April 2020 – Welcome to The Moosbach Garden

Good morning to you all. Here in the Moosbach Garden the sun is shining and my heart is filled with hope. No sign of rain on the horizon so we are keeping a close eye on all of the pots, next week the forecast is for windy weather and this can dry pots and soil out as quickly as sunny weather.

Here are some photographs that I took this morning after breakfast.

We applied a good measure of well rotted chicken manure to all of our fruit trees last Winter and the trees have thanked us with a wonderful display of blossom and hopefully in the autumn, plentiful fruit.

Quince Blossom is exquisitely delicate and beautiful

Quince come in a variety of forms, here in The Moosbach Garden we have 2 types, an apple quince and a pear quince. The can take quite a few years to get going but once they are fruiting well you can make jam or chutney from them. The chutney is especially good with game.

With young trees like this it is best to thin out the fruits once they have set as the thin stems on young trees will not support the weight of too much fruit and may snap. It is best to give fruit trees a good soak once a week, this is preferable to daily watering and better for the trees.

Cardoons are great for adding structure to a garden

Cardoons are a really good addition to a garden or flower bed, they add a ‘wow’ factor with their spiky leaves and grey/silver foliage.

I can’t think of a more perfect shrub at this time of year, each floret is a flawless work of art and it is worth shopping around and getting one with heady perfume.

Peonies come in 3 types, perennial, trees and intersectional. Most people know the perennial varieties that disappear beneath the ground every Winter and then magically pop their dark red buds through the soil in Spring. Less known are the other 2 varieties, namely tree peonies and Intersectional. Tree Peonies can grown up to 2 meters tall and wide and are a real show piece in a garden. They have large exotic flowers that grow on the previous seasons growth, don’t be tempted to cut them back or you’ll get no flowers the following year. Finally there are intersectional peonies that are a cross between the 2 other types, they also have hard wood that stays above ground all year and these come in a stunning array of colours. For best results fertilize with fish, blood and bone in the winter.

Climbing roses are best trained in a fan shape

Climbing roses should be trained with their stems replicating a fan pattern, think of a male peacocks feather display and you are about right. The most productive zone, referred to as the goldilocks zone, is from horizontal to about 45 degrees. When you train the stems in this way they produce lots of lateral shoots (as shown above) and each of these will produce a cluster of roses and create a stunning display.

Roses (depending upon where you live in the world) should be putting on vigorous new growth and producing the rose buds for that first flush of flowers. My tips for success with roses are to feed when the first leaves appear and then again after the first flush of flowers has finished, obviously well-rooted manure in Winter is the perfect solution. My second tip is to water the roses well from the base of the plant from the moment the first buds appear until Autumn (October time here). Roses don’t like to sit in water but neither do they like to dry out. Remember water and nutrients are the building blocks of life, deprive them of either and they will not perform as well.

I wish you all a very pleasant weekend and don’t forget that when the restrictions are over we will be open for dinner, bed and breakfast. Fantastic food, organically grown in The Moosbach Garden, local wines and fresh laid eggs from The Moosbach Garden Chickens. You can wander around the garden of relax on a bench with a good book. Overnight stays include pre-dinner drinks, a 4-course menu and breakfast with homemade bread and jams. To book visit The Moosbach Garden

Also check our website for dates when the garden is open to the public.

If it feels like absolutely ages since I last posted then you are quite right. I have to confess at not being a particularly disciplined person, I have to be in the moment, in the mood to create. When my headspace is not in a creative mood I just don’t seem to be able give myself a good talking to and get on with it. So I guess that you will have to be patient and like me, wait for my brain to be in a compliant mode. I’ve been at home for 4 weeks now due to a combination of factors not any of them Corona Virus related. That in itself is strange in these surreal times. There have been some major changes here in the Moosbach Garden, some personal and many with the garden, especially how we manage and develop it.

It has been 6 full years since we arrived and in gardening terms they have been very challenging, harsh winters and then very hot, dry summers. As you would expect, these years have been dotted with successes and failures but that as they say, is the gardeners lot. This is the first year that we have really noticed how much some shrubs and trees have grown, perhaps we have just been too busy to notice until now or is it because we are getting better at knowing our garden and it’s limitations?

