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
I don’t usually bother planting bulbs each year. Those in the front garden – crocus, grape hyacinths and dwarf narcissi – have been there for several years, with the addition of alliums and nectaroscordum in autumn 2020.
In the back garden, I have daffodils and narcissi rescued from various borders and dumped in pots. Apart from an all too brief few weeks in spring, they live at the back of the garage. The only things I took any trouble with last year were my four ‘Blue’ pots containing Pickwick crocus, anemone Blanda Bleu, and grape hyacinths.
This year, however, I ordered some new bulbs (snowdrops x 50, anemone Blanda Alba x 20, and white fritillery x 15) which arrived on 6 October and had to be dealt with. (I’ve just noticed that the anemone is ‘White Splendour’ but have no idea if they are the same as ordered or a substitution, not that it matters. A white anemone is a white anemone is a white anemone!)
Continue reading “Spring Bulbs”
When the weather turns cold – again – and all outside is grey and misty, these crocus cheer me up.
Nearly a week of sunny dry days and cold frosty nights, and my garden doesn’t know where it is. I am itching to get stuck into tidying the raised beds but I’m holding off until well into March or even later. Instead, I am content to scatter a few vegetable seeds in modules and pots in the hope I can not only produce an early crop of edibles, but play the long game with crops for the allotment bed. I haven’t even begun to chit my potatoes – another job for next month.
Look what popped up when I wasn’t looking. They are darker and brighter than the photograph shows, but I’m still missing several clumps of yellow and all the creamy-white crocus in the middle section of the front border.
One snowdrop does not a galanthophile make!
Cyclamen disaster after the snow and ice.
I make no apologies for showing iris reticulata ‘Joyce’ each week, as it just gets better and better.
Alliums! These are from 2018, but the ones I planted in the front border have also poked their noses above the soil, so fingers crossed.
I shared the image on the left last week, but am using it as a comparison with this weeks to show the growth spurt.
So that’s my six for this week. Pop over to The Progagator’s blog for other sixes from around the globe, and share your own six items, from the garden, on a Saturday.
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.
I did think I wouldn’t have anything to share this week, but I spotted these yesterday morning while chatting to an old friend. This morning we are back to snow first thing, sunshine now, who knows what later. Either way, it’s too cold to be out so I’ll be popping along to The Propagator’s Blog to see what everyone else is up to, and to salivate over the nice weather in photographs from our southern hemispere gardeners.
Hellebore Christmas Carol has been doing it’s thing without any help from me. I think it might benefit from a move to another part of the garden this year. Somewhere I can actually see it. I’m considering a revamp of my Shady Border in the back (removal of peonies and Japanese Anemones is one thought).
After the departure of Storm Dennis last weekend, never have I been so grateful for where we live. While living 208 metres above sea level has its challenges, one of them will never be flooding.
If you have been affected by floodwater, you have my sympathy and my respect. Continue reading “Six on Saturday: 22 February 2020”
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