There's LOADS to do in the new greenhouse. Friends and magazines are throwing free seeds at me: together with the seeds I collected last year I can't keep up. I imagined this year I was going to be well organised but it's obviously not in my nature! I have plenty of excuses though .... my mum celebrated her 92nd birthday so we have been partying; my sister and my youngest son both moved house within a few weeks of each other so I have been lugging furniture about and my eldest son gets married in 31 days time (eek!) so I had to go clothes shopping!
I did manage to get the peas and beans started for the allotment and the sweetpeas for the trellis but I've only just sown the flower seeds for the summer garden. I scattered a few poppy and cornflower seeds but I watched the birds eat most of them and the pheasants have trampled the emerging aquilegia ... still its their garden too I suppose.
Andy has been planting a rose bed at the allotment. I decided to clear a patch of mossy grass lawn and follow his example here. I chose Hybrid Teas for that patch but got carried away and had to find room for a couple of floribundas and numerous climbers to cover the fence. My living room is going to smell gorgeous this summer.
I love this sight .... peony roses emerging from the soil. Disappointingly, of the fifteen I planted at the allotment only six are showing signs of life at the moment ... fingers crossed though.
These cyclamen have been far more successful. Flowering for months and just beginning to produce seeds. If you watched Gardeners' World this week you will know that cyclamens wrap the seed pods in long spring like tendrils until they are ripe. Once the pods burst the seeds are covered in a sugar coat that attracts ants to carry them off away from the parent plant so the cyclamen colony spreads. Brilliant! I want the seeds though so I have to beat the ants to them.
I acquired a copy of Carol Kein's Grow Your Own Garden in a charity shop last week .... £1.99! It is packed with everything you need to know about propagating plants. Seeds; stem and root cutting; leaves; layering; division; offsets; bulbs, tubers and rhizomes and a final section on ferns. Well illustrated and easy to read so I already knew about the cyclamen ants!
Nice to have spring again and we can sow and repotting plants and so on. When we are in England we always visit second hand book shops and charity chops for gardening books. You have much more choice than we have and cheaper.
ReplyDeleteHi Janneke. I am a huge fan of charity shops ... I collect knitting/craft/cookery books mainly because there are always far too many gardening books to the point where I can't decide which to buy! Hope you are enjoying the beginning of Spring, I know I am :)
DeleteI've grown cyclamen by collecting seed - I think the secret is to sow fresh. If you want to read about it use the search box on my blog to search for cyclamen. Any rose I buy has to have a fragrance as do any sweet peas.
ReplyDeleteYou have been busy Patricia - how wonderful a wedding to look forward to as well. I'm sure once that's over and done with you'll be giving everything else a bit of attention.
ReplyDeleteI'll be looking forward to seeing that rose bed.
Hi Patricia, what a busy time you have been having, in and outside the world of gardening! I have that book of Carol's too, very inspirational, and very helpful too. I think I may be starting to get to grips with cuttings at long last.
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