My gardening diary
MONDAY In the lower of our two raised veg beds, we’ve put the two steel structures we usually use in the pots beside the front steps. These ‘flower towers’, plus a tall chicken wire fence running north to south across the middle of the bed, give it a geometric pa ern. TUESDAY The simplest container planting we’re doing is to drop plastic pots containing perennials into the clay pots we used for tulips. It’s a way to get colour into areas of the garden which are very green now. Bright, citric yellow achillea ‘Moonshine’ and blue agapanthus make a real difference. WEDNESDAY I’d like to pretend everything is carefully planned, but almost accidentally I seem to have grown several orange annuals. Orange cosmos, an orange zinnia and calendula ‘African Queen’ have just been given their own 9cm (3½in) pots. Fortunately, orange and blue make one of the zingiest combinations! THURSDAY With recent sunny weather and a good helping of rain, weeds are having a heyday. Number one priority is to remove anything that seeds rapidly. First on the agenda are bi er cress, grasses and Geum urbanum. FRIDAY A plethora of white foxgloves are being planted out on the shady side of the garden. We’ve been intending to plant them since March. Fortunately, they’re late into flower so at least we’ll have the benefit of their pure white bells for a couple of weeks. SATURDAY A sizeable backlog of rag, tag and bobtail plants, sidelined for various reasons, though usually from lack of time, has finally been sorted. Some have been po ed on for future use, others planted out. SUNDAY We did very few hellebore crosses this year, apart from a few with four lovely varieties from Ashwood Nurseries. Because the plants are living outside in pots in a shady corner, I hadn’t realised they were about to shed their seeds. The story has an erstwhile happy ending, seed was collected and has been sown. All we need do now is wait!