The Beginning of May

The end of April was a busy time outside of the garden. That, combined with a cold spell of changeable weather including; frosts and hail storms, strong winds and some occasional sunshine, meant that I just kept the garden ticking over. I watered the seedlings and mowed the lawn but that was about it. It seemed like everything needed just to be left to grow for a while.

Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016

 A sunny day in the garden today

May came and the weather remained changeable but it has warmed up a bit and the garden has grown and started to fill out quite well. We used the bank holiday to buy the first plants of the year from the garden centre. We always say we are not buying any more plants but we always seem to end up with several plants on our return. We bought a lavender grown as a standard to replace the one we had that didn't make it through the very wet winter and a french style lavender for the borders. We also bought an Aloe Vera which could stay outside in the garden in the summer but we will probably keep it as a house plant.

Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016

The new lavender we have planted in the border

The foxglove and alliums continue to grow well and I am looking forward to seeing them flower. The aquilegia I grew from seed last year are also doing well and the largest of them will soon be ready to flower. The tulips are still flowering, some of the first to flower in containers have finished now and I have cut off the stems and placed them out of the way until next year.

Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016

 We have achieved  good succession of flowering with the tulips this year

The seedlings are coming on at various rates and I have started to harden most advanced off, I created a protected area on the decking with a ring of thick bubble wrap rolled in half and held down with a few stones. I placed two sunflowers, some nasturtium and cornflowers within it. Originally the aim was to protect the plants from birds and slugs but just as i had finished, the weather turned very cold with storms of rain and hail, I put some fleece over the top and it protected them well and they are now growing strongly. I have took out the sunflowers and left them on the decking and put some more cornflower in the bubble wrap, soon I should be able to plant some out into the borders.

Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016

 The first flowering buds forming on an aquiligia

The tomatoes are rampaging away in the window sill upstairs and have just about took up all the available space, I will put them outside for the day tomorrow if the weather is reasonably fine. I am still not entirely sure where I am going to grow them as the spot on the front that I thought might be good is a bit shadier than I have realised. I will have to have a think. I need to get my runner and green bean seeds growing too. I have not decided weather to grow them in pots or directly into the soil. The fence I want to train them on is adjacent to the pavement outside and the border is raised using concrete slabs. I would have to plant the seeds close to the concrete and in summer they can get really warm, I am not sure whether they would dry out more quickly in that position or grown in pots placed next to the fence.

Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016

 The maple is looking beautiful with its delicate leaves 

The trees in the garden are doing well, The maple is just producing its leaves while the pear continues to look healthy and blossom. The ornamental cherry tree we have in a container is also starting to show some beautiful pink blossom and the apple tree is also nearly ready to blossom. The two blueberries are flowering heavily and at the same time, increasing the chances of a good yield of berries this year. There have been a few flowers on the blackcurrant but none on the smaller and so far less vigorous redcurrant plant. who knows, maybe we will have a selection of fruit available this year in the Small Urban Garden!

Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016

The apple blossom is just starting to show, the first step on the road to fruit.

             

A Busy Week in the Garden

It has been a busy week of gardening so far this week with lots of tasks still to do. The garden is really starting to grow now, the foxgloves are shooting up, as are the alliums and the borders are starting to fill out well. The tulips are perhaps now reaching the peak of their display, with the vast majority flowering or about to flower. 

Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016

The foxgloves beginning their upwards ascent towards the light

Over the weekend I planted freesia into a container and did some work on the front garden. Yesterday I got quite few tasks done. I planted three calla lilies into a small container, it may be a little on the small side but the effect we want is to have them bursting out of the pot. Calla lilies are not so tall, so a large pot could look odd if they do not grow so tall and the whole display would look disproportionate. I planted verbena seeds, four of them and have put them inside in the bedroom windowsill to germinate. I want guaranteed germination success with them as it would be too late in the season to try again and get them to flower in the same year if i put them in the cold frame and they failed. 

Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016

The fig tree has sprouted some minature figs

I planted five of the ten gladioli bulbs that we have directly into our most freely draining and sunny border. We shall save the rest for a few weeks so there is a succession of flowering but we have not chosen a location for the remainders yet. The tomato plants that have been grown from seed in early March have done well and as a result I re-potted them into bigger pots and put them back inside. Depending on the weather, I may consider putting them outside to harden off in early May. Many people would not do it this early but it is very mild in our southern city location and I had good success putting them out early last year.

Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016

One of the many tulips in bloom currently in the garden

I planted a tower lily that was that I rescued after it was ravaged by slugs last year. I dug up and put it in a pot to see if it would reappear this year, which it did. I planted it close to one of the other two that I have in the borders. One of them already had been nibbled by slugs, so i put some small plastic cloches around them. There is nothing to stop the slugs from climbing over them but the one lily that has been left alone, has one around it from last year, so it is worth a go.

I finished of the day by mowing the lawn and doing the edging. It makes the garden look much better and afterwards I sat and enjoyed a cup of chamomile tea and watched the birds come and investigate the changes to garden and search for insect meals in the dug areas where I planted the gladioli and lily and on the freshly mowed lawn.

Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016

A view of our garden from the decking after mowing the lawn

Today I counted up what had germinated in the cold frame and what needed topping up. I planted some more tall sunflower, Californian poppy, morning glory and chard. Apart form the runner and green beans, which I will sow at the beginning of May, I think I have completed my seed sowing for the year, but you never know!

Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016

One of the climbing roses with its shoots of new growth that will hold this years flowers

I finished off the gardening session by training and tying the climbing roses to the rose arch bench. I then enjoyed another cup of chamomile tea in the sun and took some photos of the birds as they came for their usual evening foray.  

Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016

A robin that regularly visits the garden throughout the day

A Week of Tulips

This week has seen the first proper wave of tulips flower in the garden. I have planted over fifty in the last couple of years and this year we are seeing blooms from both of the previous years planting. Tulips are my favourite of the spring bulbs and although they are not as early as Crocus or Daffodils, the range of variety of this plant is amazing driven by hundreds of years of selective breeding the likes of which most other plants, except perhaps the Rose has seen.

Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016

The lawn needs a mow and the borders need a tidy but the tulips are looking great 

Alliums are popping up all over the place too, these have also been planted over two seasons. Last year only a couple flowered but we have high hopes for this year and they will hopefully flower just as the Tulips finish their blooms. After the Tulips finished flowering last year there was a quiet period in the garden where there was not a lot in flower until the annual cut flowers I planted grew and flowered later on in the summer.

 

Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016

My favourite blooms in the garden at the moment are these tall orange Tulips

Having a new garden is quite challenging, gaps in display, structure and flowering can easily occur, but as this garden matures it should improve. There were gaps in flowering in late spring last year after the Tulips had finished flowering, this year we have not just the Alliums but also plenty of Foxglove to take their place until the annuals and other summer plants such as Dahlias and Lilies produce their flowers. 

Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016

  I planted some tulips in containers which we have brightening up the decking

Perennials such as Phlox and Rhododendron continues to increase their size in the garden too and will eventually reduce the need for lots of annual bedding in the garden (though I do enjoy my annual cut flowers). Where there have been successes there are failures too. The extremely wet winter followed by a pretty wet spring has not treated the lavender at all well and at least one of our varieties is dead and others look troubled to say the least but we shall wait and see what happens.

Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016

The rose arch and bench, covered in roses and doubling as cold frame expansion space

My solution to my cramped cold frame has been to buy an expansion. A clear plastic storage container has provided me with extra space to store my fast growing seedlings. Many of them are doing really well but there have been some that have not germinated and my plan in the next week is to top up any plants that have had a weak germination yield. It is also momentous that the two roses have met at the top of our rose arch bench. It will be great to see them flower.

Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016

There are also more subtle blooms in the garden at the moment too. The first blossom to appear in the garden is on the pear tree. We also have an apple and cherry tree in the garden too but they seem well behind in the race to blossom. We bought the pear tree last year so it will be interesting to see if it fruits this year, it has beautiful blossom even if it does not manage to produce a crop.  

