I love a windy day, but this is ridiculous...

I love a windy day, but this is ridiculous...

It always seems to be windy at the end of the gardening season, then again just before the new one begins. I have two standard bay trees in large terracotta pots and for the second time this winter they have been blown over, shattering the pots into many pieces – I am going to leave them broken until this rather breezy weather dies down. I will then re-plant them in new pots and look forward to them being smashed again this autumn.

I have three roof windows in my tree house which you cannot see in the picture – guess what! They all blew out yesterday. In the afternoon it started to rain and I didn’t want the inside getting soaking wet, so I went up there, wind lashing around me, trying to cover the gaping holes with plastic sheeting and drawing pins. Within minutes my fingers were so cold I could hardly push the pins in. Looking out of the window this morning, I see the damn sheets have blown off!
My back is a lot better, but still rather stiff. Thanks Victoria for suggesting your Harley Street cyropracter – I went to a local one last Thursday, who pummelled, twisted and cracked all my joints then jumped up and down on my back. Needles to say, I felt a lot worse for the next 24 hours, though it is easing now. It’s just the wrong time of year to take it easy in the garden as was suggested.

Unfortunately my xerophytic garden took a beating this winter with a few of my favourite Agaves turning to mush. I spent an afternoon with a very sharp knife cutting all the outer leaves off some of the larger ones to find that the central core of tightly packed leaves were still OK. At least this wind will dry out all the rotten bits. Last winter I covered the whole area with a loose poly-tunnel arrangement and lost nothing – not even my collection of Aoniums. Seeing as the Met Office hadn’t predicted a particularly cold winter I decided not to cover my spiky friends. Then we have the coldest winter for 18 years! The desert garden looks rather forlorn now, so I will have to replace some of the specimens with new ones from my local spiky thing dispenser - Amulree Exotics. Unfortunately I will also have to replace all my Aoniums as well! I think the make-shift Polly-tunnel will go back up again in the autumn, even if a winter heat wave is predicted!

I have just had my garden website updated. It now has a selection of the articles I wrote for my column in The Eastern Daily Press. I have also added a short video of the garden made last September – www.exoticgarden.com – enjoy.