Well a longer than intended break from the blog - brought about by an extreme bout of laziness compounded by a horrible cold and the damp claggy weather of late. Nevertheless there are things to be done just before Spring kicks off. First off I completed the annual spiking of the lawn with my new garden fork (the old one broken moving a bush a month ago). What benefit spiking actually brings to the lawn I know not. I have however perfected a smooth technique which goes stab lawn with fork 12 inched from the last set of holes, stand on fork until sunk and can go no further (stones can upset this bit), wobble fork back and forward to loosen it up then heave it out with a kind of weightlifter jerk.
It bloody hurts doing it as I get the fork all the way down to the clay about 10" below the surface where it then appears to be gripped by the clay substrate and requires a great deal of to-ing and fro-ing of the fork to get it out again. This is however preferable to waiting until its drier as this really jars the bones and you cant get the fork in more than 3 or 4 inches.
What I think it does it is it loosens up some of the well trodden areas which get compacted, lets warm spring air into the roots, helps drainage a little and the fork holes fill up with loose soil sand and compost encouraging some lateral root growth. I also threw on the first batch of lawn fertilizer and swept over a little mixed sand and compost mix that passes for a lawn dressing. Anyway its done - shortly after some rain which made it soft enough to get the fork in - and out - and its a job that I dont have to do for another 12 months. I think this is my version of a spring fertilitiy sacrrfice - it takes a few hours and costs me a sore back, stiff arms and a few blisters. My suffering is a sacrifice to the garden gods in return for a decent lawn.
The second thing I have done since my last post is the erection of the Xmas present - the plastic green house. I am delighted with this. Its cheap, its small and it fits nicely out of sight behind a shed but is south facing and gets loads of warmth and light. The conservatory has been returned to being a conservatory and the fuchsia and geranium cutting forest which are now a12-18" high have a new home. The Other Half did the actual building of the metal frame - she loves puzzles and flat pack furniture puzzles the hell out of me. While she did that I did a pot audit - deciding what to keep ( I tend to keep all pots so now have a stack about a meter high), what had frozen and broken over winter and what needed emptying of old plants and compost from autumn.. In the process I decided to finally plumb in the water-but next to a main drainpipe (had it for 2 years), moved the large potted conifer that was in the way and then replanted that in the ground after I broke the very large terracotta pot a it was in and couldn't find anything else big enough for it. This required a shifting of various other plants and potted bamboos and forced me finally to say arriverderci to a couple of poorish caryopteris thugs which I had kept on all last year but was unable to keep them compact without them becoming woody and tired. By the time this was done - green house was assembled, then moved, dressed with plastic cover and then weighted down with a couple of paving slabs. Geraniums and Fuchsias moved in.
Today they were joined by my half price seeds (bought in January fro £8 instead of ordering £80 worth of mail order seedlings) which have been sown into seed trays with potting compost and vermiculite - the first time I have used this so we will see if it makes a difference. (ie will anything germinate and grow?) Seeds sown are rudbeckia, mimulus, 2 types of lobelia, viola, pansy, petunia, nemesia, mesanbryanthemum, antirhinums and oddly a pack of mixed cactus seed bought on a whim.
But let me say this - what a rip off seed packets are. The petunia seeds came in a a plastic phial and there were precisely 12 of them. The only packet with a good shake of seeds were the antirhinums. The rest were truly pathetic with seeds being in the 20's or 30's so not the in the hundreds I was expecting. I can only assume seed suppliers either reckon I am a world class horticulturalist and don't need that many or they have decreased the amount of seed drastically to keep them solvent. This is going to have to be much less hit and miss than I am used to, to be successful.
I have a feeling I would be better of with plug plants and am sorely tempted to go back to the catalogues again - except I don't want 50 of everything. I'll see how the seeds turn out first but honestly I am not impressed.
Observations in the garden this week - crocuses and snow drops in bloom for 2/3 weeks.No daffodils in bloom yet, Tulips now 3/4 inches, grass beginning to grow, hydrangeas beginning to leaf. FIRST WEEDS APPEAR. Cat has caught 3 mice. Anti-Dog fence and sticks now working. Saw our resident robbin for the first time this year.
