Gardening: Hints and Help!
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Bitterly disappointing for Chelsea exhibitors so much hard work goes on so long before the show.
Yes I was hoping growers would offer plants locally, I'd happily pay if we had some in our area. Those reasonably local probably beyond essential travel, if I wasn't on lockdown 😂. They reckon online no good as no drivers or vehicles.
Thanks for the tip for Avon bulbs. I'll check it out.
Too chilly for gardening but then that's cos nothings urgent in mine now 😉
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Your garden is looking lovely Bakers, already colourful. Still some things to do in mine, but it’s a never ending task I enjoy. 👍
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Hope the local tea leafs don’t spot your copper tube! Great idea though!
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Managed to get one done. Still need to tidy it up a bit, but is ready to grow 🙂
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OH finally got a run of trellis fencing up today, taken him three days clearing the way to get at it easily. Looks neater than the old cottage style broken fencing! Can grow a rose called Wedding Day on it now, it's already there but hadn't got much to support it. A nice single flowered rambler rose with a slight musk smell, pretty too.
It has warmed up today so the early greenhouse seeds are starting to sprout.
Going to do some swaps with the locals later on, a lot of us have used old seed so it's pot luck what survives. still waiting for new seeds from various companies. OH has got his lettuce seeds, so he's happy. 🥦🌳
Set a sundial too, I got OH one for his birthday, we bought a plinth and now it's all put together and tells the right time. It's in the vegetable plot where time passes slowly! 😊
There is an inscription on it "some people talk of storms and showers, I only count the sunny hours." 🌞
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Sounds like you have had a good day brue. Will look that rose up!😁 I have a good garden day as well, more pottering. Grass cut and edged, then I just thought I’d check round see if anything needed support and tying up. Then decided to tackle the large old laundry sink pond. Frogs everywhere! Really needs a good clean out, so have decided to completely empty it, plants, rocks, gravel the lot.
Got most of the emptying done, so tomorrow it will get a good scrub down and clean gravel and the rocks back in. We have loads of gravel, as our back garden and car park area is thick gravel, so I just dump the mucky stuff which cleans up lovely in the rain, and replace with it with clean from the drive! Going to sort out my lovely fish fountain as well, it hasn’t been in use for a couple of years. We moved the sink, and the wire supply wasn’t long enough, so will sort that out tomorrow as well. Weather forecast is to be nice🤞
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I went outside to take some pics this morning, good to have a look around at what's coming along in the plant world. The new fencing seems to have held up and the neighbour's cottage garden with the flowering currant is looking like an old fashioned cottage might look like. 🌸🌺🌹
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Lovely brue, lots of things coming out now. New fencing looks good.🥀🌺
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Looking lovely brue. Interested in the sundial good that you've got the time right too. Quite tricky I believe? I seem to recall reading that only a couple of days a years to do it??
Great, if hard, work takethedogalong. I can see the level of our pond dropping already. It won't be getting that sort of clear out, but I have a therapeutic sweep around with the fishing net scooping up debris everyday.
Freddie and Husky good to read you're progressing well with raised beds. I think you'll have lots of friends when things start cropping later. I can't do veg - no containers or compost not to mention seeds 😯
I've spent few days indoors on giving it a good go through and blitz. Progressing well - day off tomorrow and a treat of sitting in the garden to look forward to if the forecast is correct. On breaks from blitzing indoors I've snuck onto gardening websites 😉
Brue I have placed an order with Avon, sadly the bulbs I read about wanted well drained soil in the winter, some hope on Essex clay, maybe next year when/if full access to nurseries for pots and compost is easier then I can lift and store over winter. Their site didn't like mine or OH email address, saying they weren't valid! So I called and left a message, I feared when I listened to the recorded message that I may not be successful as my order was for potted plants. I had a return call very swiftly and my fears about sending potted plants were allayed. Sadly some of those I'd put in my basket had been sold by the time the call came but I managed to spend a few £'s, well they were mounting up with no casual spending 😂
I think this isolation business and the recent warm spell has made time seem odd. I emptied the cold frame and put the outdoor fuschia pots in front of the conservatory a week or so ago not registering it was March 🤔. A frost a couple of days ago has nipped them and my lovely flame of the forest. Tonight I've covered the fuschias just in case.
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It’s is indeed strange Bakers, you do lose track of time. I put some plants out the last warm spell, only to fetch them back into greenhouse a couple of days later.
Going to have a proper day off tomorrow, I am tired out tonight.
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Some of the overnight frosts have nipped young shoots on our shrubs etc. OH has a big tree fern still wrapped up...don't ask, he got it for a bargain price somewhere and I don't know where he's going to put it! He also has hundreds of baby Chusan palm trees, we were going to sell them at our charity opens gardens which of course has been called off. When we first met he had a garden where he'd made one packet of flower seeds fill a whole border...impressed with this, reader I married him!
He is also the sundial setter B2, I did offer to check when it should be done etc But it does seem to be holding the time accurately, we haven't set the plinth in case shade from nearby trees mucks up the plans...
Sleep well, enjoy your gardens tomorrow, or your pots, tubs, raised beds and anything showing signs of better things ahead.
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I’d love a big tree fern, but I know from looking after the big ones at Brodsworth how much care they need up here to get through the Winters. They were seldom unwrapped until mid May. I did have a couple of big bananas. Brought back from Cornwall, (caravan looked like a mobile greenhouse that year,😂) I used to over winter them in house, then in greenhouse until they got too big, then wrapped them as best I could. But Winter 2010 got them, along with lots of other things.
I might treat myself to another Musa though, our Winters have been mild these last five years or so.
