Good morning from a very dark, damp, and misty corner of North East Wales. I’m counting the days until the winter solstice and the slow return to lighter, brighter days. This week and next, my entry for Six on Saturday is a retrospective of 2021 floral glories and a reminder of good things to come in 2022.
January
First, a huge thank you – and a Gold Star – to Lisa over at Lisa’s Garden Adventure who identified my Christmas/Easter/Whatever cactus from last week’s SoS as a Thanksgiving cactus, Schlumbergera truncata, aka the false Christmas Cactus. As Thanksgiving in America is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November, it should be in flower by the 25th of that month. I printed a label for it that goes all the way round the top of the pot!
So on to this week’s Six, courtesy of The Propagator.
Look what popped up in one of my pots while they were moved to the edges of the patio! Not one but TWO nasturtium ‘Labybird Rose’ plants. I just wish there were more (I sowed six seeds in this pot) as the colour is rather nice but a bit lost against the terracotta of the pot. They didn’t last long before something ate them.
A week (nearly) of hot and dry weather, I should really take advantage and sow more vegetable seeds – but I have Jerusalem artichokes to pot on and tomato plants that absolutely must go into growbags this weekend. So, I’m off to the garden centre to hunt some down – six will do for now – enough for 12 tomatoes (I cut them in half and use the bag as a pot). This year, they will all be grown in the Tiny Greenhouse, so I’ll have to clear that too. But I’l be back later to read other Sixes when it’s too hot to work outside,
The first iris came out last Sunday – slightly darker in colour than it shows here – by Thursday, there was quite a show. Gorgeous, and much admired by passers-by. I thinned these out by half last year.
Continue reading “Six on Saturday: 5th June”Yesterday (Good Friday) was ‘Clean the Conservatory’ Day – my annual top-to-bottom (or as high as I can reach without falling off the stepladder) dust-busting, cobweb-removing blitz. This year, it took a total of five hours (including one coffee break and a quick lunch). The furniture is back in place, so are the ornaments, just the plants to go back to finish it off. With temperatures set to hit zero degrees by Monday, I won’t be sitting in there just yet, Soon, though.
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Continue reading “Six on Saturday: 3 April 2021”Rain stops play – again – though it didn’t stop the window cleaner yesterday! I managed to sow some leek and tomato seeds in modules in the Potting Shed on Wednesday; because I think it is still a little early, weatherwise, for us, I’ve only used packets that were already opened – leeks and tomatoes (both will feature in their own posts if and when they germinate).
With warmer weather on Monday, I popped out to see what damage has been done by the recent freezing temperatures. Along with the pale purple crocus that have been flowering for two weeks or more, these pale yellow ones have appeared. I planted them in colour blocks right to left along the front border – pale purple, yellow, deep purple, white – and they come out in succession, never at the same time. You’d think I planned it that way! I didn’t.
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