The Christmas cards I sent this year I got, as I generally do, from the gardening for health charity Thrive. The design is Winter Allotment, picture courtesy of Louise Cole.
Have a good Christmas, and take care!
(Please note that my next post will be on Sunday 28th December)
on the plot at this time of year is always a welcome sight, esprcially as it’s mostly devoid of plants and/or foliage.
Underneath the now dead crocosmia foliage there is already new growth showing well above ground so I’ve cleared some of away to give the new shoots some air and light.
This picture was taken towards the end of October before the leaves had completely died and collapsed.
The leaves on the strawberry plants are only now beginning to change colour from green to yellow then orange-red before turning brown as they finish dying back.
Best of all is that there is one plant which has just started flowering. It’s an English (or if you prefer Lawn) Daisy (Bellis perennis) tucked away at bottom edge of the main flower patch opposite the shed. On Monday there was one flower fully open with another bud visible.
Have a good weekend, and take care!
It’s been a sunny weekend so I’ve made the most of it and done some plotting both days. Yesterday I tidied up the top corner where the cornus/dogwood tree is, then weeded and hoed all round. The clump of brown stems on the left in the picture below are asters/Michaelmas daisies.
This morning I cleared the main flower patch of any pot marigold tap roots which had remained in the ground when I cleared the foliage recently. I was thankful that the crocus Romance were showing so I could work round them without worrying where they were. They’ll need carefully hand weeding, as will the the crocus Snow Bunting by the dog rose.
OnThursday I forgot to mention, and show, the vinca/periwinkle flowers out front at home.
This picture is from March 2017, as it’s much better than the one I took during the week.
Have a good week, and take care!
The weather so far this month has been rather unsettled with plenty of rain so it’s not surprising that I’ve only been to the plot once, after lunch yesterday, since last Friday. Meantime I’ve been mostly armchair gardening browsing through some of the 20 plus gardening books I have. One I’m going to read properly is The Small Garden by C.E.Lucas Phillips, which is a 400 page paperback first published in 1952. The edition I have, revised by the author, was published in 1956. Mum was a passionate gardener and had numerous gardening books, so I’m sure that a copy would have been on her bookshelf.
I took this photo of a rose Iceberg outside my living room window this morning, and it looks the same as the one I took a week ago. The photo on the right is a view of it from indoors.
Have a good weekend, and take care!
This year was a really good one for tomatoes, especially as there was no blight, as there often is late August onwards. I grew the red variety Outdoor Girl and the yellow one Yellow Perfection, both widely recommended for growing outdoors. My only problem was that some of the yellow ones had split skins which was probably due to my somwhat erratic watering. I’ll almost certainly grow both of these again next year.
I have tried growing a dwarf tomato variety at home on the windowsill in the past but generally without success, although I see that back in 2016 I grew a Tiny Tim which did quite well as you can see.
I’m going to try again next year with the variety Aztek (note correct spelling) which has yellow fruit.
The Candytuft (Iberis umbellata) Fairy Mixed seeds I sowed on the plot this year was one of the flowers that didn’t germinate and grow. I’ll be sowing more next year which will hopefully do much better, as the pink-red, purple and white flowers are attractive to butterflies such as the common blue as seen in this photo from summer 2018.
I’ve also tried to grow Candytuft at home in a pot on the windowsill a couple of times without success but will be trying again next year.
Have a good week, and take care!
I’ve only been to the plot once so far this week as there’s been plenty of rain. I had a look round but the ground is too soggy to do anything. The outlook through into next week doesn’t look much better so I guess that I’ll be mostly armchair gardening.
One of my favourite Calendula/ Pot marigolds is the variety Snow Princess which has creamy pale lemon yellow flowers with both dark and light centres, and occasionally there are white ones. This picture is from September 2016.
There weren’t many this year and I don’t know how many seeds, if any, I collected and saved so I’ve bought a packet of 100 plus. I’ll probably add half of these to the seeds I have saved, and sow the other half seperately.
