Part time Gardening in the UK and Dubai

I'm a bit behind with tidying up the garden after winter, ready to start the spring planting. I was back in Dubai over the winter and will be returning during Spring, until the start of summer.

So this was how I left the garden back in November.

It's just ongoing maintenance until we decide if we're staying here or going to move. If we stay, we have plans to build a summer house, with a lean to green house and storage for gardening tools and a veranda in the top right hand corner as that boundary is South facing and a combination of raised beds, gravel paths, herb gardens and vegetable rows, basically no lawn, a combined relaxing garden and allotment in one. The existing shed will be removed and rebuilt out of shot along the length of the house and we plan on extending the conservatory. Out the front we'll build a wall, put in gates, create room for additional parking and level the garden off.

I can't wait for our outdoor furniture to arrive as it can be left outdoors 24/7, at the moment this is the only day this year I've set the chair and table up, otherwise all I've done is work in the garden and not just sat down to enjoy it.

The dog however is enjoying the warmer weather and making the most of his time outside.

Flowers for Mother's Day and new gloves and secateurs from Gardeners World arrived and kick started garden prep with mowing the lawns and weeding the front garden. Once it looked like I'd achieved something, it made getting started on the rest much easier.

10 years ago there was a simple border in the back garden, however it was badly overgrown and had trees growing in it from one neighbours garden, whilst the other neighbours replaced their fence and added back boards, the soil dug up was dumped on our side of the fence, which is totally unacceptable, but it's now my job, like the tree saps to sort out.

The bricks I placed to create an edge were consumed by the additional soil over the year, so this year I'm levelling it off and using the excess soil to fill plant pots that came over last year.

I've planted out the peas and beans grown in the green house over the winter, moved the herbs and strawberry plants into the pots and also planted onions and garlic. I'll unwrap the Bay and Olive tree in the next week or so.

There are seedlings germinating on the window sill and the same seeds being grown in the green house also. I'm hoping to be able to plant out from the kitchen before I leave for Dubai and it'll be interesting to see what grows in the greenhouse that I can plant out in the summer.

In the meantime the laminator has been put back to use for labelling, once I've finished weeding the borders, I'll scatter some wild flower seed and plant some sunflowers, front and back.

I've been spending a lot of time in the conservatory as the sun shine sin here in the afternoon, I need to swop the curtains for something lighter now the warmer weather is coming. I've taken out a subscription for Gardeners World so I can learn more about gardening and have download a plant app to suss out weeds from seedlings.

The garden in Dubai is very different to here, when I return I doubt I'll be able to sit outside in it and enjoy it as it'll be too hot, will organise the sale of the fence and removal of plants and trees and the garden furniture will be shipped back to the UK.

Check out Augusts Gardening post that covers the differences between Gardening in the UK and Dubai in summer.

My garden in May and plans for June

Some big changes to the front of the garden in May, starting with the removal of the tree and creating a new border out the front.

View from bedroom window, we're not overlooked at the front or the back of the house. 

Before

After

My friend collected the logs for her wood burner.

The border had disappeared and was half weed, half bulbs.

I've since added a few new plants here, a fuchsia and lupin.

The back garden also saw some tree work, not as successful, but I did read up about how to cut a fir tree back to retain shape and regrowth, time will tell how it's worked out.

The lawn looks so much better now it is edged properly.

Bluebells growing in the garden.

I've been wanting a hydrangea for years, now I'm back in the UK I treated myself to one.

I'm growing peas, basil, mint, tomatoes.

I added some colour to the garden fence.

My friend distance dropped a table and chairs she no longer had use for off.

My garden plans for June.

 Repurposing my recycling I made mini green houses for my beans. I've been unable to get a plastic greenhouse anywhere.

The cat and dog have been digging up smaller plants, so I made this frame for the beans to grow around. I've been unable to dig up the tree stump so this is a good way for me to hide it.

I've prepared a spot to plant my pumpkin out and looking for somewhere for my cucumber plant.

Long term plans are to extend the conservatory with a lean too, to enable us to enjoy sitting outside more when the weather isn't as good. If anyone has done this I'd love to hear how easy it was to do and what costs were involved.

If you'd like to join in with The Garden Year and showcase your garden then you can link up with Stephanie on her blog Life at 139a. I'd love to read more gardening posts to share ideas.

Sewing seeds and taking cuttings with #HDYGG?

I’m leaving Dubai for 2 weeks on the 8^th of September with hubby and as there will be no one there to water the plants, I am officially shutting the garden down for the rest of summer.

The sandpit has had a good weeding

The grass patch at the side of the house is being prepared for seeding

I’ve decided to spend the next few weeks researching and experimenting with cuttings and seeds, so that I can learn what grows, where it grows and under what conditions.

I've taken cuttings from several plants in the garden and they are staying alive by refreshing the water daily, inside the house and within 3 days roots were growing. I'm also attempting to grow an avocado.

Although sweet peas, nasturtiums and poppies need regular temperatures of below 15c to flower, they will provide plenty of leaves, they also require temperatures under 30c to germinate so they are sitting in the conservatory where the cat and dog spend most of their time and the air con keeps the room at a max of 30c.

There is plenty of natural light in the room and I will probably plant them out into pots to grow and hopefully flower in that room.

The three basil plants are the only survivors of my previous planting trial and they now have a woody stem, so I’m hopeful they’re bush out. They sit on the window ledge outside, which gets sun for part of the day and I water them daily.

The tomatoes grew into decent sized plants, but didn’t flower. This may have something to do with them being planted in recycled water cooler bottles. It’s best to use unglazed pots for planting outside in the heat. The soil in plastic pots reaches temperatures of 50c and moving them into grow bags did nothing for them.

Once autumn comes I will sew more seeds into clay pots and purchase a couple of tomato plants from the garden centre along with some tomato plants. I am quite prepared to move them into the conservatory as the whole villa is tiled and and easy to clean.

As well as planting some tomato seeds I’m also experimenting with spring onions, lettuce and chilli. They too are being kept on the window ledge with the basil.

This tomato and marigold seeds were sown on Thursday, this photo was taken 3 days later, unbelievable that anything can grow in this heat.

I successfully grew marigolds, petunias and celosia this year so I’m focusing on growing them again. These seeds are sitting in direct sunlight for most of the day and are watered daily.

Although these seeds are being grown in pots in compost, for purposes of germination time. They will be sown directly into the sandpit as plants that flower in Dubai do better without root disturbance, although I grew the last seedings in recycled newspaper pots, few of the plants flowered and the ones that did were very pale in comparison to the illustration on the seed packet. I will mix some compost into the top layer of soil before doing so.

You can see the celosia has very shallow roots.

My next job is to find out what jobs I need to do around the garden to prepare for autumn.