Lastly Purchases since the last blog - new fork £17 from B&Q; nice little lemon tree (with 3 lemons! )£7 Aldi; tray and 26 seed pots - Aldi £3.99; wind chime thing from B&Q - £12; half price pot of Hostas from Garden Centre £2; 2 small sacks of potting compost £4 Garden Centre; Vemiculite £2.99 Garden Centre; 3-for-2 non peat multipurpose potting compost B&Q £5.99;
Saturday, 3 March 2012
Wednesday, 8 February 2012
Snow Snow Snow
Well unsurprisingly with 3 inches of snow dumped over the garden gardening activities have ceased in favour of trying to melt the ice on the little fish pond to aerate the water, taking bad photographs and sitting in the conservatory admiring all my geranium cuttings. Yes for the first time ever i took a load of autumn cuttings from my border fuchsias and geraniums. Well I say "a load" in fact about a dozen geraniums and 2 dozen fuchsias. My reasoning was based on my previous success rates in the cutting department - ie normally 1 in 10 survive. Well this time I have a 100% success rate and a positive hedge of 12 inch geraniums and fuchsias absolutely loving the conservatory and rapidly out growing their pots. I also have half a dozen auriculas. No i dont know much about these - my Mum gave me some last year and they did nothing and looked miserable where ever i put them - sun shade, pot or border. Nevertheless I brought then all in for winter. Quite honestly they are still disappointing - they don't look alive or dead and don't change much from day to day - a major case of the sulks. So anyway the conservatory is teeming with life and the garden still all white with a number of half grown daffodil shoots now looking stupid as they arrived too early - fooled by the mild January. Be interesting to see how they turn out.
Other than that not much to report. Keep feeding the garden birds and squirrel - the latter not welcome but I don't actively stop it. Always amazed the sparrows and blue tits survive the cold but they are judging by the fat ball consumption rate.
Other than that not much to report. Keep feeding the garden birds and squirrel - the latter not welcome but I don't actively stop it. Always amazed the sparrows and blue tits survive the cold but they are judging by the fat ball consumption rate.
Sunday, 29 January 2012
Bulbs and Dogs
A horrible, eyeball busting, nose aching, throat scorching cold complete with hacking cough. That's my weekend sorted then. So no gardening this week and I restricted myself to wandering into the garden between sneezes to check on the progress of various spring bulbs I had literally sprinkled around the garden in a mad rush sometime in autumn. This is a wonderful time of the year. The first, very first signs that the gardening year is about to kick into action. Not the sight of my first crocus at the end of the lawn - delightful as that radiant yellow is. No its the sudden sign of bulbs revealing where the heck I had planted them. My memory of last week is hazy at best so trying to remember where and what bulbs I planted last year is hopeless. So my spring planting scheme "planned" some months ago is a complete mystery and consequently a nice surprise when it reveals itself. What a joy then to see the green tips of these unknown bulbs (likely to be tulips - i remember ALOT of them) poking through the compost and bark mulch I had thrown everywhere in November,
What wasn't so nice was watching my two terriers deciding to wander over every part of the border and flowerbeds of the garden (ignoring grass and stony areas - obviously) and over the very green very new shoots of my bulbs. Peeing and crapping on everything they could find they stomped and did that strange scrapey dance with their back legs which I understand is a territory marking thing.
It is kind of obvious that two active dogs and a small garden wont mix. In my case it is 2 small dogs, a cat, the neighbours cat and 2 large foxes which live on the railway embankment nature reserve.The cats usually confine themselves to hissing at each other and stalking the resident squirrel. Later in the year they will scratch up my wild flower seedlings but this is not yet their time to be labelled as a "garden enemy ". Our cat also catches the rats around the compost bin - good and bring them into the house as trophies - not so good. So cats get a pass.
The dogs understandably are very curious each morning to see what the foxes have been up to. This takes the form of pissing on absolutely everything everywhere. It would appear vice versa in the evening with the foxes carefully crapping where the dogs have been, This is a battle for territorial supremacy in which the innocent victims are - at the moment - my spring bulbs.
