Green Girl Gardener

First things first, if you’re reading this and you’re not in the UK, Ireland or (apparently!) Niger, and you’ve just come over in a cold sweat, don’t panic Mr Mainwaring, Mother’s Day for you has either been and gone, or is yet to come. For us here in the UK, it’s today.

I always feel it’s a mixed day. There are so many mothers who’ve lost a child, children who’ve lost their mother, estranged mothers and children, women who are, or have been, desperately trying to become a mother without success, and that must be so difficult. My own Mum is over a hundred miles away with the biggest car park in the UK (AKA the M25) in the way, so I don’t see her very often, but at least these days it’s easy to get a card and gift to her. Although, maybe I shouldn’t have bothered with the card!

Does it make it any less lazy that I designed it on Moonpig and put pictures of flowers from our garden on it and then used my own wording inside? And I had it sent to me rather than straight to Mum so that I could sign it myself?

Apparently Anna Jarvis introduced Mother’s Day in the US after losing her own mother in 1908, but prior to her death she had tried to rescind it because she didn’t agree with how commercial it had become. Ironic perhaps that when she died penniless, her bills were paid by the greetings card companies that she so scorned!

I chose not to walk down the traditional motherhood path, my babies have fur!

I’ve spent the weekend pottering in the garden, actually it wasn’t all pottering. Yesterday hubby and I finished off the slabbing around the raised beds and greenhouse. It was so much easier with two. Hubby made short work of mixing the sand and cement leaving me to do the more precision work of laying the slabs. It looks pretty good, if I do say so myself!

I feel like my seedlings should’ve sent me a Mother’s Day card. I’ve given them all they needed for life, I’ve nurtured them, I’ve worried about them, I’ve reassured them and I’m so proud of them.

This is how they’re looking now.

Sunflowers, Calendula, Sweet Peas, Cosmos and Aquilegia. I say ‘and Aquilegia’ but they’re the only seeds that aren’t doing anything. I just googled it and the RHS site tells me the seeds need light to germinate so you shouldn’t cover them! It didn’t tell me that on the packet! I’ll have to go out and see if I can salvage the situation. I need to do some more sowing anyway because I got some Poppy seeds with the latest Gardener’s World magazine.

I’ve done some planting out today as well. I still have loads of plants waiting around patiently for their forever home so I decided to plant a few out. The problem I have now is that I planted loads of Summer bulbs last weekend and almost immediately I managed to forget where I’d planted them! I have a vague idea, but I really need them to throw up some shoots so I know where I’m safe to plant other stuff! I did manage to disturb a couple of them today – whoops!

After what happened to my Berberis when I planted it out last year (it lost all its beautiful leaves immediately) I get really worried whenever I plant anything out, especially if it’s been happily moseying along in its pot for some time, but I have to bite the bullet and keep everything crossed.

On the left is Leucothoe Axillaris ‘Curly Red’. This was a birthday present, so it’s been sat in its pot since September waiting for me to find somewhere for it to live.  It likes partial or full shade so I’ve put it on the side of the garden which is shadowed by next door’s huge conifers. The photo doesn’t do it justice, it’s really lovely in real life.

I wish I could tell you what the shrub on the right is. It was £1.50 from B&M Bargains and it had no label. I purposely kept it in its pot for quite a while so I could see if it flowered or did anything that might give an indication as to what it is, but it didn’t. My best guess is Cotoneaster, but it’s never had any berries so I’m not sure. Any suggestions are welcome!

I also planted these out. They are Rose Campion and they were gifted to me last week by our cleaner at work. She’s so kind and she often brings me in various plants that have self seeded and multiplied in her garden. I’m less worried about these, firstly because I haven’t had time to get attached to them and secondly because they’ve been sat in a plant pot for the past week with barely any soil around them and just a little sprinkle of water, and they don’t seem to be any the worst. According to t’internet, they’ll have beautiful magenta flowers.

My daffodils are starting to fade already.

It’s so bitter sweet. Fading daffodils means we’re getting closer to Summer which is my happiest season, but it’s so sad to see the beautiful yellow blooms turning brown and withering. I console myself with the knowledge that they’ll be back again next year.

There’s good progress going on with my established plants too.

Just look at the amazing colours on my Polemonium. Isn’t it beautiful? It has tall waving flowers. There’s no sign of them yet, but to be honest, I’d be happy for it to stay like this. Stunning!

I think this Geranium is the living embodiment of determined. I relocated it sometime during last Summer when it was ridiculously hot because I needed its space. I had to be quite rough with it when I was digging it up because it was really well established, and I seem to recall I didn’t even replant it on the same day that I dug it up. For a while it really looked like it wouldn’t make it, it wilted and lay completely flat on the ground, but now look at it. The epitome of perky.

Finally my wild flower. It was on the sale table and it just said ‘Wild Flower’ on the label so I had no idea what it would do.

The first pic is when I planted it in August, the second was taken ten days ago and the third was today. It’s grown soooo much. I didn’t even expect it to make it through the Winter! I’m really impatient for all the flowers to open out. It’s going to be gorgeous – just look how many individual little buds there are in each little cluster.

I suppose I’d better go and get ready for the new week. There’s been very little garden time in the week recently, but now the clocks have gone forward so it’ll be lighter for longer in the evenings so I should be able to get some mooching in the garden done after work now – whoop!

Have a good week all.