This month Jim Cable is planting a crab apple for its gorgeous golden-yellow fruits and sowing sweet peas to overwinter before being planted out in spring
To the north-east of the Deanery garden, down a steep wooded slope, nestles Llandaff Cathedral. As the last leaves fall and the vista clears, the ancient building seems more than ever a part of the garden. The sound of the choir rehearsing for Christmas reaches me as I potter during the precious daylight hours. I treasure this halfway point in the gardening year. The skeletal remains of ephemeral plants take me back to summer abundance. At the same time, I am planning ahead. There are gaps to fill and opportunities to try something new.
The woodland edge is home to ‘Graham Thomas’, a good form of our native honeysuckle Lonicera periclymenum. The tight pyramids of red berries have been raided by thrushes and the occasional bullfinch as have the glistening red fruits of a nearby guelder rose. I also grow a cultivar of the latter shrub called ‘Xanthocarpum’. Its bright yellow berries, so far untouched by the birds, are a cheery sight and led to me ordering a similarly yellow crab apple, Malus ‘Comtesse de Paris’. I have earmarked a spot for the tree which will eventually reach around 5 metres in height behind a mature Euonymus europaeus. The euonymus, or spindle tree as it is commonly known, was a blaze of crimson, pink and gold foliage in November. It still bears its pendent bright red seed capsules, which burst open to reveal orange seeds. The nursery guide promises the countess will hold onto her sunny fruit into the new year. The two plants should combine well!
The bareroot tree has been holed up in the shed, its roots wrapped in damp hessian and an old compost bag, awaiting a mild day, which has now arrived. I dig a hole twice the width and depth of the crab apple’s root ball. I mix half the excavated soil with an equal volume of garden compost and leave a pile next to the hole, which is square. A circular hole risks the roots following the surface of the undisturbed soil and circling rather than spreading out. I hold the tree in position and place a baton across the top of the hole to judge its depth which needs to be the same as it was in the nursery. A line of darker damper bark indicates where it had b
