my gardening DIARY

MONDAY Thinking of restarting a collection of old primroses. In the early days of our nursery, Glebe Cottage Plants, we specialised in old named varieties of primrose. We also grew Barnhaven primroses from seed and multiplied our favourite seedlings by division. I miss these special plants; we only have a few left, so the quest will begin again.

TUESDAY I wasn’t expecting iris ‘Katharine Hodgkin’ to show up until the new year, but in the troughs on the terrace and along the beds either side of the front door their fat, pointed shoots are pushing through.

WEDNESDAY The cercis tree that my mum gave us about 40 years ago has borne a huge crop of pods this year. It’s a legume and has ‘pea pods’, flat and slender containing four or five seeds per pod. On a dry day I’m going to remove a few that look most promising, carefully extricate the seeds and sow them in modules.

THURSDAY Because of the mild weather, salad crops have carried on growing. We have lettuce, rocket, mizuna and mustard – lots of leaves and no coarseness or bitterness to them, but we mustn’t rest on our laurels! More are being sown under glass to take us right into winter.

FRIDAY Several echinacea seeds, still on the conical seed heads on the plants in our cutting garden, have germinated in situ. Promptly the rest of the seed is removed and sown fresh onto the surface of seed compost in a half seed tray. A thin layer of grit is spread on top and pressed down gently. With a bit of luck all that seed should be viable.

SATURDAY Moving hellebores. Hellebores resent root disturbance and don’t like being lifted. Splitting them is anathema but if they’re taken up with plenty of soil and their new site’s been well prepared, they’re usually happy.

SUNDAY Although foxgloves are perfectly hardy, our tiny seedlings in module trays need extra nurture so six trays are being taken into the greenhouse where hopefully they’ll continue to grow.