greenhouse

Six on Saturday 7th January 2023

greengirlgardener9 Comments

Well this is novel! I haven’t posted anything on my blog since the end of August! I’d forgotten how to compress my photos and how to connect my keyboard to my iPad. I kind of fell out of love with blogging and that combined with much less time due to general life duties and the end of summer and, hence, lack of prettiness in the garden meant I just haven’t posted for ages. I’m not sure if I’m, in the words of Take That, back for good, but I’m here for now, and we’ll see if I rediscover my blogging enthusiasm.

I think what has drawn me to write, is that I saw from the kitchen window that my newest hellebore has flowers and it prompted me to venture into the garden to check the damage done by the recent cold snap (not as extensive as I’d feared) and I was inspired by the signs of life, and, dare I say it, spring coming!

Hellebores will be my first point.

I should know what variety these are, but alas, I don’t! I think the white one is Christmas but the other two, nope, no idea! The pinky-white one is the newest and it’s the first time I’ve seen it flower – isn’t it pretty? The middle one hasn’t opened it’s pretty flowers yet, but once it does, it flowers for ages, well into summer.

Next up are these erysimum in a pot.

I got these in the sale at some point last summer. There were only five in the carton instead of six, hence the sale price, but the five that were left were perfectly fine so I snapped them up. They look quite happy in this pot. I’m looking forward to seeing what colour flowers they produce.

I couldn’t resist including a photo of my unidentified success. Those who’ve followed me for a while (if you’re still there after such an extended absence!) will know that this cost me pennies a couple of years ago and it had no label, and that it’s gone from strength to strength. I’d have been really upset if the cold had killed it, but it (unlike its owner) is obviously quite happy with arctic conditions. As it’s unidentified, maybe I should give it a name – Elsa seems apt (Frozen, anyone?)

My final three points are full of hope and new beginnings. First up my pink damask is pushing through new shoots. Before I know it, she’ll be a couple of feet tall and threatening to burst forth with her dusky blooms.

In front of Ms. Damask under the watchful eye of Monsieur Red Breast are, joy of joys, the beginnings of daffs! Daffs mean spring, and spring means warmth, light and holidays are just around the corner – what’s not to love?

Finally, lots of miniature sedum cabbages! Aren’t they cute?

I’m so glad nature’s done its thing completely unaided by yours truly. It’s just been too cold to go out there for so long, and now it’s too wet to do anything! There’s a mouldy pepper plant in the green house, a collapsed honeysuckle trellis, a couple of coprosmas that may or may not be dead (I hope not, but it doesn’t look hopeful) and the weeds and sopping wet debris are everywhere, but after pottering around out there today, I’m confident that if the rain ever stops, I’ll be able to get things back in order.

That’s all for now – enjoy the rest of the weekend folks!

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.

Six on Saturday 16th April

greengirlgardener6 Comments

I’m writing this sitting outside drifting backwards and forwards on my new egg chair (thank you QVC) having spent the day getting stuck into some well needed gardening. I’ve decided to call it a day now, partly because I’m exhausted and partly because time’s getting on and I want to get a Six done today because this time next week we’ll be in Lanzarote (covid, security/check in delays and flight cancellation permitting!) so I won’t be writing a post then (although you could still pop to see the Propagator without me next Saturday and see what other treasures people are sharing).

Most of my points today relate to this photo taken yesterday as we left Dobbies with a fully laden boot.

My main purpose for going was to have lunch in their restaurant (check) and for compost (check) and bedding plants (check). However I also came out with several unforeseen purchases. Isn’t that always the way with garden centres?

So on with my first point (I’m counting the above as a preamble, not a point).

Most of the bedding plants have found a home, whether it be square, round or semi-circle. It was BOGOF on packs of twenty violas and pansies, so I got one of each. I’m so happy it’s finally warm enough to get on with the early summer planting. I don’t want to speak too soon, but I think we can be fairly confident that the final frost has been and gone. I had one cowslip in the wall basket from last year and I noticed another couple had self-seeded themselves halfway down the garden, so I dug them up and rehomed them, and added a couple of violas to make a pretty wall display.

I was intending to replace all my strawberry plants this year, but I decided to give the ones in our big planter one more year to see if they’ll perform so I just bought three new plants to replace the three original ones I had in a pot.

These are alpine strawberries and it says they’re perfect for pots so hopefully they’ll do well.

Somewhat dominating the space in my boot was a cotoneaster. I absolutely wasn’t intending coming home with a cotoneaster but, well, it happened!

I moved a couple of things around in the space behind my birthday planter and the cotoneaster fitted in perfectly there. It fills a space nicely. I also took the opportunity to deadhead last year’s flowers from the hydrangea that you can see in the background now the aforementioned frost has passed.

I sat down for a few minutes after planting the cotoneaster because it needed quite a big hole digging, and my back was complaining, and look who chirruped over to see if I’d turned up any worms.

Little beady-eyed robin red breast. He’s never far away when I’m out gardening.

I spent a bit of time in the greenhouse – 26.5° it was in there!

I sowed petit pois seeds in the green containers. I decided to try to start them off in the greenhouse this year because last year I sowed them direct and not a single one germinated. In the small terracotta pots are cosmos and in the bigger pot is nigella. I don’t know if either of these will grow because they’re old seeds that have been in the greenhouse since last year, but I thought I’d give it a go.

Finally, the first bluebells are opening their little heads to see the sun.

Aren’t they pretty? They seem to take so long to flower and then once the blooms have died you’re left with a load of unattractive leaves. Still, best to appreciate them while they last because there’s certainly no getting rid of the abundance of them in our garden.

I hope you’re all enjoying a relaxing Easter weekend with lots of relaxing, chocolate and maybe a bit of gardening. I’ll catch you all on the other side of our holiday.