I didn’t pull up the bright orange and golden yellow flowering Oopsy Daisy I had growing in the black plastic half barrel by the shed. I cut it back and hope that it survives the winter then starts growing again in the spring. If it doesn’t I will remove it and sow some more seed.
Have a good weekend, and take care!
During the week I cleared all the foliage from the flower patches but now need to dig out quite a few pot marigold tap roots which stayed put when I pulled the plants up.
The only plant still of interest to look at is the sedum, which has lost it’s leaves but still retains the chocolate coloured flower heads and pale stems.
What was surprising is when I took a closer look I found that there is already new growth appearing around the bottom of the stems.
The Aster Twinkling Stars has now finished flowering so I cut the stems back and weeded all round. In late winter or early spring I will dig it up, seperate into good size clumps and replant. I’ve also planted a few stems in a plastic pot which had toppled over recently but look like they may root.
I had a good autumn doing more than I expected and I hope that, weather permitting, I’ll be able to continue as we head into winter.
Have a good week, and take care!
favourite flowers is cosmos bipinnatus, especially the white plain-petalled ones. I grow plenty on the plot, mostly shorter varieties up to about 24 in /60 cm, and I agree with what the Chiltern Seeds catalogue says about them – that every garden should have some, they’re easy to grow and have a long flowering season.
Sadly this year these were one of the flowers which didn’t do well in the dry spring and hot summer, and I didn’t collect any seeds as I usually do. I recently bought two packets of the variety Royal Dwarf, one Mix (pink, red and white flowers) and one White, from Plant Genesis, a small supplier in Cornwall. I’ve bought from them before as their prices, packaging, postal costs and seed quality / quantity are excellent. When I checked the quantity of these two packets I was pleased to find both had just over 250 seeds rather than the approx. 200 quoted. (Picture with thanks to Plant Genesis).
I’ll be sowing these seeds direct in the ground in mid spring and hopefully there will be a carpet of colour covering cosmos corner from mid summer right through to the first frosts in late autumn.
Have a good weekend, and take care!
Further to last month’s post in early October the Common Nipplewort continued to die back and sadly so did both Gazanias, which I had hoped would survive over the winter, so the windowsill is now empty.
Looking back on the year the best plant was the Sunflower Big Smile, the most disappointing was the Gazania flower bud not opening and the most interesting was the Common Nipplewort.
I’ve tentatively decided what I’ll be growing on the windowsill next year. There are five flowers – Calendula officinalis / Pot Marigold Fruit Twist, Cosmos sulphureus / Cosmos Limara Lemon (see picture), Gazania rigens / Gazania Talent Yellow, Helianthus annuus / Sunflower Big Smile and Iberis umbellata /Candytuft Fairy Mixed. I’ll be growing them in various plastic pots, either 4.25 in /10.8 cm or 5 in /12. 5 cm. Posts over the winter will go into more detail about all these.
I’m also going to try a dwarf Tomato Aztek (note spelling is correct), which is a yellow variety, in a 6 in /15 cm 2 litre pot. I have tried before with other varieties without much success.
Have a good week, and take care!
It’s been a cold and frosty week, and after lunch on Tuesday I arrived at the plot to see that there was still some ice on the pond. Sadly the frost had finished off the last flowers, and the nasturtiums were a collapsed mess.
At long last I’ve acquired a lid for the plastic Composter bin which fits properly. That meant I’ve had to relocate the pond as I want to keep it.
I’ve put it on the ground at the top end where the comfrey plants and raspberry bushes grow. As you can see it’s now alongside the grass path opposite the blackberry bush.
I recently mentioned that there were flowers on the raspberries, and I was surprised to see that a few had now turned into fruit. I didn’t pick any but left them for the wildlife.
Of the few last few rose Pretty Lady flowers this buttonhole size one was the best one.
Once it warms up a bit I’ll clear the rest of the flower patches before making a start on digging out, and sieving, compost from the Composter bin.
Have a good weekend, keep warm and take care!
Flighty's plot 