Chop, chop chop!

Don’t worry, this isn’t me suddenly becoming tough with you and demanding you move quicker through your garden jobs, I’m just simply summing up what my own garden world has been like this week. Between secateurs, hand shears and hedge cutters it’s been all chop, chop, chop!

            First the secateurs. So you understand just how an essential garden tool these are to me, if I don’t have them clipped to my belt when I’m out in the garden, it’s like stepping out the door without any clothes on. Ok, I’m not going to get myself arrested if I don’t have my ‘seccies’ on me but without them I always feel something is missing. Out in the garden my main focus may be on a specific task like weeding or watering but I’m always grateful to have them on my hip when I spot a wayward or damaged stem of a shrub where all that’s required is a simple snip. Out they come and within a second that job is done.

            Then there comes the times where they never seem to be out my hand. At this time of year dead-heading is the big one, the task that involves cutting the flowers going over on our plants of roses, sweet peas scrambling up fence supports and summer bedding displays found in our window boxes. We remove these to encourage these plants to continue producing more stunning flowers for us to enjoy, the reason for which we grow these favourites in the first place.

All a plant wants to do is survive with the best way it knowing how is to produce seed. By cutting off the spent flowers we are basically removing the opportunity for the plant to do so therefore continues to make more flowers.

            I always feel a bit cruel when I think of it like this but they always get their chance in the end. The need to do this becomes less as the growing season slows down before coming to an end so the plant always gets its wish in the end.

            I do have an exception, the dog rose Rosa canina and it’s cultivars is one where I actually practice the opposite and allow the plant to produce its wonderful oval-shaped ‘hips’ an orange to red colour. Not only do they make an attractive display from mid-summer into autumn for us but are also a juicy treat for the likes of thrushes.

            That’s chop number one.

            Chop number two has been the little patch of my front lawn that I converted into a mini wildflower meadow. With the wildflower display as good as over for the year and the varied colours found from May through clovers, yellow rattle and orchids to name but a few now turned to brown of dried seed heads, this is the time to chop the meadow down and start the process of tidying up for the year.

            After my own self interest of seeing a multi-coloured display rather than a monotone green lawn, this is a simple way of supporting wildlife providing food and shelter for them all spring and summer. For this reason, although I could use a strimmer or my mower on its highest setting to carry out this chop, I’m happy to do with a pair of hand shears. I make sure they have been sharpened mind which makes the job nice and easier, cutting around 10cm from the ground which leaves enough room as cover for the wildlife.

Once chopped I leave all the meadow grass in place for a week to allow the seed gathered in those heads to drop onto the ground which helps keep this flowering cycle going, lightly treading on the seed so has good contact with the ground.

Normally I gather up but I’ve recently learnt about using this material to create habitat stacks which can add a touch of decoration over the winter months as well as being a home for wildlife.

            Last chop has been with the hedge cutters. Yes, it’s that time of year again where we give a trim to the lines of plants we grow as hedges, of which the options are numerous- beech, holly, yew, hornbeam, Berberis, box, Laurel, spirea, hemlock, privet, a trick we use to provide privacy in our homes and divide our gardens into rooms. Undoubtably one of my favourite garden jobs.

            Like when you take a long and deep breath then holding it in, we’re reaching that point in the growing year where I always feel the garden sits in suspended animation, no longer moving on but a beautiful calm before the exhale and the winding down for the winters rest.

Getting round your hedges and neatening them up by trimming back all this years growth, just helps set the garden off perfectly, a neat and crisp formal looking backdrop to the wonderful relaxed displays found in packed veg plots or borders full of colourful perennials and wispy grasses blowing gently in the late summer and early autumn breeze. Along with the dead-heading and tidying up this chop will help keep our gardens looking tip-top that little bit longer.