So what has changed I hear you ask? Well out of necessity there have been some role reversals, I have had to go and get a proper job, yes I know gardening is a proper and noble occupation but sometimes you have to be sensible. For those of you who know me, sensible is not something that I have EVER embraced. I still believe that running through a populated area with your arms outstretched like the wings of an aeroplane is liberating (very much frowned upon in Germany). I am 52 this year and I intend to keep doing it until I die. Embrace my uniqueness or move on, that what I say. Who wants normal, really?

When I lived in England my occupation was Information Technology and I did this for 35 years, I never went to college but learned on the job and got by through acquiring the necessary technical skills and by being able to talk to people. When I came to live in Germany with my Partner, I gave up the corporate life as we had a guest house and restaurant. We have lots of land so there were no limitations on garden size and most of the locals got used to my uniqueness, there were a few raised eyebrows and muttering about he’s from England but no drama. For the first 5 years I fitted gardening around waiting on tables and we got a reputation for having a beautiful ‘English’ garden albeit a work in progress (what garden isn’t a work in progress I ask?) I had always gardened as a hobby in England but now I had the space and the time to really give it a go and I did. Monty Don and all of the experts say that gardening is extremely good for life balance and it is certainly my ‘Happy Place’ and always will be.

Last year, we had to make some changes and it was decided that I should go and get myself a job. I had always worried about getting a job in Germany as my spoken German is not good although it has improved a lot. I once asked a male customer if he wanted a kiss when I meant to ask if he wanted a cushion for his chair, he wanted neither!

I never imagined when I left England that I would end up working in Information Technology again and initially I got a job working for a supermarket dealing with the plants and cut flowers but in the long-term it wasn’t the mental challenge that I needed. I went to an employment agency in Offenburg (never again, please) and registered for work and in the same day was asked by a customer if I would be interested as working as an IT Manager. It seemed too good to be true, I dropped off my Curriculum Vitae (that’s Latin you know) and thought nothing would come of it. A week later I was asked to attend an interview with said Company and then a second interview and then got offered the job. I started in November and admit to being rather apprehensive not having worked in Information Technology for over 6 years. One of the requirements of the job however, was to study and acquire a Microsoft qualification, an MCSA.

I realised that working full-time and studying would mean that I had no time for gardening as my employers wanted me to get the qualification as quickly as possible. At home discussions were had, things were said and it was agreed I would have to give up my gardening duties, along with my chicken and geese duties. My Partner was not a gardener when we met but he is a quick learner and he has had 5 years as the under gardener at the Moosbach Garden. He has now assumed the position of head gardener, Under gardener and general dogs body. It has to be said that he was always very good at structural things, you know cutting down trees, building walls etc but now he has good plant knowledge so he is a more rounded gardener than me.

Over the last 6 years we have become fanatical environmentalists and we don’t use any chemicals in the garden, we apply well-rotted horse manure to everything in the Winter, mulch in Spring with bark and water with a drip-feed watering system from March to October. We are lucky to have the space and over the last 6 years have increased the amount of fruit and vegetables that we grow here. It has stood us in good stead for the current and horrendous corona virus pandemic and we are growing even more this year as we suspect that everything will be harder to source and therefore more expensive.

I think everybody is considering trying to grow something for the table this year and it also highlights how dependent we have become upon Supermarkets. Maybe one of the after effects of this period of tragedy and hardship is that we will stop importing as much food and instead grow and source seasonable produce. I think when you grow your own fruit and vegetables it can rekindle the love affair with really good food, did you know that fruit and vegetables lose 80% of their taste and goodness in the first hour after they have been harvested? What better than to pick salad leaves, vegetables and fruit just before you are going to eat them?

We have sown seeds for all the salad, fruit and vegetables that we will be serving fresh from the garden to our overnight guests once the restrictions are lifted. Sometimes I think that we live in a paradise with a beautiful garden, fresh organic produce from the garden and organic eggs from our happy chickens. One of the upsides to the restrictions is that we have had much more time to get on with garden projects and I don’t think it will be long before we see the first rose, lilac and peony flowers. Currently flowering in the garden are the viburnum Carlesii Aurora which are filling the garden with the most glorious scent which I wish I could share with you all. For me one of the joys of gardening is the ability to share it with friends but that time will come again soon I am sure.

Today is gloriously warm and sunny and what I really want to do is go outside and get on with some gardening but I am afraid that I must study for my next exam. I hope to see some of my local readers when we are allowed to open the garden again but in the meantime I wish you all good health and happiness.