The Genus Garden - Musings From Joff, Our Head Gardener

Lawn time

With our grass now growing well, lawns were the focus for us this week.  After edging they all received a pass from the mower and produced a surprising amount of...
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Sowing

The beautiful weather of the last few days has propelled us into seed sowing mode.  The majority of our seeds are for annuals; gap fillers and punctuation points to be...
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Cutting back grasses

We've been cutting down our deciduous grasses this week.  In summer one corner of our border is a beautiful tangle of tall perennials such as rudbeckia, helenium, helianthus, and dahlias. ...
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New planting

The recent addition of French doors at genus HQ has opened up a whole new vista for us to observe while eating our breakfast.  Unfortunately the planting in this area...
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Full of the joys

We’ve been wanting to enlarge one of our flower beds for some time and with beautiful weather still on the cards we decided to start work.  The rather rotten wooden...
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Broad beans

With a week of high pressure giving us glorious sunny days we decided to get into the vegetable garden and sow some broad beans.  Very hardy, and very tasty, broad...
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It’s March tomorrow and it's getting busy out there in the garden. As you can see, Joff has been pruning the roses in the Genus garden.  Here are our top 10...
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After the freeze

The milder weather we’ve been having over the last few days has enabled us to get on with the work that was postponed by the previous week's deep freeze.  With...
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Deep freeze

What a week!  Freezing cold temperatures, ground frozen, and scatterings of snow.  Plans that were previously made to sow seeds suddenly seemed laughable and a quick mental pivot was required...
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Mulching mad

Mulching.  We’re at it again! It was only just before Christmas that we were talking about spreading compost on the flower borders.  It’s something we’re passionate about.  A decade of...
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Lockdown hair

When we first moved into the cottage at Genus HQ it had a functional but extremely ugly concrete garage.  It’s the first thing we see on our return home and...
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Looking to the future

Gardeners are an optimistic bunch, never put off by failures, always trying again, and always looking to the future.  Small but barely noticeable signs at Genus HQ have made us...
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Galanthomania

As you read this, galanthomania is sweeping the country and keen snowdrop fans, or galanthophiles, are dropping to their knees to inspect the delicate petals of some of the rarer...
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Thinking of summer

Every six months we renovate our mulched tree circles in the orchard at Genus HQ.  Weeds are removed, the edges clipped with our trusty French Bahco shears, and a top...
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Barking mad

Winter gardens concentrate the mind.  It’s the detail that counts.  Whether peering at the delicate formation of a snowdrops perianth, the frosted hairs on brittle seed heads, or the last...
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Stepping out the back door of Genus HQ last week we were slapped in the face by wind and cold driving rain.  As devotees of performance gardenwear we weren’t going to let...
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Currant affairs

A day in the fruit cage beckoned this week.  The blackcurrants  have responded well to a complete cut back and renovation that we gave them in late 2019.  A wealth...
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It’s that time of year again and the search for Christmas gifts at full throttle.  Gardeners past enjoyed a now familiar set of innovative products bought as special gifts.  During...
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Mulching à la Verey

With the Genus borders planted up with tulips and wallflowers we were finally able to get on with mulching. This has been an annual operation  since we moved here over ten years...
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The first real frost

We had our first real frost last week.  Not a surprise for late November but still a bit of a shock.  It turned out to be a day of bits...
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The first thing you learn when using ‘black’ plants in the garden is that they’re rarely black; dark reds, purples, and sometimes dark blues are usually the norm.  Despite this,...
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