ALPINE DIARY
John Fitzpatrick’s Diary
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f you made New Year resolutions, there’s a fair chance that by now they’ll have been consigned to the scrapheap of good intentions. If they were gardening resolutions, however, they may be intact due to the fact that we are still early in the season. I made three and, at the time of writing in early February, the first has already been acted upon, the second hasn’t been tested yet and the third will depend on how well I keep the second. The first was straightforward: to get rid of the messy corner. You know the sort of thing – that spot behind the shed or the wheelie bins where you dump items that ‘will come in handy one day’. Old bricks, half-empty bags of compost, stones that you’ve dug up, pieces of timber, sheets of glass – the list goes on. Whenever I see a messy corner in someone’s garden I’m tempted to hang a sign alongside: ‘Slugs and snails welcome – comfortable accommodation and nursery facilities provided by caring gardener.’ So in January my messy corner was cleared and anything useful put into storage in the garage. The garage, of course, is a gardening workshop and the car has never been inside it. Discipline is now required to prevent the development of another messy corner. The second resolution will be more testing: not to buy plants on impulse. ‘Impossible,’ I hear you cry. But let me qualify this. If I see a plant I’d like to own, I must consider several things
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Can I stop myself from buying plants on impulse? before purchase. Where am I going to place it? Do I have suitable conditions or facilities in which to grow it? Will it look good alongside the plants already in situ? Do I really like it or am I just being caught up in a trend? I’ve bought only two plants so far this year, both trees. Acer griseum and Betula utilis var. jacquemontii ‘Doorenbos’ have been planted in my new ‘woodland glade’. This has been developed after I got rid of a x Cuprocyparis leylandii hedge after living with it for 15 years. The hedge of about 30 trees, which I inherited from the previous owner of the property, formed part of the garden boundary. I had kept it to a height of ten feet but, despite regular trimming, it had reached a width of about four feet and couldn’t be narrowed without wrecking it because, as I’m sure you know, leylandii doesn’t regrow if you cut THE ALPINE GARDENER
