The Month at Moorfield: October
Free Monthly Newsletter 10 - Better late than never.
We are horrendously late with this one and I’d love to tell you it is because we have just been so busy in the garden but the truth is we have been pulled away from it more often than not with commitments to family and sadly, Hugo’s father suddenly being admitted to hospital and just this last week, we lost him. It has been a huge blow to the family, the passing of such a wonderful husband and father. Deep in Spring now, the garden has burst forth from the ground. The first rose bloomed at the very end of the second week into October but bouts of cold and frost, slowed them straight back down.
We finally had more sunny days than not and it did the job of thawing us out after what felt like a particularly arctic winter, less wet than last year but somehow, it felt colder. We felt our moods lift as the salve sunshine soaked days so often are and we sat about in quiet moments feeling it against our faces. Long winters can be hard but it makes the spring so much sweeter!
MALUS AND MEADOW GARDEN
The young Malus floribunda, planted this year and last, have begun to into leaf after thier first real blossom explosion for which they are so well known. As the days got warmer we began feeding them early with liquid seaweed solution to help with root development and give them the energy coming into late spring and early summer to push out some good green growth. We ran out of time with a thousand other commitments coming at us from nowhere to do much more than mulch to retain some moisture. We’re under pressure for the new pump on the irrigation tank to get going to give them the odd drink as summer kicks in but this mid spring feeding and mulching will hold them in the interim. This time next year, I hope to be seeing the hardy garden going in around them.
LONG BORDER
The Long Border has woken, the perennials coming through with great gusto, deep verdant greens, happy greens and bigger than they were last season, growing and spreading happily. The salvias are proving the stalwart they always are and the kniphofia is providing incredible colour and nectar for the birds, these two garden essentials in bloom before anything else.
I am thinking ahead to spring next year when hopefully we have more time, and I can lift and divide and spread perennials around, give them away to friends and guests, I think about what I’m seeing and liking and not so much, what I will move next year.
We feed minimally, a layer of composted manure, some seamungus but the soil is so deep and rich here it doesn’t matter, it’ll thrive regardless. I trimmed up the Malus plena planted here into lollipops and ensured they got a feed. They were rather rootbound and unhealthy to begin with but they’re starting to take off. I look forward to their incredible blossoms in spring and the shade they will provide in summer in this hot western side of the garden.
THE ROSE GARDEN
The Rose Garden has been giving me anxiety this spring. I had forgotten what it was like with young rose gardens, with the kind I plant anyway, where the perennials I plant with them have not yet grown up and the ecosystem doesn’t exist around them and the beneficial bugs aren’t their in the numbers we need them, the understory has not yet filled in and therefore, the birds have not yet come in good numbers. This matters because it was a mild end to end winter and a warm dry spring it seems is upon us, perfect pest breeding conditions and they come in their droves.
The first rose opened in the beginning of October, and by the end I was picking the first posies for the house. I find it such a joy that the anxiety about my rose garden is quelled. Patience is all that is required, some hard work and for these bouquets of rich perfume, it is all worth it. I have been here before, I remind myself.
One of the joys of this spring has been the emergence of the bulbs that went in last year for the Allium ‘Purple Rain’. Planted in the corners of the beds, they have popped up and unfurled into great grape purple balls and I adore them, watching them slowly form a full sphere. They are deep in colour, like the glossy new leaves of the roses and blended into the bed by the big frothy clumps of white nepeta.
PRODUCTIVE GARDEN
The Productive Garden is bringing me great joy and great anxiousness all at once 😂 I am now immensely impatient for the glasshouse to go up, regardless of the fact I won’t be able to use it until autumn now, I just want the flat pack mess off my driveway at long last and to be able to see it in all its beauty, standing tall in the veg patch. It is a job for the coming two months, all that has been happening outside of the garden has made it incredibly hard to get anything done on it and everytime we have gone to start something comes to throw it off course. It is like we are not supposed to build it yet with it feeling like everything is transpiring against us.
We have made decisions however, about the finishes for the base and we’re grateful for the time in some ways as it has given us space to really think about this and I’m really happy with this decision, to use the original bricks dug up around the property that were left behind and buried from outbuildings brought doen by time and others prior to us, given new life. It fits with Moorfield and her most beautiful assets, it will work aesthetically, it is a more environmentally senstive option and it will age the best. These bricks were not our original choice, and I’m quite relieved we had the time to choose differently.
The orchard was a mess of spring lushness, and we were in a rush to get it all brushcut in two stages, so much of that thick, long grass there was, we knew we needed to get on top of the weeding, feeding and mulching around all the young trees, prepare them for the hot summer ahead, especially the new trees. We also got a chance to use our homemade compost from the big bay we made for the first time around each of the trees and I just know it will make all the difference and make them so much more resilient over the coming heat stress. I have made plans to put these compost bays in other areas of the garden. It has just been so wonderful.
Again, information around this compost bay technique, can be found in the Garden News section of The Garden at Moorfield Journal: 29.