I have a corner of the garden where I keep my supply of bamboo sticks of various lengths and pea sticks taken off the fruit trees. I have about 70 or 80- of these ready for deployment during spring and summer when everything start falling over. They are also useful at the first sign of hostilities between garden and dog. And they are now deployed punji stick style. All shoved into the flower beds at crazy angles designed to give errant dogs, foxes or cats a poke in the eye if they wander too near. I topped it off with a cats cradle of garden twine intended to be kind of a temporary fence to provide a warning to the two dogs that flowerbed are not an area for them. We will see if it works
Spending wise this week - managed to convince the other half to take me down to the garden centre in my invalided man flu ridden state. Vermiculite (for my seedlings and hanging baskets i plan this year) - some gravel and half price tomato feed. Noticed a few more plants there than last week - so the garden centre is beginning to ramp itself up . Loads of spring bulbs in floral pots for the grannies - yuk. Still a half price sale on shrubs - except the conifers. I have space for a sky rocket - but they are never on sale. We also bought a small ornamental "bronze" bid bath from B&Q on the way back from the garden centre (checking the last knockings of the January clearance sales) for £20 which I thought was good considering the same one in the garden centre was priced at an inexplicable £39! Our local wild birds use any bird bath we provide and often, but my latest DIY model using a large terracotta dish on an upturned flowerpot, was smashed by the foxes - twice. So this metal one from B&Q wont get smashed, is not too offensive looking and will be further enhanced by hiding it in with the longer ornamental grasses. I shall move it about to see where it looks best and where the birds will use it.
Now I have run out of tissues.
What wasn't so nice was watching my two terriers deciding to wander over every part of the border and flowerbeds of the garden (ignoring grass and stony areas - obviously) and over the very green very new shoots of my bulbs. Peeing and crapping on everything they could find they stomped and did that strange scrapey dance with their back legs which I understand is a territory marking thing.
It is kind of obvious that two active dogs and a small garden wont mix. In my case it is 2 small dogs, a cat, the neighbours cat and 2 large foxes which live on the railway embankment nature reserve.The cats usually confine themselves to hissing at each other and stalking the resident squirrel. Later in the year they will scratch up my wild flower seedlings but this is not yet their time to be labelled as a "garden enemy ". Our cat also catches the rats around the compost bin - good and bring them into the house as trophies - not so good. So cats get a pass.
The dogs understandably are very curious each morning to see what the foxes have been up to. This takes the form of pissing on absolutely everything everywhere. It would appear vice versa in the evening with the foxes carefully crapping where the dogs have been, This is a battle for territorial supremacy in which the innocent victims are - at the moment - my spring bulbs.
I have a corner of the garden where I keep my supply of bamboo sticks of various lengths and pea sticks taken off the fruit trees. I have about 70 or 80- of these ready for deployment during spring and summer when everything start falling over. They are also useful at the first sign of hostilities between garden and dog. And they are now deployed punji stick style. All shoved into the flower beds at crazy angles designed to give errant dogs, foxes or cats a poke in the eye if they wander too near. I topped it off with a cats cradle of garden twine intended to be kind of a temporary fence to provide a warning to the two dogs that flowerbed are not an area for them. We will see if it works
Spending wise this week - managed to convince the other half to take me down to the garden centre in my invalided man flu ridden state. Vermiculite (for my seedlings and hanging baskets i plan this year) - some gravel and half price tomato feed. Noticed a few more plants there than last week - so the garden centre is beginning to ramp itself up . Loads of spring bulbs in floral pots for the grannies - yuk. Still a half price sale on shrubs - except the conifers. I have space for a sky rocket - but they are never on sale. We also bought a small ornamental "bronze" bid bath from B&Q on the way back from the garden centre (checking the last knockings of the January clearance sales) for £20 which I thought was good considering the same one in the garden centre was priced at an inexplicable £39! Our local wild birds use any bird bath we provide and often, but my latest DIY model using a large terracotta dish on an upturned flowerpot, was smashed by the foxes - twice. So this metal one from B&Q wont get smashed, is not too offensive looking and will be further enhanced by hiding it in with the longer ornamental grasses. I shall move it about to see where it looks best and where the birds will use it.
Now I have run out of tissues.
