Gardening

Six on Saturday 11th June

greengirlgardener6 Comments

I’m away this weekend on a girls mini break so I’m being organised and drafting this post in advance so I can just press send on Saturday when I’ll be mostly hot tubbing, afternoon teaing and Prosecco/Pimmsing! I decided I had to do a post this week because there’s a riot of colour and gorgeousness occurring outside our back door and it really needs sharing.

I’m amazed by how much pink there is, and I’ve even added to the existing pink. I really don’t like pink (especially baby pink) anywhere but in plant form, but four of my six points this week are resplendent in pink.

First is one of my new purchases. Have you ever seen more beautiful leaves anywhere in your life? I haven’t. This gorgeous coleus came from a garden centre in Liphook last weekend when I went to visit my mum. It was just impossible for it not to come home with me. It’s in a pot on our bistro which I can see from my home office, and it’s next to ….

…. my second point, and second pink purchase from Liphook. I have to have a dahlia every summer, and just look at this beauty. Shocking pink and shockingly gorgeous!

Taking a break from the pink with a more sedate yellow is this rose. It’s rose Sweet Memories and it’s in one of granny’s pots. No doubt I’ll share it again once it’s fully open, but there is something special about the anticipation of a closed rose so I wanted to share it now.

Another new purchase, but this one from closer to home when we took a trip over to Notcutts. I had a voucher for fifty percent off any plant over £30 which I used to buy a magnolia (still in its pot – not sure where to put it!) and I couldn’t resist this coprosma. Very autumnal colours and completely up my alley! Need to find somewhere for this too.

Back to the pink, and it’s a fuchsia. This is the oldest fuchsia that I have, and it’s the most reliable! I’ve got some fancy pants plant food from QVC and I think I’ll try it out on this fuchsia and see if she benefits. Fuchsias always make me think of my grandad and bring a smile to my face.

Finally, and sticking with the pink, our peonies are flowering. Baby pink, I know, but they’re so flouncy with it that I don’t mind the colour. They remind me of those ruffled over pants that people used to put over babies nappies in the 70s. They’d been threatening to burst into bloom for more than a week and then they chose the day before the heavens opened in biblical fashion, to show their wares, and then promptly collapsed under the weight of the rain! I’ve propped them up as best I can and reminded myself that I should listen to Monty Don when he tells us to support plants before they need it, not after!

Right then. I need to go and pack some clothes for this weekend and, importantly, check that I’ve got the Prosecco and Pimms ready. Hopefully I’ll have time in between hot tubbing and scoffing scones to have a peruse of other Sixes over at the Propagator’s blog. Have a great weekend all.

Six on Saturday 7th May

greengirlgardener6 Comments

I wasn’t intending to write a Six post today but then I went down the garden and saw something that made me smile, so I thought I’d share. It’ll be a very concise Six because I’m typing on my phone because I don’t want to get off the egg chair to get my iPad!

Anyway, the source of my grin was this …

… beginnings of raspberries! I’m fully aware that this doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll get raspberries, but it’s closer than I’ve ever got before and the anticipation is almost as delicious as the (hopefully) ensuing raspberries!

So what else is happening in the garden?

Well this is happening in abundance overseeing the raspberry babies. An absolute wall of beautiful honeysuckle that also makes me smile because every time I see it I think of this …

Edit: not honeysuckle, I now realise, but still beautiful!

No, Pooh, you don’t eat them, you smell them!

Oh!

I’m working my way back down the garden, and here we have my eupatorium springing back up.

It’s about a foot tall so far but will get to around a metre if previous years are to be matched. I must try to remember to take cuttings this year. I need more of these!!

Ambling my way back down to the patio it’s like strolling through a bluebell wood.

I can take absolutely no credit for these whatsoever. They were here before we got here and I imagine they’ll still be popping up every year long after we’ve popped off! There are so many that Ziggy the triceratops is almost completely ambushed by bluebells. I do take partial credit for the beautiful pink rhododendron in the background though!

A happy accident has occurred in the front border.

I planted the erysimum a couple of years back, but I had nothing to do with the lime euphorbia which has appeared around it. At least I don’t think I did! I think the colours work perfectly with each other, both appearing more vibrant in contrast. More bluebells making sure they get a look in too!

Back on the patio and the polomonium that I thought I’d lost is looking beautiful.

This is Stairway to Heaven, bought to live in one of granny’s pots. Maybe this is her saying ‘hello Sarah, you’re doing ok’.

I’m going to sit here a little longer and enjoy listening to the buzz of bees and the birdsong. Might slip along to check out more Sixes at the Propagator. Join me?

Six on Saturday – 30th April

greengirlgardener7 Comments

I’m typing whilst sitting on my new egg swing chair (must feature it one week, perhaps when there’s a dearth of prettiness left to feature) and I’m being entertained by music from next door’s youngest’s fourth birthday party. There’s a bouncy castle for the little ones but the parents are enjoying an 80s playlist which suits me down to the ground. That’s my era!

This is the closest I’m going to get to gardening beyond a bit of watering this weekend. We’ve just got back from a lovely week in Lanzarote, during which I managed to go flying off an e-scooter landing (heavily) mainly on my palms and left knee so kneeling is out for a while and dirt in grazed palms I’m guessing wouldn’t be a good idea. We stayed in a lovely hotel which, informatively, named a lot of the plants in its grounds.

I presume most people would know even without the label that this is a geranium (or maybe not?) but there were lots of succulents and other plants and shrubs which I was interested to identify. I thought it was a nice touch.

I’d sowed some seeds in the greenhouse before we went and gave them a good soaking on our morning of departure hoping they’d make it through the week.

I checked yesterday and the cosmos in the little terracotta pots had sprouted but nothing else. I gave everything a good watering and left it up to the lap of the gods. This morning I checked and a few nigella have appeared and one petit pois. I really hope I get some more petit pois. I may sow a few more when my hands are healed.

It seems the garden didn’t mind us being away because it’s got on with the business of the season admirably on its own. A couple of the pots were looking a bit sorry for themselves, but a swift watering and they’ve survived. The rhododendron was looking like it was about to explode with colour before we left and I was worried that we’d miss it completely …

… but it waited for us. A couple of the flowers are out but most are still getting ready. Such a beautiful bloom, this one. I’m so glad I rescued it from the sale table when garden centres reopened in the first relaxation of covid measures.

This Welsh poppy self seeded itself this year in one of my pots and before we left it had lots of foliage but no buds. Yesterday I noticed a bud, and this morning it had opened!

Similarly, my clematis Montana had some leaves but no buds just over a week ago, but now she has lots of flowers. More than ever before, in fact. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you may remember that she didn’t flower at all for a couple of years, then I got one or two flowers a year, but now there are quite a few. Lovely delicate linen coloured petals.

I’ll finish with geum Totally Tangerine. I thought I may have lost it this year, because an awful lot of the leaves were dead when I did some weeding and maintenance recently, but it’s just about hung on in there and now it has a flower. It’s definitely somewhat depleted from previous years, but let’s hope it picks up and gains strength through the summer.

That’s your lot for this week. It’s got to that time of year where I have to prioritise what to feature, rather than scrub around trying to find anything of interest. I imagine others are the same, so I’ll pop over to the Propagator to see what others have prioritised. I hope everyone has a great bank holiday weekend.