A Busy Start To April

It has been a busy couple of weeks. We have been decorating the house which has took up the vast majority of our time and has left us with plenty to do in the garden. Things have really started to take off with the herbaceous perennials such as the Phlox pushing through. Tulips have begun to flower and many more are getting close, which should hopefully lead to a great spring display in the next couple of weeks. The Alliums I planted earlier in the year are also growing and will provide a succession of flowers to the tulips after they have finished.

Our first Tulip flower bent over by strong winds 

Meanwhile the many of the seed are growing well in the cold frame. The Cornflower and Cosmos are doing particularly well. The giant Sunflowers are more sporadic with only two of the five I sowed having germinated so far, which is also true of the Californian Poppies. I may resow some more of these as two of each plant is a little less than I hoped for.

One of the Climbing Roses with its new growth which will produce this years flowers

As far as my experiment of germinating everything in the cold frame, except the Tomatoes has gone, it has been quite successful. Exceptions to this are the Castors and the Mina Lobata, which probably need hotter temperatures to germinate than the cold frame can provide at this time of the year. I have moved the Castors to the bedroom window and put them into plastic bags to heat them up and within a day one seed has already sprouted through. The Mina Lobata have been moved to the top shelf of the cold frame as they need light to aid germination and If nothing happens I will move them to the bedroom window too.

The Dogwood's earlier leaves contrast beautifully with its deep red stems

I have made space in the cold frame by taking out the tender Rhizomes of the Canna Lilies we were kindly donated. I have planted them in a container as they were showing spikes, where the leaves and flowers will grow from. The Chocolate cosmos we have in a pot has also been moved out of the cold frame into the now milder temperatures of outside.

Our Blackcurrant plant is growing its leafs

To make even more space for propagation of seeds, we have bought a large clear plastic storage box, which I have put growing seedlings into such as the Cornflowers, Chard and Cosmos as they will get more light that way but are still too small to leave outside where if the cold and bad weather did not damage them, the Blackbirds probably would peck at in there quest for food and nesting material.

Blueberry flowers are beginning to bloom

I have planted the Dahlia tubers we bought earlier in the year into simple black containers which we will put into the borders, surrounded by bedding later in the year once they grow. I have planted some dark red Sunflower seeds called 'Black Magic', which we are looking forward to seeing bloom. Also to help in the quest to provide flowers for pollinators, I have planted ten Scabious seeds which are now in the more spacious cold frame and will hopefully germinate soon.    

             

The Seeds are Starting to Grow

Spring is definitely on the way now. The weather has not been spectacular but it has slowly started to warm and night time temperatures are around five or six degrees Celsius. I decided that now was the time to take the ceramic pots out of their bubble wrap, for all the plants, the hardy ones such as the pear tree and the more tender such as the Olive tree. Although temperatures could fall back down to zero, it is unlikely that they will plummet below that, so the pots are probably safe from cracking and the plants themselves are unlikely to suffer too. I put the Jasmine back in its spot next to the decking and removed the protective fleece. It had dried out again. For some reason, I keep forgetting to water the Jasmine but I gave it plenty today, with some feed. For the next few weeks at least, rain should meet its water needs.

A video showing what I am growing in the cold frame

In the cold frame, seeds are continuing to germinate with signs of life from Cosmos, Sunflower, Chard and Cornflower all growing. I have planted more seeds. Today it was the turn of Mina Lobata, a exotic climber which I tried to grow last year without much success. I soaked the seeds for twenty four hours in warm water and planted them out in the cold frame today. They grew quickly in the early stages last year, but I started them inside and that was their downfall. When I moved them outside they did not respond at all well to the temperature change and although they did not die, they did not grow very quickly and only one flowered. It is possible that the soil did not suit their needs also, so I will keep them in pots this year and place them close to the fence for them to climb. 

Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016

A picture I took last year of Cosmos in the garden

I also planted two varieties of Pine Tree seeds. They are botanical specimens and I do not know the variety as I collected them from the local park last year. I kept them wrapped in foil in the fridge for a year and have put them put in the cold frame now. Hopefully the contrast in temperature and light will get them to germinate but it is a complete experiment and I will be both extremely surprised and pleased if they grow. My plan would be to use them as Bonsai if they do grow as they are both massive trees in the local park and definitely would be too large for our garden if planted out in the soil.        

Pruning Grasses and Planting Seeds

We still not have seen much of the anticipated spring weather yet here in the garden, but I have had one good day of gardening this week. I started off by having a good look around, which I do most days. I found that the Blackbirds must be starting to nest as they have been taking compost from the pots and doing a good job of pulling up some Begonia tubers and Nerine bulbs. Last year they did the same to my seedlings, but I have them well protected in the cold frame this year. No real damage has been done as the Begonias and Nerines are not actively growing yet, so I have just pushed them back down into position and replaced the more fibrous compost with finer loam-like soil to try and deter the birds.

Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016

Despite the cold weather, some of the tulips are forming their flowers

I checked on the Dahlias I had left outside enclosed in a good layer of bubble wrap, they were actually quite damp inside so I decided to remove the bubble wrap and place the container into the bottom of the cold frame to allow them to dry out a little. Inside the cold frame, the Cornflower seeds have sprouted but that is all. The cold weather has not not been ideal for the approach of starting most of the seeds in the cold frame this year, but I will not start to worry or change my plans until April.

Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016

There are some other signs of spring appearing in the garden too 

I have pruned back the deciduous grasses. We have two in containers and now is the time of year to make space for new growth. I repotted the larger one into a new container, next year I think I will try separating it into two plants. We have one small evergreen grass in the borders and this does not require cutting back, but I did tidy out any growth that had died back to make it look more presentable.  

Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016

I have cut back the deciduous grasses, leaving any new growth

I have planted more seeds and put those into the cold frame too. I did six more Cornflowers, some Nasturtium, Trailing Daisies and some other cut flowers the name of which I only know in German, from where they were kindly donated. Hopefully soon, some more will begin to sprout through.

 Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016

The cold frame is starting to fill up with seeds

I also planted the first fully outdoor seeds of the year too, I decided to grow Chives at the base of the apple tree that we have in a large container. Last year I put Nasturtium in the same position and they were attacked heavily by Black Fly. I am hoping that Black Fly do not have the same love of Chives and also it should provide us with some herbal crops for the salads and other bits of cooking throughout the year.

Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016

The home for the chives this year 

Back From a Trip

We have been away for a few days, visiting Iceland. It was a great trip, but there was not a deal to see in terms of gardens and gardening, which is perhaps to be expected at this time of year so far north. I would be interested to find out more about gardening in such places, whether it is a popular pastime, which plants do well in the volcanic geology and also the limitations such conditions can bring.

Leaving the garden can often be a stressful affair, especially later in the growing season or in summer when regular watering is essential. At this time of year all I did before I left was to water the seeds in the cold frame, which made for a worry free trip.

We were away for less than a week so I didn't expect too much to have happened in the garden while we were gone but I was still quite excited to get back and see what had changed.

The Camellia Japonica continues to begin flowering, it has been quite slow to do so, but the weather has stayed reasonably cool recently. It was nice to see the first open flower on our return and the leaves are looking good and healthy.

Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016

The first opening flower of the Camellia  

The Tulips have grown and one or two have started to form a flower bud but they are still in the early stages. There are plenty of Tulips in the borders and they should be putting on a wonderful spring display soon. The Roses continue to grow well and the climbers are covering the arched bench and should cover the entire structure this year.

The Dogwoods have begun to form leaves since we left so perhaps now things will speed up as we get longer day length and more warmth. 

Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016

The leaves forming on one of the Dogwoods

I got up this morning to check in the cold frame and found that five of the six Cornflower seeds I planted recently have sprouted and are beginning to grow. They are the first of all the seeds in the cold frame to grow and was great to see as I wasn't expecting anything to have come through quite yet. I will soon be looking through my seed collection and deciding what to plant next.

Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016