Wednesday, 18 January 2012
First Arrival
The first plant of the year arrived. Not in the back of my car, sandwiched between shopping bags as it usually is and not even in the back of my mums car - the surplus from the over ordering my mum does from the spring catalogues. No this one came in a large (6 foot) long brown box delivered by Fedex. Unfortunately the Other Half was at home (unusually not staying at work for lunch - what are the chances?) - I had banked on being at home alone and getting it planted before she noticed. So anyway she was at home and I was not and the phone rang at work. "You've got a parcel. Itssssssssss plantsssssssss" it hissed and spluttered. (She has a cold!). "What do YOU want ME to do with it?" Hmm at this point there was no point in feigning surprise, pretending it was a mistake or a free gift from an earlier and approved purchase. " Just plop it outside and I'll deal with it when I get home" I said as nonchalantly as I could, having been caught red handed buying plants in the Age of Family Austerity. "It MIGHT DIE" came a somewhat unnerving reply. I wasnt sure if that was a threat or an observation so I mumbled something neutral along the lines that it could wait anothers couple of hours and hung up wondering what the consequence of my " unauthorised" plant buying was likely to be (see Fridge and Xmas Contents - previous blog)
Fortunately the Other Half took a benign view and there was the unharmed plant liberated from the 6 foot box All 2 foot of it! Its a Beauty Bush as featured on a Gardeners World before Xmas. It weird purpleness seems just the job for a rather plain corner of the garden which has my collection of sticks and bamboo canes as its major feature. I need something to screen that. I couldn't find a Beauty Bush locally - hence the mail order. I normally roundly disapprove of this type of purchase - support your local suppliers.. So I never do it. Except this time
Getting home later it was already half dark but I decided to press on - to plant. Only to find the thing was completely root bound and the pot wouldn't come off. Now normally I would hunt down a pair of scissors adn cut the pot off. For some reason I tried to pull it off. And of course snapped the main stem clean off the plant. Karma
Now dark but with the aid of a torch I needed to dig out a small box (plant not cubicle) that was in the way. 20 second job. Normally. Not this one, A tiny little 2 foot Box with a root ball that was twice its size. Needless to say I snapped a prong off my fork trying to just lever the bloomin thing out. With folorn gap toothed fork flung on to the lawn I attacked the Box root with trusty spade and eventually got it out, leaving a nice big hole to plant my now little Beauty stick. That just left the small matter of trying to find a space for the Box in the garden that is full - in the dark.Or chuck it. Now I cant chuck plants. I have a hard time thinning out seedlings so chucking a perfect little Box out cant be done.Not by me. But common sense said leave it till the weekend. to decide. Cant do that either so after much head scratching its now under a firethorn next to the compost bins. Now there really isn't any more space in the full garden
I await spring to see if my new plant grows from ugly Duckling Twig to exciting Gardeners World Beauty. Karma suggests that gardening in the dark in January will be rewarded. Hopefully.
Fortunately the Other Half took a benign view and there was the unharmed plant liberated from the 6 foot box All 2 foot of it! Its a Beauty Bush as featured on a Gardeners World before Xmas. It weird purpleness seems just the job for a rather plain corner of the garden which has my collection of sticks and bamboo canes as its major feature. I need something to screen that. I couldn't find a Beauty Bush locally - hence the mail order. I normally roundly disapprove of this type of purchase - support your local suppliers.. So I never do it. Except this time
Getting home later it was already half dark but I decided to press on - to plant. Only to find the thing was completely root bound and the pot wouldn't come off. Now normally I would hunt down a pair of scissors adn cut the pot off. For some reason I tried to pull it off. And of course snapped the main stem clean off the plant. Karma
Now dark but with the aid of a torch I needed to dig out a small box (plant not cubicle) that was in the way. 20 second job. Normally. Not this one, A tiny little 2 foot Box with a root ball that was twice its size. Needless to say I snapped a prong off my fork trying to just lever the bloomin thing out. With folorn gap toothed fork flung on to the lawn I attacked the Box root with trusty spade and eventually got it out, leaving a nice big hole to plant my now little Beauty stick. That just left the small matter of trying to find a space for the Box in the garden that is full - in the dark.Or chuck it. Now I cant chuck plants. I have a hard time thinning out seedlings so chucking a perfect little Box out cant be done.Not by me. But common sense said leave it till the weekend. to decide. Cant do that either so after much head scratching its now under a firethorn next to the compost bins. Now there really isn't any more space in the full garden
I await spring to see if my new plant grows from ugly Duckling Twig to exciting Gardeners World Beauty. Karma suggests that gardening in the dark in January will be rewarded. Hopefully.
