Oak before ash and they say we’re in for a splash,
but we’ve had a lot of this year’s splash this week
so it should be ash after oak and we’re in for a soak
but here comes the sunshine after the rain, as I speak.
Monday 16th May It was warmish in the sun but there was still a chill in the air in the shade or when the sun disappeared. I was a busy little bee, clearing out my window boxes ready for summer planting, and I mean clearing out, literally. Firstly the tulips needed digging out and heeling into some big pots while they develop their bulbs for next year, likewise the white Narcissi and Hyacinths bulbs with which they shared the window boxes.
Next I took out the three Polyanthus plants and divided them, making six plants now. I will probably keep these in pots ready for planting at the end of the season in the dog baskets or window baskets. I did the same to the three bright pink Polyanthus plants that sat in a pink container on my patio wall. They had not finished flowering, but were far too big for the pot they came in. Unsurprisingly they also made six plants, which I planted into my log-roll border. They should look lovely next spring.
The Pansies came out easily. They were still in the square blocks that they came in at the beginning of the autumn last year, and had hardly put out any roots. No wonder they didn’t do very well. I wonder why they didn’t like the compost enough to stretch out their roots. Their stems were very leggy, probably because they were competing with the tulips. I potted up each plant and will cut them back when the flowers die off, in the hope they recover.
Then I actually emptied all the compost and soil in the window boxes into the bed behind the pink Buddleia, to either hopefully smother, or more likely nurture, the Enchanter’s Nightshade plants that drive me nuts.
Now I have empty window boxes ready to fill with nice new compost for my summer bedding plants, except that for the moment I have put back all the plants, now in individual pots, into the empty window boxes because I have nowhere else to put them.
Tomorrow, weather and inclination permitting, I will clear out the dog baskets. Maybe…maybe not. Maybe I’ll wait until I have some plants to put in them.
Tuesday 17th May It was another warmish morning, but it turned cold in the afternoon when the sun disappeared. Well I decided not to clear out the dog baskets yet. I was pottering around the garden picking up sticks dropped from the ash tree for kindling, deadheading pansies, pulling out the odd weed and thought I would put my Erysimum cuttings taken on my birthday into a bigger pot, as I would need the tiny one they were in for something else when it came to thinning out more of my seedlings.
I was gratified to find a root had started to develop on each Erysimum cutting. Now I found that I can have more plants as easy as that I decided to take cuttings from my two Pieris plants, my Fuchsia Genii, my mauve Hebe and my pink Buddleia. I have probably done them all wrong, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.
That’s produced more pots to go into my greenhouse and take out again each day to water them! I suppose I could use a hosepipe to mist everything on the two top shelves, but as there are things at the bottom of the greenhouse that need to be kept dry, I take everything out to water them every other day with a canful of butt water. That should be better than tap water anyway.
To give me more space in the greenhouse for the pots with cuttings in, I planted out six unidentified perennials that came from T&M as a mixed batch of plug plants. I put three near the rhs edge of the log-roll border at the back, and the other three into one of the log-roll planters. I have a feeling they are the same plants as came with my purple Petunias last year, and if so they tend to trail.
Rain, rain and more rain is forecast for tomorrow so hopefully my now empty water butt will get full again and I won’t have to water the garden with a hosepipe like I’ve had to do the last couple of days. I have been saving what remained of the butt water in several cans to water the greenhouse plants.
Thursday 19th May Well the BBC weather forecast was not wrong! Yesterday it poured most of the day, only stopping long enough for dog walkers to take their dogs out for a quick run, before it came down again. It did actually stop for a while during the afternoon, but I was at a meeting a mile or so away, to where I usually walk but didn’t dare. I was wise to have taken my car this time as the heavens opened when it was time for us to leave.
I left my cast iron and steel chimenea uncovered by mistake before the rain came down and it obviously got soaked, so now I suppose it will get rusty. My neighbour has an identical one though, and there is not much rust on his, so fingers crossed…
Today the forecast is better, but I thought I would get out early and snap a few photos before the sun came out while everything was looking bright but wet. The rain had made everything grow. My seeds that I sowed into the log-roll border at the back were popping up all over the place and a few gladioli spikes had appeared in the summer border. My planted out seedlings seemed to have doubled their size. My water butt was full again. I really need a second one.
I can now see six Knopfia spikes from my chair where I write. They are all competing with each other it seems, and a second budding spike is higher now than the first which is in full colour. There is just a bit of colour showing on one giant Allium bud, so they won’t be long before they are out either.
