Gardening: Hints and Help!

Looking lovely brue. Interested in the sundial good that you've got the time right too. Quite tricky I believe? I seem to recall reading that only a couple of days a years to do it??

Great, if hard, work takethedogalong. I can see the level of our pond dropping already. It won't be getting that sort of clear out, but I have a therapeutic sweep around with the fishing net scooping up debris everyday.

Freddie and Husky good to read you're progressing well with raised beds. I think you'll have lots of friends when things start cropping later. I can't do veg - no containers or compost not to mention seeds 😯

I've spent few days indoors on giving it a good go through and blitz. Progressing well - day off tomorrow and a treat of sitting in the garden to look forward to if the forecast is correct. On breaks from blitzing indoors I've snuck onto gardening websites 😉

Brue I have placed an order with Avon, sadly the bulbs I read about wanted well drained soil in the winter, some hope on Essex clay, maybe next year when/if full access to nurseries for pots and compost is easier then I can lift and store over winter. Their site didn't like mine or OH email address, saying they weren't valid! So I called and left a message, I feared when I listened to the recorded message that I may not be successful as my order was for potted plants. I had a return call very swiftly and my fears about sending potted plants were allayed. Sadly some of those I'd put in my basket had been sold by the time the call came but I managed to spend a few £'s, well they were mounting up with no casual spending 😂

I think this isolation business and the recent warm spell has made time seem odd. I emptied the cold frame and put the outdoor fuschia pots in front of the conservatory a week or so ago not registering it was March 🤔. A frost a couple of days ago has nipped them and my lovely flame of the forest. Tonight I've covered the fuschias just in case.

It’s is indeed strange Bakers, you do lose track of time. I put some plants out the last warm spell, only to fetch them back into greenhouse a couple of days later.

Going to have a proper day off tomorrow, I am tired out tonight.

Some of the overnight frosts have nipped young shoots on our shrubs etc. OH has a big tree fern still wrapped up...don't ask, he got it for a bargain price somewhere and I don't know where he's going to put it! He also has hundreds of baby Chusan palm trees, we were going to sell them at our charity opens gardens which of course has been called off. When we first met he had a garden where he'd made one packet of flower seeds fill a whole border...impressed with this, reader I married him! 

He is also the sundial setter B2, I did offer to check when it should be done etc But it does seem to be holding the time accurately, we haven't set the plinth in case shade from nearby trees mucks up the plans...

Sleep well, enjoy your gardens tomorrow, or your pots, tubs, raised beds and anything showing signs of better things ahead. 

I’d love a big tree fern, but I know from looking after the big ones at Brodsworth how much care they need up here to get through the Winters. They were seldom unwrapped until mid May. I did have a couple of big bananas. Brought back from Cornwall, (caravan looked like a mobile greenhouse that year,😂) I used to over winter them in house, then in greenhouse until they got too big, then wrapped them as best I could. But Winter 2010 got them, along with lots of other things.

I might treat myself to another Musa though, our Winters have been mild these last five years or so.

We are resurrecting fountains at the moment. I have two lovely ornamental fountain heads, a fish and a frog, bought from the old Stiffkey Lampshop, which is no longer there now. Sorted out the fish yesterday, and thinking about the frog next. They need to be close to house for power, so I think I am just going to use an ornamental pot for frog, it’s quite deep, room enough for a couple of plants. I like the sound of water in garden😁

Potted up some cabbage, sprouts, tomatoes, Rudbeckias and lettuce. Beetroot that I’ve sown in blocks came up yesterday, good germination. The onions though haven’t come up, not one! Sowed some Parsnips into toilet roll cores, and should be up in 14 days. Got the second (of three) raised beds in today. Not looking forward to getting the third one in as there’s a Sambucus that’s gotta come out. I was hoping to avoid it, but it has to go. A shame, as it looks spectacular when in leaf, early on. I’ve been planning what to grow where, and as I suspected, I won’t have the space ☹️ I’ll just have to forego the onions as I couldn’t keep up with demand anyway. Oh yes, planted me spuds (no sniggering at the back😀), ‘Foremost’.

Looking good Freddy.👍

I have had a potting day today. Splitting things like Agapanthus and repotting, including an Aspidistra. I have two, one lives indoors, the other roughs it outside, all year round, all weathers, and much to my amazement is actually thriving. Hyacinths that have now gone over are out of their pots and planted in garden for next year. A few more days of sunshine, and one of my garden favourites will be out in full glory. It’s a large patch of lily of the valley (white). It is the only flower that remains in the garden from when we first moved in well over 35 years ago, and it’s just so lovely. I have managed to split and plant patches elsewhere, and I have some of the rarer pink variety as well. I like to cut a few sprigs for the house, smells glorious.

I am going to have to think about watering garden if we don’t get rain soon, it’s very dry. 

Just been reading online that pack seed sales are up by 400%. We will all have beautiful gardens then the lockdown will be eased and we will all go away in our caravans and miss the beauty of our gardens. 

C'est La Vie

Have decided to try something new in garden, minimal cost, maximum wild bird win...............a dust bathing bowl! We are blessed with lots of sparrows/dunnocks, and the little blighters like nothing more than squirming around in newly done seed beds. So I am going to sieve out some soil, put it into a large, deep plant pot tray, and keep it dry so that they can hopefully use this instead of my seed beds! That’s the theory.....🤔😁

That sounds great takethedogalong hope your dog is good on cat duties? 😱. Love the idea but nothing to stop the cats here!

Spend half the day pruning the viburnum, it had a fairly good trim with the gardnerbend of last year, but OH insisted in not losing the height but chopping has promoted new growth and the old stuff has weevil type attack and hokey leaves and so that's all gone. Brown bin half full again!

My plants from Avon bulbs arrived today, thanks brue, they look very good, fantastic service. Now need to wait for some rain to be forecast so I can get them in. Watered the garden with the hosepipe again yesterday!

Ordered compost and chicken pellets from local garden centre today delivery within days. They are closed by family doing phone and email orders - they update their fb page and will be getting bedding plants in. Hopefully all the seeds my mum left in envelopes will germinate so I'll have full borders 😀💕.

I hadn’t thought about local cats Bakers. It’s not too much of an issue, don’t see too many in garden, they are wary of the old lad, he can still shift a bit if he spots a pussy! Plus I have a water pistol always at the ready for the early morning lurkers! We do have Nepeta in a couple of Borders, but I can reach that with water pistol!😂