Have spade, will dig
It's that time of year again. Spring is springing up all over the place, mainly in the form of weeds in my garden. Which means it's time to blow the dust off the spade and fork, pull on the wellies and get my hands dirty again.
It's four years now since I took over the gardening duties and the garden is finally starting to get somewhere so it's nice to see that. There's still a couple of bare spots where either plants have failed or where I've just not been able to find anything to put there. As the winter wasn't a particularly bad one, we've not lost as many plants as previously so thankfully there's not too many to replace. I was quite surprised to discover that although the geraniums and one of the fuchsias have succumbed to the frost, the other fuchsia hasn't and now has lots of green buds showing. Considering they're not frost hardy plants at all that's an indicator of just how warm this winter has been.
Yesterday was the first trip to a garden centre this year although there will be several more in the weeks to come. I mainly wanted to get some ideas of what was available first and then see what was suitable before buying anything but that plan didn't work at all. There's a small trough on the patio which currently houses daffodils and I thought it would work as a herb planter. I got some thyme, oregano and flat leaf parsley as those are the herbs I use most often so I'll see how that goes. Then I saw a plant that I couldn't resist and it's actually ideal for a bare spot I'd been hoping to fill this year. It's called Pineapple Popsicles and it's a dwarf version of a Red Hot Poker. It's going to have some lupins behind it so hopefully that should all look very nice.
I noticed that the blueberry bushes in the garden centre were covered in flower buds already and although I know they're grown in a greenhouse to make sure they're well established, it's still a little disappointing to think that mine is only just getting leaf buds. However, I had a look at it after tea when I went out to water the plants bought yesterday and was stunned to discover that it's full of flower buds too! This is about the fourth year I've had it and it took me two years to discover it needed special soil which was why it wasn't doing very much. Last spring I transplanted it into a HUGE terracotta pot filled with ericaceous compost but it's still taken a while to get going after that. It's shot up now though so I'm hoping for a bumper crop of blueberries this year. Yum!
It's four years now since I took over the gardening duties and the garden is finally starting to get somewhere so it's nice to see that. There's still a couple of bare spots where either plants have failed or where I've just not been able to find anything to put there. As the winter wasn't a particularly bad one, we've not lost as many plants as previously so thankfully there's not too many to replace. I was quite surprised to discover that although the geraniums and one of the fuchsias have succumbed to the frost, the other fuchsia hasn't and now has lots of green buds showing. Considering they're not frost hardy plants at all that's an indicator of just how warm this winter has been.
Yesterday was the first trip to a garden centre this year although there will be several more in the weeks to come. I mainly wanted to get some ideas of what was available first and then see what was suitable before buying anything but that plan didn't work at all. There's a small trough on the patio which currently houses daffodils and I thought it would work as a herb planter. I got some thyme, oregano and flat leaf parsley as those are the herbs I use most often so I'll see how that goes. Then I saw a plant that I couldn't resist and it's actually ideal for a bare spot I'd been hoping to fill this year. It's called Pineapple Popsicles and it's a dwarf version of a Red Hot Poker. It's going to have some lupins behind it so hopefully that should all look very nice.
I noticed that the blueberry bushes in the garden centre were covered in flower buds already and although I know they're grown in a greenhouse to make sure they're well established, it's still a little disappointing to think that mine is only just getting leaf buds. However, I had a look at it after tea when I went out to water the plants bought yesterday and was stunned to discover that it's full of flower buds too! This is about the fourth year I've had it and it took me two years to discover it needed special soil which was why it wasn't doing very much. Last spring I transplanted it into a HUGE terracotta pot filled with ericaceous compost but it's still taken a while to get going after that. It's shot up now though so I'm hoping for a bumper crop of blueberries this year. Yum!