One half of the orchard is completed by the end of October and the rest will have to wait til the last month of sping. I spy and leave a couple of particularly healthy fruit on the apples and peaches and decide they can stay, removing the rest so the trees can concentrate on their growth and establishment. I may choose to remove them later depending on harsh the weather becomes. Regardless, it is a lovely thing to look out over a neat orchard again and to enjoy those big leaps forward in height and fullness again on the young trees. In a couple of years, with all the love we give it, this space will give some shade, not sprawling but wee pockets to sit within after hard graft and I am so excited for that.
USEFUL GARDEN AKA HERB GARDEN
The Useful Garden, aka Herb Garden, doesn’t get all that much love. That is the point of it, it gives a lot and requires little upkeep due to the nature of the tough plants that grow in it (see The Useful Garden aka Herb Garden Guide for more) but in October in readiness for a scorching summer for this corner of the garden that bakes in the northern sun, I decided to give it a little TLC and off she took. The growth has been exponential.
BEFORE - The Useful Garden when I first gave it some attention.
AFTER - The explosion after a week or two after the TLC.
THE GREEN ROOM
This space, of six London Plane trees and a young portuguese laurel hedge, is largely left to itself at the moment, we fed, mulched and watered and then quickly focused on other areas. We also took off all the lower growth of the London Planes to begin to form the living pergola and by the end of October they have fluffed up nicely, lost their limey colour of new spring growth and taken on a deep green.
In some exciting news, well exciting for me anyway as these are the kinds of things that make me excited, another huge load of mulch was delivered and this will cover the floor of the Green Room, insulating the trees and young hedges, and suppressing weeds. Eventually, this floor will be gravel.
DRY POOL GARDEN
Dry pool garden has been largely forgotten this spring, more so than I would’ve liked or had planned but that is life. There will always be things that come up and we just have to work around that and do what we can, when we can. In saying that we were able to get the pencil pines in that line the road that will go around to mum’s cottage in later years and two ‘Autumn Blaze’ Maples which have been waiting in pots for altogether too long! We now need to rig up the huge tank off the shed here, to gravity feed water down to all these plantings while they establish.
We had also worried we’d not given them enough space apart for large vehicles but two huge Powercore trucks arrived to do with on the property and fit niceley between them so I think we will be ok, as this road will act as access to some power poles on the property too.
In other news…
A SPECIAL TREE GOES IN…
We planted a ‘San Jose’ Magnolia in memory of Pugsley, Wednesday’s brother who died when he was only 4 and is buried under a magnolia back at Little Oak, and for Missy, mum’s 19 year old cat and great friend, Missy. It’ll be a special tree to remember them with, especially when it puts on some years and then the most amazing display of blooms.
We released the Garden Gadabout Gallery: Open Gardens Victoria 22/23 Garden Visits…
To view the Gallery open to all subscribers:
We were featured in Galah Press….
It’s a publication we love and so we were completely thrilled to be featured in ‘In The Flock’. Join their newsletter by following the link provided, you’ll notice it on the homepage, simply subscribe where you see the prompt…. CLICK HERE
Little Oak Chapter 4 went up…
I have been busily working on Chapter 5 these past few weeks but in the interim Little Oak Chapter 4 is now live HERE
Best Scones
October also lead to the discovery of the best scone recipe after what has been a long hunt filled with many hockey puck-like disappointments, in search of the kind of fluff and height only Mrs Harper (my childhood horse riding instructor’s mother 😅 ) could achieve and she has long held the crown…..
BUT I was going through recipes for Nes and I to make together when I found a Women’s Weekly version and you know, it’s Women’s Weekly, they gotta be good and they were but who knew they’d be the first to even begin to come close to Mrs Joycie Harper’s.
You’ll find the recipe at…
Click here for the “Impressive Scones” Recipe
Writing: The (Moor)Field Guide 4, The Garden Gadabout - Potager Designs Garden, Little Oak Chapter 5.
JOBS FOR NOVEMBER…
🌿 Fix irrigation pumps!
🌿Book Remi to trim hedges
🌿Finish Orchard TLC work before summer.
🌿Sow more veg patch seeds
🌿Finish final rose garden spring work before summer and last two roses in the ground.
🌿Feed all new tree plantings.
🌿Prep Veg Beds for planting.
🌿Finish photographing the latest Garden Gadabout interview.
To end, I want to leave these words I shared last week and a pic I love, taken on Hugo’s parents last visit to Moorfield in September. Jorge, Hugo’s father, would always tell me how much he loved my writing and it touched me deeply. He was a fun man, cheeky as all hell and he didn’t give away compliments lightly, so it meant so much to me. So these are my words for you, Jorge. xo
Thank you for being here and for your support. Pip, Hugo and family xo
Beautiful once again thank you Pip. I’m wondering if you have harlequin bugs in your roses at Moorfield? I really struggle with them here and need to figure out what the biological controls could be. Wondering what I should plant around them to resist the bugs? I’ll keep reading & learning.
Lovely to see the garden coming along ... it is drying off quickly here in Rushworth hoping the green stays a bit longer your way although there is rain forecast for the coming weekend 👏👏👏 Your garden will be a healing place for you all over the coming months and years 🪴🥰
Carol