Roses

Six on Saturday 13th February

greengirlgardener11 Comments

Gosh, I’m struggling to type this today. I went out to the garden to look for Six-worthy photos and it is bitterly cold out there and my hands haven’t thawed out yet! I was only out there for about five minutes and that was over an hour ago! According to the BBC weather app, it’s going to be in double digit figures, temperature-wise, all next week and I can’t flipping wait!!

It was quite a sad wander through the garden. It’s been so cold recently, for a prolonged period, and I don’t think the garden is very happy about it at all. It’s a good job I’m not spending much during lockdown, because, having looked at the garden, I think I’m going to have to invest quite a bit in new plants in the Spring/Summer because some of them definitely don’t look like they’ll recover.

One such plant is this Osteospurmum.

It’s made it through the two previous Winters without a problem. I even repotted it last year because it had done so well but, as you can see, it really hasn’t taken well to being snowed on and frozen for days! I’m annoyed, because, being in a pot, I could’ve moved it into the greenhouse for a bit of protection, but I didn’t think to.

There was proof in the greenhouse of just how cold it’s been – my thermometer shows the low and high temperatures and the low is now lower than it’s been since I got the greenhouse at – 4.8 degrees!

I left a half full watering can in there and it’s frozen solid! Unfortunately, a ladybird has fallen/landed in there and it’s frozen to death! Poor thing.

Back outside, I spotted a skeleton Pink Damask flower in my birthday planter.

Hopefully this plant will survive the elements. It dies down completely in the Winter before coming back in the Spring/Summer and with it being in my planter, hopefully it will have been kept a bit warmer underneath the soil.

I managed to find a bit of colour in the form of my Dogwood.

There are so many problem areas in our garden, and this is one of them. I’m sure this Dogwood would probably be doing much better somewhere else, but I’m limited in what I can grow because of next door’s jungle. At least it’s survived the arctic out there!

I’ve saved the best two photos for last! There is some regrowth happening! I really didn’t expect to see anything getting ready for Spring – even the daffodils have collapsed under the snow and now I’m not sure if they’ll bloom. However, there are some signs of Spring.

This Heuchera was given to us by my Dad and C when we first moved in and it’s survived every Winter so far, even this one! It has a beautiful delicate flower later on. I’m glad it’s stuck its middle stamen up at the snow and forged ahead to produce new growth.

The other bit of new growth I noticed is one of my patio roses. I have two of them, both from the sale a couple of years ago, and they could do with a bit of a prune. They’re also both leaning which I presume shows me which way the prevailing wind blows! I noticed the new leaves that have appeared, but what I didn’t notice until I got in and looked at the photo is that at the back there, there’s a rose bud. I hope that doesn’t try to bloom too early because it’s definitely still too cold for it.

I’m hopeful that soon there’ll be more signs of Spring for me to share, and if not, hopefully I’ll be able to get some new plants to replace the poor deceased ones.

I’ll sign off now but before I do, I’ll just remind you to check out the Propagator’s blog for other Sixes. People from all over the world join in, so there should be some colourful contributions from people living in different climates. Have a great weekend all.

Six on Saturday 3rd October

greengirlgardener15 Comments

I’ve been a bit remiss with keeping up with my blog. I was away last weekend so that’s my excuse. Anyway, here I am for a Six.

I’m going to start with a couple from our trip away. We went to Edinburgh for a few days for my birthday and we had a really great time (more of that on another post somewhen). I thought I’d come back with loads of planty photos because we’d planned a trip to the Botanic Gardens, but, as luck would have it, the day we’d planned that was the only day we had rain! Typical! We decided to do indoor things instead but we were fully booked every other day so had to take a literal rain check on the gardens. Good excuse to go back!

We came across this house in Prince’s Street gardens and I was taken with how pretty it is set in its lovely garden which was blooming with roses and lots of colour. I googled it to see if I could find out anything about the house and it’s the head gardener’s house but was also used in a BBC children’s programme.

On my birthday we’d booked a trip to Loch Ness which was absolutely brilliant. It was a long day, we met the tour at 8am and arrived back in Edinburgh at 8pm, but it was worth it. We stopped at several picturesque places on the way to Loch Ness and back.

Our tour driver was super knowledgeable about all things Scottish and he told us that there came a point when trees were dangerously low in numbers because there was no legislation in place to ensure replanting of trees after felling and it became a critical issue, so now for every tree that’s felled, another has to be planted. However, when this legislation was introduced, most of the trees that were planted weren’t native to Scotland meaning that now Scotland has more non-native trees than native. They were pretty impressive at this stop on our way back to Edinburgh.

This isn’t the best of photographs because I took it from a moving bus but you get the idea. We saw a few restaurants and shops whose entrances were entirely bedecked with beautiful flowers and plants, but this is the only picture I managed to snap. This is in the New Town part of Edinburgh where the architecture isn’t quite as lovely as it is in the Old Town, but the injection of colour really perks the buildings up.

Back home and the garden is in sore need of some tidying, but given the weather today and the upcoming forecast, it’s going to have to stay messy for a while! I have sunflowers which have flopped, wind battered runner beans and straggly pansies.

