Plenty of time to relax, read and dream...
Apart from venturing down the garden to the greenhouses to check on the watering, not a lot of outdoor gardening has been done these past few weeks. The weather has definitely not been very gardening friendly – we’ve had more than enough rain and snow. The snow did make the garden look very beautiful, and it was lovely to hear all the fun the two little boys who live next door were having making their big snowman. The snow was perfect ‘building’ snow and my son and grandson built a small igloo in their garden!
Everything is ticking over in the greenhouses and I’m waiting patiently for a couple more weeks so that I can start potting up all my cuttings when greenhouse number two will be started up. I’ve lost a few scented geraniums, but that’s okay as I took plenty. One thing I did manage to do was repot my lilies into fresh compost, which I hope will get rid of any overwintering lily beetles in the old compost.
I’ve taken a fancy to growing some gloxinias this year, which for a few years haven’t been as available as they used to be.
Seeds and seed potatoes have arrived and any plants needed have been ordered – I hope I haven’t forgotten anything!
I’ll be growing 14 varieties of tomatoes – some favourites and some new to me. Aubergine, pepper and chilli seeds have been sown. They’re always first and it feels good that a new gardening year has begun. We’ve both had our first covid vaccinations, so maybe in a few months time we’ll be able to enjoy having meals in the garden with our family again. I’ve been indoor gardening, giving my orchids a bit of pampering. I
wiped all the leaves with a piece of damp kitchen paper, tidied them up, watered and gave them a feed. A couple have lovely new flower stems appearing.
I’ve had plenty of time to just relax, read and dream of a beautiful summer garden.
The star of the garden at the moment is the Chimonanthus praecox (wintersweet) – it’s just wonderful and a very precious plant as it used to belong to my auntie and I inherited it when she died. It was a shrub when it came to live in our garden and it’s now over 40 years old and a small tree. I really look forward to it flowering every year. Bulbs are popping up in tubs and primroses ‘Sunarise’ are flowering – glad I chose this variety again. Pansies are starting to flower, too.
Over the next few weeks Barry has a bit of cutting back and pruning to do and it’ll be getting very busy – bring it on!