Sunday, 15 January 2012
Catalogues - part 2
So to continue the journey through the delights of seed and plug catalogues I managed to come up with a short list of essential plants - well a shortish list anyway. The compilation of the list involved much visualisation of beds, container or hanging basket and making sure I haven't, as is the way of certain airlines, double booked the space in the border with something else. I almost certainly have but have already forgotten about it - but anyway lets try and not triple books it - that really is daft. I know I have some asparagus and rhubarb crowns given to me my neighbour last year which I found "empty" spots in the flower bed for - cant see them at the moment under the leafy mulch i put on - but I know they are somewhere!
The List finally included the "must have" new try-outs (rudbeckias), the "old favourites" (lobelias) and finally the "haven't got space but I will find a spot some-wheres" (some trailing violas). Once done the next step is the painful pruning of the list. No there really isn't space for the complete list in the garden so out go the wilder choices of container fruit trees and exotic ferns. Feeling very proud of myself with my new found prudence and iron self discipline and bearing in mind the age of austerity we have agreed to in the household for the next couple of months, my total predicted spend totted up to £102.00. The other half rolled her eyes and said nothing. But it was a clear No. Fair enough really I am not in a hurry to eat the contents of various boxes still left in the fridge from Xmas for the next couple of weeks which is precise what other hald would dish up if I dared spend the housekeeping budget on plug plants. This is food that has gone volatile - you know the stuff that got pushed to the back by the stuff that you actually ate - I think there might be some 4 week old pickled cabbage there somewhere (ughh)
The order wasn't placed - but instead I agreed to look for seeds. I had previously said to other half that that looking in the catalogues was "only for ideas". And to be fair she had given me a pop up plastic green house for propagating this year for Christmas - just as I asked for. This was after I had turned our conservatory into a greenhouse last year which hadn't gone down to well with anyone not least with the cat which lost its prime sleeping position in the sun to a tray of pelargoniums. So any way the plan was grow our own plants from seed in the green house in spring then grow tomatoes in a bag for summer. But the catalogues with their incredible coloured photos and free gladioli are just so damn tempting. Ah well. Impulse resisted. Seed it is is then. I had a quick regretful look at an online seeds place but that I knew would end up buying the equivalent of a northern hemisphere seed library here - again too much temptation. No the thing to do is the old way - go shopping with my feet to a garden centre.
Today I went to a garden center. Frist visit of 2012 and it felt good. Big smile. No mind that this was is very much the low point in the garden centre calendar - way too many pots of daffodils and hibiscus and just a few half price shrubs and row upon row of empty trestles expectantly waiting for the first arrivals from the nurseries.
No matter as Seeds were the target and definitely NOT the half price shrubs - and lo - all seeds 50% off. So now we have packets of rudbeckia, lobelia, salppilossis, pansies, violas, alyssum, petunia, mimulus, nemesia, mesembryanthemum, candytuft and antirhinums plus a green leaf salad mix and some money spinner tomatoes. Throw in a couple of bags of germination compost and a half price hosta (I am human!) "£30. Oh and another £10 for the half price lawn feed even if it is a fair sized 10 kilo bag and not the small box 2kg for the same money Theoretically it will last for for 2 years but it will go lumpy before that but I reckon I will still be better off. And not eating the scary stuff left in the fridge. Win!
Tthe catalogues? Sorry chaps. Good try but this year they are now in the recycling bin. Just in case!
Wednesday, 11 January 2012
Catalogue Time
I haven't got space. And after this Xmas replacing the kids phones, ipods and underwear etc (all worn out over summer) I haven't got money. OK no sympathy there for an over indulgent parent - I agree actually. But no money. No money for these seed and bulb catalogue companies.
