roses Archives – Welcome to The Moosbach Garden

18/04/202018/04/2020

Saturday morning garden snapshot

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.

20/01/201830/12/2020

Garden treasure in the Alsace, France

It’s snowing here again in the Moosbach Garden and I’ve given up potting up roses in the very cold garage. I thought instead that I would share my memories of a trip to a delightful garden in the Alsace. Le Jardin de Berchigranges. I hope you enjoy!

I first visited this stunningly beautiful and inspirational garden in 2015 and I’ve been in love with it ever since but don’t take my word for it, plan a visit and decide for yourself.

I think that gardens are like music or works of art, it’s all a matter of personal perspective and choice. Let’s face it, if we all liked the same things then the world would be far less interesting and diverse.

This garden is in the middle of nowhere, at a high altitude for gardening (800m) but I like people who buck convention and attempt something that they know is going to be extremely challenging. If it’s too easy why bother eh?

The garden is completely bio, lots of people say that but have problem areas they’ve dealt with using chemicals, not this pair (Monique and Thierry Dronet). There is absolutely nothing in this garden but soil, glorious plants, stunning use of water and a whole lot of love.

The owners recommend that you walk around the garden barefoot as the garden is very tactile. It’s true, although I’m not sure I would recommend walking around all of the areas barefoot, maybe carry your shoes so you can decide. The grass lawns are completely weed free and you would be hard pressed to find a better lawn in England. This is achieved by hand using a small garden tool to root out any weed that encroaches, now that’s dedication.

The garden is divided up into a multitude of garden rooms with inventive use of pathing, hedging and wall materials plus a brilliant use of plants.

Nearly all the plants in this garden are hardy, so there is no digging up of plants in the autumn and storing in greenhouses over the winter months. There are some unusual uses of hedging that on my first visit blew me away. They also have created some very interesting walls using wood, sometimes vertically and sometimes horizontally like a log pile seen from one end. These are clever design aspects that keeps the visitor enthralled time and time again.

Some of my favourite areas of the garden are the wild perennial areas, one day I might even have a go at this myself. Sometimes, I think I’m too uptight as a gardener, worrying about weeds and everything not being at its very best. What the creators here have done is bold but it works on many levels. They have a fairly wide grass path, meandering through what is affectively a large, gently sloping meadow filled with delphiniums, Phlox, Lupins and Hardy Geraniums. Yes, weeds grow in between but you don’t really notice as the overall effect is one of wild naturalistic beauty. In the Autumn they simply strim it all down and it regrows again in the spring, no dead heading, weeding or worry. Brilliant. A paradise for bees and insects.

There are some stunning and unusual perennials in this garden and Monique, who is simply lovely, can advise on the plant names, can tell you what conditions they like and can even tell you if they have any for sale. There is a fairly small “plant for sale” area on your way out and if you are anything like me you will come away with an empty wallet and a car full of plants. Just remember to take along a helper as the car park is a 5 min walk up the hill.

The only disadvantage that I can think of with this garden is that there is nowhere to get a cup of tea and a piece of cake, so you need to bring your own packed lunch. There are some shady areas adjacent to the car park that are grassy, shady and suited to alfresco dining.

The garden is open from April to October, when you decide to visit depends upon what it is you want to see. I’m a perennial addict so June, July and August are my preferred months.

Here is their website address

www.berchigranges.com

Tel: +33 (0) 3 29 51 47 19

Berchigranges

88640 Granges-Sur-Vologne

Please ignore the garden blogger with the big ears spoiling this picture, I have to admit that I was very happy sitting amongst these flowers in peace.

And finally, if there is a garden that you would like to recommend, please send us an email or add a comment to the post.

14/11/201731/12/2020

Looking ahead to the next gardening year

Once the garden has been put to bed and the weather makes it difficult to work the soil is a perfect time to reflect on the year that was . I think that every gardener from the novice to the professional has successes and failures and this is the challenge and the joy of gardening. The measure of a good gardener is the ability to provide colour and interest in the garden for as long as possible and this can take many years, if not a lifetime, to get right. Gertrude Jekyll took photographs of her garden at various stages in the year so that she could review what worked well and what needed changing, the key is being able to step back and view your work with a critical eye. Here in the Moosbach garden we’ve had quite a good garden year with colour and interest from May through to early November, however, there are things that we’ve not got right. The garden at Moosbach is really only 2 years old, the soil is heavy clay and we have a huge problem with ground elder.

My biggest failing as a gardener (I have many) is that when I create a new flower bed I want to cram it full of plants so that it looks glorious in the summer, this is fine in the first year but as a dear friend of mine Wolfgang always tells me, “a garden takes time” and of course he is right. The top garden which was in its second year this summer did look beautiful with swathes of tall delphiniums, lupins, oriental poppies, Verbena bonariesis, Celphalaria Gigantica, lavender and phlox. The only problem for me was that some of the flowers, although stunning in their own right, were lost in the crowd, sometimes less is more. So, I have to accept that something must be done, positive action must be taken. For me it’s not a failure but rather a natural organic development of the garden. We have areas of the garden that we want to be wild with large patches of Delphiniums and phlox which sway in the summer breeze but there are areas of the garden that we want to be classic and beautiful. The top garden for me should be classic, the lower bed which is about 3 feet below the lawn already has an edging of lavender and across the flat long lawn is a row of strongly scented David Austin climbing roses creating a long fairly narrow walkway to the stone bench that Thomas made. Roses and lavender are a classic combination but the roses that I plant with these should not be too large, shrub roses from the David Austin Fragrant Rose Collection will be perfect companions for the lavender and provide a contrast in height and form to the climbing roses on the other side of the path. There are some peonies in this bed but these can stay as they are good plants to combine with roses.

We have started selling David Austin roses and this bed will hopefully be a show piece to enable visitors see how wonderful David Austin roses are (I’m already convinced). We have them available on our main website www.moosbach-schwarzwald.com to reserve for collection or delivery at the end of February. For me, roses, like a garden, need a little time to settle in and find their feet. We have a Gertrude Jekyll rose which is strongly perfumed but it’s taken 2 years to settle, in the first year the perfume wasn’t anything special but in the second year it was amazing. I think in the first year they are producing new roots and their energy seems to go into this, once they are done with this its time to produce beautiful knock your socks off blooms that will amaze you with their beauty and perfume. I think it’s worth the wait.

So you can see that there is plenty of work to do here moving perennials that have outgrown their space in the top garden, splitting some to produce new vigorous plants and planting roses so that they have settled in nicely for the spring. Time and thought, however, must also be given to plants that must be grown from seed for next year and I like to get an early start with seed sowing so that plants are really ready to take off once they are transplanted outside in May. I tend to start some seeds off at the beginning of January, especially Delphiniums and sweet peas.

If you want to grow your own delphiniums from seed I will be producing a guide with photographs on growing delphiniums and it really is worth the effort but it can be a tricky business. I buy my seeds from a specialist Delphinium grower and I would recommend this if you want really stunning plants and named varieties. Take a look at www.larkspur-nursery.co.uk, you’ll find great photographs of all the different varieties and the seeds are not expensive.

For me, this process of reviewing what worked well, what needs changing and planning new features helps to keep me engaged with the garden and this is something that I simply don’t have the time for in the Summer when there is too much physical work to be done. There was snow here this morning but I still have plenty of work to do outside, primarily planting new roses and magnolia trees, raking up leaves to make leaf mould compost and applying a good covering of well-rotted horse manure to the garden to improve the soil composition. Happy Gardening!