slide of a road. And as a consequence most of the road up to the house has been dramatically and decoratively scalped.  If you were looking for a tool to landscape your garden, you wouldn’t use a snow plough.  It’s a touch clunky.

Great chunks of grass with soil attached are sitting by the roadside just waiting to be put back or, better still, put somewhere more useful.

So after doing all the pruning of the grapes in the courtyard, I took the wheelbarrow down the road and starting scooping up.  Now there are two things that mitigate enjoying this landscaping job. It’s a steepish slope to push the full wheelbarrow up to the garden. And the soil and grass is heavy.  Sort of a two nurafen plus job if you ask me. One now at lunch and if still pinging with sciatica, another one before bed.

But it’s a sunny winter’s day. The woodpeckers are making their particular song, or warning in the lower forest on the trees.  And the small birds are flitting about in the cherries up near the house.  And best of all, there is the most delicious scent on the air. I have no idea what tree or plant is exuding this perfume, but it’s the sort that makes you stop and sniff and then inhale exhuberantly in the hope you can keep it imprinted on your memory.  Would that I knew what it is.  I thought I knew most plants in this part of the garden. But you can never be a know all when it comes to plants.  But glory be if I can find it.

This landscaping job was not on my list of chores today: I really need to get the potting shed treated with mite killing chemicals before they spring back to life.  And this sunny day is perfect for outdoor painting.  But I did achieve one other task on the list. It may not look pretty but I have put weed suppressing fabric around all the fruit trees in the orchard.  Not the world’s easiest task as I have huge deer proof fencing around each tree. And I therefore have to squeeze my hands in between the bars to tuck in the fabric.

Now that’s more like it. Here is the property covered in the white stuff.  We are still in London, but Jean Daniel very kindly plodded over from his house and snapped a few wintry shots.

I’m just dying to get out there and make my own tracks in the pristine snow.  But I must be patient. And even wait until it thaws a bit so I can actually drive up to the house. The rest of the mountain community are using snow chains.