Green Girl Gardener

Ooh, two blog posts in as many days!

I’m in the hairdressers again, and, unlike last time I was here, the sun is streaming in through the windows, I came out without a coat and there’s a definite Spring spring in my step! I love this time of year. Everything’s full of hope and the happy prospect of the summer, and all that that brings is stretching ahead with the end too far away to even contemplate.

I woke up this morning to daylight, and had a slight panic that I’d slept through my hair appointment, but no, it really was full daylight at twenty past seven! Whoop!

I did some faffing around (it is me, after all!) and then decided to take myself off to the garden to have a look. It seems to be changing quite rapidly at the moment – I’m getting a new daffodil flower approximately every other day, so that’s the first of my six – Spring bulbs.

I know it’s not difficult to grow bulbs, I really had nothing to do with it other than planting them and chasing off the occasional foraging squirrel, but I feel really accomplished having some successful Spring bulbs and they make me happy whenever I look at them. I’m ninety five percent sure that I planted some tulips somewhere, so I’m expecting those to appear somewhere soon.

Number two I think will be my giant alliums. Strictly these are also Spring bulbs, but I’m giving them their own point because I feel their size demands it (although, as we all know, size is not everything, it’s what you do ….. no, let’s not go there!)

The giant allium bulbs were huge! If all goes according to plan (which is looking positive) they’ll be almost as tall as me and by early to mid Summer, they’ll have huge purple globes made up of individual umbels (according to the genius that is Wikipedia, umbels are masses of tiny flowers which cluster together to form one giant mass of beautifulness (my word, not Wikipedia’s)). Thinking about it, the shoots in front of the giant alliums might be the tulips. We’ll see.

Number three. Bluebells!

More bulbs, but this time it’s their sheer quantity which I feel justifies their own post. They’re everywhere! In pretty much every flower bed! The ones above are pushing up around the edges of the bistro, and they’ve even wiggled their way through the weed control fabric in the middle of the bistro. I’ll forgive them though – they’re not weeds, therefore it doesn’t apply to them!

Number four kind of leads on from the bulb talk because they look like bulb growth.

 

This is the flexi tub that had my courgette plant in last year, and I’ve just left it to one side while I decide what to do with it. Obviously there are some weeds growing in there, but there are also a couple of leafy growths that look suspiciously like something which would grow from a bulb, but I’ve definitely not planted any bulbs in there (unless I did it in my sleep!) I have no idea how bulbs propagate. Can it happen by wind borne means? I’m guessing that the bluebells weren’t purposely planted, at least not all of them, so they must multiply somehow. Maybe these will be bluebells. I’m going to leave them and find out.

Numero cinq involved covert operations in the front garden because I was still wearing my pyjamas and dressing gown! I crept out really quickly hoping upon hope that our neighbours wouldn’t choose that precise time to inspect their own front garden! Luckily they didn’t.

Our Camelia is absolutely full of buds. It’s so beautiful when all those bright pink blooms emerge, but unfortunately it’s also relatively short lived and we end up with a blanket of pink on the ground which quickly turns brown. I’ll be sure to show you a picture when it’s at the height of its glory.

I don’t normally much bother with the front garden beyond trying to keep it just the right side of a shambles. Our ultimate plan is to turn the whole front garden into a bigger drive when funds allow because the back garden is quite enough, if not too much, to cope with in the limited time we have to garden. We do have some lovely plants/shrubs out the front though. I could try to transfer them I guess but it’d be a job to dig the Camelia up and I’ve read that Peonies don’t like to be moved. We’ll see – can’t hurt to try but I don’t see funds being available for the foreseeable future anyway.

Finally, I have a plethora of plants and seeds waiting to be planted or sown.

 

Top right was a sale table find from B&M Bargains, but I don’t know what it is. My Mum thinks it may be a Cotoneaster. I left it to see if it gave anything away, but so far it hasn’t. I don’t know where to plant it because I’ve no idea what conditions it likes or how big it will get!

Top left is my temporary resting place for rescued plants until I decide where they should go. There are several Hebes and several grasses. I do have a plan for some of them that I’ll be working on now it’s warming up a bit outside.

Top middle and bottom left are my most recent purchases that need to find homes. The Callicarpa Bodinieri will get BIG so I need to think carefully about that one. I did have a plan for the other four when I bought them, but I can’t remember what it was! It’ll come to me when I reread the labels.

The last three are seeds which it’s almost time to sow. Now these I do have a plan for. The Sweet Peas and the Sunflowers are going to fill up the space behind my planter while my other shrubs are still small and growing into the space and the chillis and veg are going in my new greenhouse and eventually the new raised beds.

So there’s my Six on Saturday, and now I’ve got to dash because I’m off to Edinburgh tomorrow and, och aye, I need to pack. Do check out the Propagator’s blog for more Six on Saturday fun.