My ornamental kale is looking beautiful though.

This is hanging off the catio facing outwards in case furry friends nibble it, so we can’t see it unless we go out, but I’m happy just to know it’s there!

My fuchsias are still providing some much needed colour on these dreary days.

I feel that there hasn’t been enough fuchsia love on my blog this summer and I think it may be because they haven’t been as impressive this year, and I think that’s my fault. I must research fuchsia care so that they thrive next year. I have three and they all flowered, but they didn’t get many leaves and they didn’t get bushy like they were originally. Maybe some timely pruning is needed.

I may be slightly cheating with this last photo as it encompasses six in one! The photos may be multiple, but the point is singular.

And that point is, simply, colour! I took all these photos this morning before the rain started and it did make me happy to see all this colour after a week of dreary weather and the prospect of months of it to come.

That’s my Six for the week. As ever, the link to join in or just to read more Sixes is https://thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com/2020/10/03/six-on-saturday-03-10-2020/#respond

Six on Saturday 7th December

greengirlgardener9 Comments

I’ve been absent for a couple of weeks, and I’ve missed my creative blogging time. I’ve just had a lot on and haven’t found time to write. It also feels like I spend my whole life tired at this time of year so even when I have found myself with a few spare moments in which I could’ve shared what I’ve been up to, my brain’s been too sleepy to work!

I will try to find some time tomorrow to write a general catch up post of what’s been going on in the land of Green Girl Gardener over the past few weeks, although some of it I’ll have to tease you with because I have to keep some of my exciting news under my hat for now.

Anyway, enough of that and on to my first Six of December. It may also be the last of December – the impending festive season means a distinct lack of free time on Saturdays. We’ll see, maybe I’ll be able to squeeze one more in.

1. Hydrangeas

We have one Hydrangea in the back garden which was gifted to us by my in laws when we moved into our house. I finally planted it out at the end of Summer 2018 and it’s done well this year having more room to spread its roots.

However, when I checked it this morning …..

….. something has trampled it and broken off some of the faded flower heads. This, I think, is not good news. The old flowers protect the next year’s growth underneath so now I’m concerned that it might be damaged before the weather improves. Incidentally, please excuse the weeds – this area was almost inaccessible throughout the Summer because the Sweet Pea frame was in the way.

We have another Hydrangea in the front garden which I salvaged from a sale table this Summer, and it did really well and looked so pretty all Summer. I’m hoping it’ll get quite big and fill the corner of the garden.

I was really surprised to come out this morning and find some new growth on it.

I can’t remember what variety it is, but I’m sure it’s not supposed to bloom at Christmas!

2. Roses

We have lots! I love them!

This one is a patio Rose that’s in a pot on our bistro and it’s still valiantly trying to flower for me. There’s a teeny tiny spider currently making a home in its petals.

This one I think could be described as a mummified Rose! It’s my Rose Hot Chocolate which did really well this year. It’s become somewhat lanky so it needs a hard prune. I’ll have to check when to do it.

Finally, in the front we have beautiful Rose hips. This Rose was in the garden when we bought the house so I don’t know what variety it is, but it’s lovely.

3. Staying in the front garden, the Camellia has buds!

This also seems early. It flowers oh too briefly in very late Spring/early Summer and I’m always sad when the beautiful pink flowers turn brown and drop. I hope any potential cold snaps don’t ruin its chances of flowering next year.

4. Daffodils

Close inspection of the area in front of my birthday planter this morning revealed Daffodil shoots emerging. ALREADY! I’m sure they didn’t peek their heads into the world before Christmas last year. No sign of the Crocuses yet though. I wish I’d planted more Daffodil bulbs this Autumn. Last year I planted these ones in a row and whilst I loved their cheery yellow joy in the Spring, I think they’d have had more impact if I’d have planted them in clusters rather than a straight line.

5. There’s good news and bad news in the greenhouse. I always eat my sprout (singular!) first when eating my Christmas dinner so in a similar vein of getting the worst out of the way first I’ll show you the bad news first.

These were my cuttings, emphasis on the past tense! So disappointing. They were doing so well and now they’re really not! I don’t know what went wrong. Too cold? Too damp?

Anyway, sprout dealt with so on to the turkey and roasties.

The Fuchsias and Gazania seem to be coping ok with the cold. According to my thermometer, it’s been down to – 1.5° in the greenhouse. Let’s hope it doesn’t get any colder (for my sake as well as the plants!)

6. In case I don’t manage to squeeze another Six in before Christmas, I’m going to finish with Euphorbia ‘Rudolph’ for obvious reasons!

Unfortunately the reason for its seasonal moniker isn’t obvious during the festive season. You can just about see the pink tinge still but during the Summer it had bright red ‘noses’ just like Rudolph. This was from the sale table in Notcutts and I’m really pleased with how well it’s done.

I’m really late finishing this post this week (I started it at about half eleven this morning in the hairdresser’s) so if you pop over to the Propagator’s blog there’ll be plenty of other Sixes to catch up with in his comments. I’ll try to be back tomorrow with another post to make up for my extended absence.