So the Gardening Year begins. Brighter than a Red Hot Poker (Kniphofia Googleus) the catalogues glide through the letter box on the gloomiest of days without fail and stand out like works of art in the pile of takeaway menus and brown envelopes (both of which go straight to the other half for dealing with). They are usually carefully left out for me by other half - normally with a verbal rider along the lines of - "I thought you might want to see this" roughly translated as "I will cut his toes off if he buys more bulbs this year". To which I reply "I might just have a quick flick through to get some ideas" which re-translates as "I wonder what I can sneak through the budget without losing body parts this year"
Trouble is these seed merchant chappies have me down already in their system in the "no will power - expect a £50 order real soon" category and know that I am a sucker for the 30 free gladioli bulbs with every order line.
So the first 2 glimpses of summer arrived this week. Propped up in bed midnight was spent carefully looking at all the new and exotic pictures (yes - these are seed and bulb catalogues) pen in hand to mark interesting things, pages of the catalogue turned down to make sure I know what I have marked. I confirmed I was" just looking for ideas" to the other half suspiciously peering at me from behind the crossworduko thing she does every night. In my heart of hearts I know this is not true.
This is what will happen - I will tot up my considered desires - nothing fancy, something to give early mid summer colour - later is no good as by August the garden is completely out of control and all my time will be spent fighting the great foe Bindweed and its weedy allies. I will decide that a £200 order is probably going to end in divorce and agonisingly I will whittle away the trendy looking plants that seem to have more and more unlikely names like a Guatemalan Fire Climber or an Etruscan White Fairy Bush. Is this something to do with the deluge of cooking programmes and menus. I dunno. A give away for not buying them is the "New This Year - Great Value at £19.99" bit in their descriptions. And so I and end up buying a value pack of things I always buy - delphiniums and dahlias for about £20 and get my 30 free gladioli bulbs as well. I then get them, plant them, (even the gladioli which by April I wont want and don't have space for) forget about them and not notice that half the the bulbs didn't grow.
But Not This Year. I am going to buy things I have never had before. Fewer but more daring. And so its Bye Bye hollyhocks and hello.... Well that's the next blog isn't it? Also got to work out which digits (toes not fingers please) I am prepared to sacrifice to the other half. Its all in the timing - maybe the end of January when the pay check finally arrives might see me escaping with an order unscathed?
What I would say to fellow startup gardeners - get the catalogues (google "bulb catalogue UK") pick a few g interesting and colourful bulbs or plants (but avoiding anything that is described as "vigorous"), Dont spend too much and place the order. Then a few weeks later when you have forgotten about it - they will arrive and demand to be planted - a nice surprise!
So the Gardening Year begins. Brighter than a Red Hot Poker (Kniphofia Googleus) the catalogues glide through the letter box on the gloomiest of days without fail and stand out like works of art in the pile of takeaway menus and brown envelopes (both of which go straight to the other half for dealing with). They are usually carefully left out for me by other half - normally with a verbal rider along the lines of - "I thought you might want to see this" roughly translated as "I will cut his toes off if he buys more bulbs this year". To which I reply "I might just have a quick flick through to get some ideas" which re-translates as "I wonder what I can sneak through the budget without losing body parts this year"
Trouble is these seed merchant chappies have me down already in their system in the "no will power - expect a £50 order real soon" category and know that I am a sucker for the 30 free gladioli bulbs with every order line.
So the first 2 glimpses of summer arrived this week. Propped up in bed midnight was spent carefully looking at all the new and exotic pictures (yes - these are seed and bulb catalogues) pen in hand to mark interesting things, pages of the catalogue turned down to make sure I know what I have marked. I confirmed I was" just looking for ideas" to the other half suspiciously peering at me from behind the crossworduko thing she does every night. In my heart of hearts I know this is not true.
This is what will happen - I will tot up my considered desires - nothing fancy, something to give early mid summer colour - later is no good as by August the garden is completely out of control and all my time will be spent fighting the great foe Bindweed and its weedy allies. I will decide that a £200 order is probably going to end in divorce and agonisingly I will whittle away the trendy looking plants that seem to have more and more unlikely names like a Guatemalan Fire Climber or an Etruscan White Fairy Bush. Is this something to do with the deluge of cooking programmes and menus. I dunno. A give away for not buying them is the "New This Year - Great Value at £19.99" bit in their descriptions. And so I and end up buying a value pack of things I always buy - delphiniums and dahlias for about £20 and get my 30 free gladioli bulbs as well. I then get them, plant them, (even the gladioli which by April I wont want and don't have space for) forget about them and not notice that half the the bulbs didn't grow.
