It’s officially the first day of Spring today but my garden is seemingly still in the slumbers of Winter. I’ve got some daffs and the bluebells are starting to spring up but the rest of the garden is, at best, yawning and rubbing its eyes. Still, I’m sure it’ll smell the coffee soon and throw off the duvet and get on with the job in hand.
It was drizzly and grey this morning but the drizzle was short lived and I was soon able to get out there and get on with assembling this cold frame.
I took delivery of it earlier this week. Aldi are celebrating Spring by selling a range of gardening bits and bobs. I’ve been after a cold frame for ages so I snapped this one up when I saw it. It’s not the highest quality, but what do you expect for less than forty quid? I’m sure it’ll do me for a couple of years and then I can decide whether or not to invest in a more expensive one. It’ll save me having to cart my seedlings in and out of the greenhouse when it comes to hardening them off. I’ve sowed a fair few seeds already but nothing’s happening with them yet.
The drizzle left behind beautiful diamonds on my lupin leaves. This is the second of the two lupins that I bought last year. I’m really pleased that they’ve both graced me with their presence this year. Let’s hope they produce beautiful flowers in the summer. I was quite disappointed last year by how short lived they were, but they were very welcome while they stuck around.
My poor pieris was already suffering from thrip but now it seems to have struggled with the cold snap at the beginning of the year too. Its leaves are looking pretty black, and I thought I may have lost it but I noticed today that it is struggling on and has produced its gorgeous bell-like flowers. I’ll have to see how it goes.
This is a new cowslip that has appeared. There are quite a few out there that I haven’t planted. One appeared a couple of years ago at the end of the garden, so I relocated it to my birthday planter and it seems that they self seed quite prolifically. That’s fine. I think they’re really pretty with their cheerful yellow flowers.
My final two points are unidentified additions to the garden that, the same as the cowslip, I haven’t planted, and I could do with some help in identifying them.
First is this leafy plant that has sprung up in a random plant pot that I hadn’t emptied. Is it honesty? I had some honesty a couple of years ago that I picked up from a sale table. It was just sold as a wild flower, but it turned out to be honesty. I intended to collect the seeds but didn’t get round to it, but I guess nature might have done its thing.
Finally is this shrub which looks like giant coriander. Could it be a gooseberry bush? It looks like it according to Leafsnap, but I don’t understand how a gooseberry bush has just appeared from nowhere. The new leaves are growing on what looks like old wood underneath, but I’ve never seen it before! I’m not even sure if I like gooseberries, but it’d be nice to find out.
That’s my Six for this week. I hope we get some prolonged dry spells soon so I can get out there and do some tidying. There’s nothing worse than pulling weeds and random detritus when they’re all soggy. I need it to dry out and then I can get stuck into sorting out the Winter damage.
In the meantime, don’t forget to check out the Propagator for more Sixes.
Green Girl Gardener 
I have a mystery plant with leaves like that, smaller though, that I wondered about being honesty! I’m with you and the lupine leaves after a rain, or with dew. So pretty.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ll keep an eye on it. If I get some flowers I’ll be able to tell if it’s honesty.
LikeLike
It looks like Gooseberry to me too and there appear to be prickles on the stem which would back that up. The cold frame looks very useful and as you say stops you having to move your plants in and out of the greenhouse, which can be a bit of a pain.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Fingers crossed for some gooseberries then. I wonder where it came from!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I also believe that it looks like gooseberry. My primary thought was that it looks like a native currant, but that would be very unlikely outside of its native range. Honestly, I can not be sure about the honesty. It looks right to me, but I am not familiar enough with it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wow! Well it looks like I’ll be growing gooseberries then. That’s exciting!
LikeLiked by 1 person
The gooseberries that showed up on one of my parcels are the native sort that are not very productive at all, but I really like them anyway. I would like them to spread enough to make enough berries for jelly, even if only a pint or so. Fruiting cultivars have only been available here for a few years, perhaps because they do not perform so well here. I will try them eventually. I think it would be fun to acquire one ‘accidentally’ and not know what it is until the fruit develops.
LikeLiked by 2 people
The cold frame is a good buy!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Looks like a gooseberry and an honesty to me! Keep us posted so I can see if I was right…Ha! Wonder if our USA Aldi’s will have coldframes, too?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Several votes for gooseberry and honesty now so I think we must all be right. I’ll be off to Google what I can make with gooseberries now 🤣.
LikeLiked by 1 person
When I get black leaves on Camellias it’s because of scale insects on the undersides of the leaves. I don’t think Pieris usually get them but it’d be worth taking a look. You also need to keep a close eye on the gooseberry because where gooseberry leaves go, gooseberry sawfly surely follows and they will strip it bare in days, which would be an inauspicious start to your gooseberry growing career.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you – I’ll check both those out. Maybe that’s why I’ve never noticed the gooseberry before – sawfly beat me to it!
LikeLiked by 1 person