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.