We are resurrecting fountains at the moment. I have two lovely ornamental fountain heads, a fish and a frog, bought from the old Stiffkey Lampshop, which is no longer there now. Sorted out the fish yesterday, and thinking about the frog next. They need to be close to house for power, so I think I am just going to use an ornamental pot for frog, it’s quite deep, room enough for a couple of plants. I like the sound of water in garden😁
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Potted up some cabbage, sprouts, tomatoes, Rudbeckias and lettuce. Beetroot that I’ve sown in blocks came up yesterday, good germination. The onions though haven’t come up, not one! Sowed some Parsnips into toilet roll cores, and should be up in 14 days. Got the second (of three) raised beds in today. Not looking forward to getting the third one in as there’s a Sambucus that’s gotta come out. I was hoping to avoid it, but it has to go. A shame, as it looks spectacular when in leaf, early on. I’ve been planning what to grow where, and as I suspected, I won’t have the space ☹️ I’ll just have to forego the onions as I couldn’t keep up with demand anyway. Oh yes, planted me spuds (no sniggering at the back😀), ‘Foremost’.
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Looking good Freddy.👍
I have had a potting day today. Splitting things like Agapanthus and repotting, including an Aspidistra. I have two, one lives indoors, the other roughs it outside, all year round, all weathers, and much to my amazement is actually thriving. Hyacinths that have now gone over are out of their pots and planted in garden for next year. A few more days of sunshine, and one of my garden favourites will be out in full glory. It’s a large patch of lily of the valley (white). It is the only flower that remains in the garden from when we first moved in well over 35 years ago, and it’s just so lovely. I have managed to split and plant patches elsewhere, and I have some of the rarer pink variety as well. I like to cut a few sprigs for the house, smells glorious.
I am going to have to think about watering garden if we don’t get rain soon, it’s very dry.
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Have decided to try something new in garden, minimal cost, maximum wild bird win...............a dust bathing bowl! We are blessed with lots of sparrows/dunnocks, and the little blighters like nothing more than squirming around in newly done seed beds. So I am going to sieve out some soil, put it into a large, deep plant pot tray, and keep it dry so that they can hopefully use this instead of my seed beds! That’s the theory.....🤔😁
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That sounds great takethedogalong hope your dog is good on cat duties? 😱. Love the idea but nothing to stop the cats here!
Spend half the day pruning the viburnum, it had a fairly good trim with the gardnerbend of last year, but OH insisted in not losing the height but chopping has promoted new growth and the old stuff has weevil type attack and hokey leaves and so that's all gone. Brown bin half full again!
My plants from Avon bulbs arrived today, thanks brue, they look very good, fantastic service. Now need to wait for some rain to be forecast so I can get them in. Watered the garden with the hosepipe again yesterday!
Ordered compost and chicken pellets from local garden centre today delivery within days. They are closed by family doing phone and email orders - they update their fb page and will be getting bedding plants in. Hopefully all the seeds my mum left in envelopes will germinate so I'll have full borders 😀💕.
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I hadn’t thought about local cats Bakers. It’s not too much of an issue, don’t see too many in garden, they are wary of the old lad, he can still shift a bit if he spots a pussy! Plus I have a water pistol always at the ready for the early morning lurkers! We do have Nepeta in a couple of Borders, but I can reach that with water pistol!😂
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Not that much to report, other than all raised beds are now in place, each one 10’ x 4’. Plants (cabbage, sprouts, beetroot etc) are all growing well, and broad beans are emerging (sown using root trainers). I’m now relying on Wickes to fulfill my order for timber, which is to be used as a basis for bug exclusion (Enviromesh netting). Sowed some runner beans and French beans today.
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My summer favourites are broad beans, French beans and peas..so OH has started some off from some from my seed orders. Usually I do a lot of the seed sowing in the greenhouse but I've stepped back this year as I don't have to grow for our local plant sale so it's nice to have a break. Got a few flowers on the go, I always like a few night scented stock, reminds me of home when young. Lovely evening scent.
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I love broad beans, by far my favourites, and fresh beetroot. OH usually grows a few things, but I leave the eating stuff to him. If anyone is thinking potatoes, I can highly recommend Pink Fir Apple. Small, knobbly but utterly delicious....
Loads of blossom on fruit trees👍
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We never skinned them, scrubbed before cooking, that did enough for us👍 They are delicious cut, drizzled with lemon oil, tossed in herbs of choice and then roasted, skins on😋 My Sister has two packs of PFA seed tattles chitting at the moment.... I shall be trading stuff with her later in year!
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I've been outside since breakfast, cutting down "snap dragons" and penstemons to make them more bushy and then I've been potting up cuttings from them. Next thing to do is a bed of ******** because OH and I always forget what they are called and I've forgotten again as I type this! We grow a patch of them in the veg plot just to cut for flowers, so I'll leave you with my mystery plants till I remember them once again...!! They are in shades of pink with wallflower like leaves....
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My brain is outside gardening, but my body is revving up for a death run for some milk, mushrooms, carrots and whatever else I can dredge of the shelves......
pits not Phlox is it? We grew Phlox amidst veg on allotment. Might be too big.....
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Went outside and took a photo then from the depth of my brain Sweet Williams appeared.
Here's a pic of them and first roses out, veg plot and seeds. 🌱
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Love Sweet Williams. We have some just starting to get first flowers on.
Couple of daffodil photos, to my shame, I cannot recall what they are. Peach ones I bought from a Rare Plants Fair, the other, double one, I think the bulbs are Cornish.
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It's been a good year for all the Daffs. nice and dry so they haven't got battered and bruised. I think, due to being at home, I've noticed every single flower this year. Going to miss all the rhododendrons coming out in parks and gardens, we have a few planted, just coming out now.
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