December

 Over the last few weeks I have been moving plants from the allotment into the garden. It has been great to have lots of cut flowers over the last few years but I decided I wanted to enjoy the colours and smells every day not just on visits to the allotment.  I have dug up rows of tulip bulbs to put in the beds and into pots.  Andy planted half a bed with bulbs about three years ago.  I could not believe how many bulbs I was digging up!  Each single bulb had become a clump of four to six in size.  They went up to the allotment as small bags of bulbs ... they have come back in four large plastic storage boxes!  Well, most of them are planted now (just one plastic box left in the greenhouse but I have some large empty pots so I will get them finished this week).

 

We had filled another allotment bed with roses. This autumn I emptied one of the garden beds so at least twelve roses could be moved to be enjoyed at home.  We pruned them right back before digging them up.  They went back in the ground just outside my kitchen window.  I looked at them today and small leaves are beginning to appear so they have obviously taken.

I had yet another allotment bed of Iris and Peonies.  I chose a lovely sunny spot at the back of the  garden for the Irises.  Unfortunately the sun shine didn't hang around the day I moved them but I had to get them in the ground so I got steadily wetter and muddier. 

The peonies had also mutiplied.  Most of the original plants had come from my mother's garden before we sold her house.  I had divided the clumps and each one is now a decent size plant.  I have put most of them in a border where I already had a couple of peonies.  They don't like being planted too deep but I dug them up keeping as much soil around them as possible, that way I know they are at the right depth. The small pink buds are growing nicely now.

Thompson and Morgan were giving 48 lavender plants away for free when I first got the allotment.  The tiny cuttings were large bushy plants this summer covered in bees.  This spring I want to move a few of these plants onto the side of the lane where we live to make pockets of scent as you walk down to the house.

There's a whole load of crocosmia bulbs, some hollyhocks, about a dozen lupins, achillea and aquilegia still up there so there will still be some cut flowers to bring home ... unless I dig up some more lawn and find room for them down here!