Clematis Montana ‘Elizabeth’ is now mostly in flower while most of ‘Markham’s Pink’ flowers seem to have been washed away. ‘Nelly Moser’ now has four flowers all just above ground level. It will be a while before I am enjoying her flowers spread all over the trellis again. There is very little earth around her roots where she was dumped during the garden revamp in 2014. I keep piling more compost on, but it is solid concrete below. ‘The President’ on the gazebo has some massive buds, but none have opened yet, nor have ‘Dr Ruppel’ or ‘Jackmanii’ on the back wall.
Apart from the everlasting Erysimum, which is always a star, the stars of the garden at the moment are my Lilac, with more flowers coming out daily and the tiny ‘Little Fairy’ Geraniums opening out all over the place. They keep their eyes tightly closed during the rain but when the sun shines they just light up the garden with their pretty little pink, purple and white flowers. Also I just love the lime green of the Fuchsia Genii and the Oregano in the gravel garden, which contrasts beautifully with the nearby Phormium Jester, looking at her best at the moment.
Even the wildlife garden is looking bright, especially with the addition of the old Pieris still in its pot, which has now lost the red tint to her new leaves. Amazingly the Magnolia still has flowers, although some are going brown, which have been open since mid April. The Solanum on the gazebo has masses of flowers compared with last year and because of that I can actually see them now from where I sit.
Valerian is now becoming a pain as it is blocking two pathways through to the back of the garden, but it is so pretty, I don’t mind suffering wet ankles wading through the masses of wet flowers after the rain. I am also loving the old French Lavender that I planted in the summer border, which now has masses of flowers opening up. To think that I nearly chucked the straggly old plant away when I put a new one in its pot.
I went out later to do some dead heading, and I am sure things had grown since the morning. Nasturtium seeds had popped up in one of the log roll planters and the lilies in the other planter were markedly higher than this morning.
After the bins were emptied I decided to chop back the Ribes to a couple of feet above the fence. As it had given such a good show this spring, it was a bit painful cutting it back but hopefully pruning will thicken up the top half for next year. I didn’t chop too much off the lower part because that had a good pruning last year. That half filled the garden wheelie bin again. While I was at it I decided to pull out the violets that had finished flowering and to tackle the Devil’s weeds (Enchanters Nightshade) near the fence. With all that, and the various other things I chopped back, the bin was almost full again. I really need to get something done in the front garden, but that usually involves a lot of chopping back, so I guess I will have to wait another fortnight until the bin is emptied again.
The ash tree still seems reluctant to open up her leaves fully, likewise those in the parkland where I walk my dog. Yet the oaks are all fully open. A splash this year is all we must be getting then. I think we have had that splash already.
Saturday 21st May With all the rain we have had in the past few days everything is looking lush, but weeds are growing as fast as the seeds I planted, and it is difficult to tell yet which are which. However, seedlings in the log-roll planter are unmistakably Nasturtiums.
The Lilac is fully out now and smells beautiful. The little Azalea, that I have kept in its original pot for years, is now in full flower but the one I planted in the ground is struggling to show much colour. They really don’t like my clay earth, but I think after the one in the pot has finished flowering I will treat it to a bigger pot.
‘Nellie Moser’ still has only four flowers at ground level. ‘The President’ has opened one flower with several on the way. ‘Dr Ruppel’ has not ventured forth yet, but it didn’t come out until the last week of May in 2015. The Solanum blooms on nicely. If it carries on increasing in size like this it will be great next year when it has covered the top of the gazebo.
The most interesting plant in my garden at the moment is the Knopfia. There is a race going on for supremacy in height between the seven spikes, all at different stages of colour. The tallest has the least colour, the first to arrive has the most colour but has not gained any height since it started flowering. I wonder if any of them will reach the top of the trellis as one spike did last year.
There are lots of buds waiting to open on the Peony, but they are getting so high that the surrounding shrubs will not be able to support their heavy heads when they flower, so I shall have to stake them. Over by the fence there are three giant Allium heads showing colour and a couple of Aquilegias in flower. Two flowers have come out on Johnson’s Blue Geranium near the gravel garden, but the one near the patio has no buds even. There are going to be some lovely Foxgloves coming out soon, but these are self seeded from the mother plant I bought in 2014, not the ones that I sowed last year.
Voluptuous Valerian is completely blocking my way through two pathways into the back of the garden now. There is more coming out in the bed near the fence, so if that decides to block the third pathway her days are numbered!
The forecast is not good for the weekend, but at least I won’t have to water my garden, which I stupidly did last night, just before it rained!
My Garden Transformation 