First Of The Year

The stars were aligned and the conditions were right. The kids napped, and it stopped raining for long enough for me to get outside for a couple of hours.

Garden Log - October and November

The imminent arrival of child number two has meant that the garden has been nearly as neglected as this blog of late. My time has been taken up with things like nursery painting, and hauling baby clothes out of the loft, not to mention trying to make sure that our two year old tank/elephant doesn't break the heavily pregnant missus too badly.... I still haven't managed to plant anything out, and I suspect that by this point I'm probably too late. I could theoretically still get some bulbs in, but realistically, that ain't gonna happen. The stuff in pots will just have to stay put until things warm up again. The only stuff I'll be really cross to lose will be the astrantia that I've grown from seed as they've taken the entire year to get to any sort of size, and I really want that in the garden. It'll probably be fine, but we shall see.

Autumn Planting

I'm starting to get increasingly worried about whether I'm going to get my autumn planting done. My garden, the back in particular, is very poor draining, and the amount of rain in the last few weeks has been enough to ensure everything stays sodden. Even with the odd rain free day, the ground just doesn't dry up enough to do much. The lawn stays like a paddling pool, and the beds are so wet that any digging at all will do more harm than good.

I'm hoping that I get a break soon as I've got quite a few bulbs to put out, as well as a load of perennials that I've grown from seed. The lawns are in serious need of their final haircut for the year.

The weather forcast isn't favourable, but I don't tend to pay much attention to it as it seems to have very little bearing on reality, so fingers crossed!

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Garden Log - September 2013

Once again I stand guilt of blog neglect. It's amazing how quickly life passes by if you let it, and there's been a fair amount going on of late to keep me busy!

The garden has a definite feel of winding down at the moment, but at the same time I'm still getting the last bursts of fruitfulness. Tomatoes are ripening, courgettes are still appearing, and some of my cosmos and sunflowers are only just flowering.

Garden Log - May 2013

What a month it's been for growth. Plenty of rain mixed with a reasonable amount of sunny days have sent things rocketing up! Lots of colour is appearing and the amount of soil showing is shrinking by the day. I've dug a new bed in the main garden (it's against a south facing fence, so hopefully that should allow me to try a few more sun lovers), and moved a few bits and pieces around. Here are this month's pictorial highlights.

Garden Log - February 2013

And so it starts. The first proper session outside for the year, and the beginning of the photographic deluge. The Other Half decided to take That Baby off for some minor galavanting (a trip to the shops and then a visit to the great grandparents) so I took the opportunity to start getting to grips with this years planting.
The main job I wanted to do was to pot on some of the seedlings from the agapanthus seeds I sowed back in November that were pinched from Alfabia, the garden we visited on holiday. That done I also potted up some of the swag I acquired from the mighty Poundland yesterday. I got a load of Oriental poppy roots, some Lupin roots, a bare root rose, and a blueberry bush/root/whatever. These have all been potted up today. I also got some crocosmia 'Lucifer' corns and some gypsophilia roots, but these have yet to be planted. Poundland seem to have an astounding assortment of plants in at the moment. I know that these are not going to be of the greatest provenance, but I'm trying to garden on the ultra-cheap, so they'll do me fine. The main problem I have is that they don't give you the full name of what you're buying. For example, the climbing rose I've just potted up (yeah, I know it could be planted, but the bed where it's going doesn't exist yet) is labelled simply as a "purple climbing rose".

Irises

Just wanted to share this picture of my Poundland Irises. There's one in the previous post but since then more have come out. I'd forgotten I'd planted them, I wish I'd planted more of them, and I will be remedying this come next spring.