But Not This Year. I am going to buy things I have never had before. Fewer but more daring. And so its Bye Bye hollyhocks and hello.... Well that's the next blog isn't it? Also got to work out which digits (toes not fingers please) I am prepared to sacrifice to the other half. Its all in the timing - maybe the end of January when the pay check finally arrives might see me escaping with an order unscathed?
What I would say to fellow startup gardeners - get the catalogues (google "bulb catalogue UK") pick a few g interesting and colourful bulbs or plants (but avoiding anything that is described as "vigorous"), Dont spend too much and place the order. Then a few weeks later when you have forgotten about it - they will arrive and demand to be planted - a nice surprise!
January
A sudden jolt and a couple of clicks later and what was an impulse has, in 30 seconds turned into a blog. This is about my garden and me and how I garden and how the family uses "my" garden, how local wild life is trying to reclaim my garden - all through the year. I am a keen gardener but do it my way as I am too lazy to read all the way through a latin name or a set of instructions for anything. This normally results in spectacular and monetary failure of some kind - but often it doesn't. You don't have to be an expert to garden - just have some space, water and light - be persistent and learn from (in my case) many many mistakes.
So first - my garden. Pictures will follow. Its about 6 or 7 yards wide and about 20 yards long. Well I guess that's about it - I'll pace it out on the weekend to see if thats right. It feels too small in winter and way too big in summer at the height of the pruning, picking and weeding season - I still work and have a life outside the garden. It belongs to an 1920's semi in Bexhill, East Sussex and had been there a while - though most of the green stuff in it is not that old. It backs on to a railway - or as I like to think of it as my private nature reserve as we have a large wide embankment above the rails covered in shrubs and trees and its home to many species of bird, an occasional squirrel and a family of foxes - more of them no doubt later on and also acts as a nice barrier to the occasional breeze! We moved here 4 years ago and the garden was simply a long piece of grass with two one yard wide flower beds either side of the grass running to the end of the garden culminating in a muddy patch with a huge Bramley apple tree. Then there was nothing much else in it really. Other half was happy with that. Green square with a shrub in each corner - that's her perfect garden. Not mine.
Now there is not much space for anything more. But the grass is still there - sacrosanct - The only thing I am not allowed to remove By Order of the family.
Still I love it as it is south facing and because of the railway, not over looked giving a nice "open sky" feel for a garden in the middle of a town and because we are close to the sea ( a few hundred yards) there is the light and climate that only a southern seaside town has - warm, bright, salty and glittery - and battered to death in winter by winds.
So here is my blog
So first - my garden. Pictures will follow. Its about 6 or 7 yards wide and about 20 yards long. Well I guess that's about it - I'll pace it out on the weekend to see if thats right. It feels too small in winter and way too big in summer at the height of the pruning, picking and weeding season - I still work and have a life outside the garden. It belongs to an 1920's semi in Bexhill, East Sussex and had been there a while - though most of the green stuff in it is not that old. It backs on to a railway - or as I like to think of it as my private nature reserve as we have a large wide embankment above the rails covered in shrubs and trees and its home to many species of bird, an occasional squirrel and a family of foxes - more of them no doubt later on and also acts as a nice barrier to the occasional breeze! We moved here 4 years ago and the garden was simply a long piece of grass with two one yard wide flower beds either side of the grass running to the end of the garden culminating in a muddy patch with a huge Bramley apple tree. Then there was nothing much else in it really. Other half was happy with that. Green square with a shrub in each corner - that's her perfect garden. Not mine.
Now there is not much space for anything more. But the grass is still there - sacrosanct - The only thing I am not allowed to remove By Order of the family.
Still I love it as it is south facing and because of the railway, not over looked giving a nice "open sky" feel for a garden in the middle of a town and because we are close to the sea ( a few hundred yards) there is the light and climate that only a southern seaside town has - warm, bright, salty and glittery - and battered to death in winter by winds.
So here is my blog
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