Sophie in the Sticks: garden

Spring doings

corona virus Tuesday, March 23, 2021

Bringing spring into the house has banished the winter blues. It started with a couple of anemones, then narcissi, on to cherry blossom and now there's some full size daffodils from a dark corner of the garden. I did leave plenty for the wildlife too.

The front door pots would have been bubbling over with viola flowers by now had the deer not destroyed the lot. Instead, a meagre but reassuring spread of tulip foliage is slowly rising. After using compost I knew to be too wet, but only because I had nothing else to use, I got the fear that the rather picky tulip bulbs would have rotted. After the violas were eaten, I would have been particularly gloomy to have ruined my tulips too. In autumn I'm always excited to pick out the tulips for the pots outside yet by this time of year I've long since forgotten what to expect. Tulips are expensive considering you are only guaranteed one year of flowers (some only last a week) then if you plant them out for next year you might just get foliage.

C has been on frogspawn watch and when he told me there was (finally) a definite lump of it in the pond I was elated! Excellent news. I'm hoping for more though.

Good news too about the nests; a relatively sure sighting of blue tits attending the most popular nest box. This one is on a tree that doesn't sway, faces a good direction and has a clear flight path in to the box. It's been used each year.

Hyacinths in the garden are starting to flower. I ensure I plant out all bulbs I buy for inside flowering and the following spring they flower. They're cheap too. So much better value than tulips if you are looking for spring colour year after year.

I ordered bulbs, tubers, plants and seeds over winter. With anything in a plastic bag I get worried it will suffer if left there for long. I potted up dahlia tubers last weekend. They really are ugly. Some in massive sausagey bunches. Others, like testicles.

Finding whatever possible to liven up the mantlepiece. If the deer hasn't eaten the grape hyacinths they should be coming in the next few weeks.

The growing season has kicked off chez Sticks; the propagator has been working for weeks now to start off our delicate and fussy seeds like chillis, tomatoes, celeriac, aubergine, celeriac and sweet peppers.

Spring brings with it so much possibility.

Take care,

Sophie

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Allotment flower patch and current highlights

allotment Friday, March 12, 2021

I've spent a few hours weeding at the allotment flower patch for the past couple of weekends. After the floods were drained and before the storms came back. There hadn't been much work carried out since round November, when I did a bit of clearing up. I do try to leave some spent debris for the wildlife to make homes in and eat so hadn't done much since then. The weeds somehow manage to continue growing over winter, no matter how nicely you leave the plot. C had kindly topped up the woodchip paths for me which gave the plot a lovely lift. Over winter it's so hard to believe how much things can grow in spring, filling the place with summer colour. There's precious little to see, so here's a reminder of what summer last year gave us.

As I say, I've started weeding and have now done around two thirds of the beds. I decided to document each bed and what (if anything) is showing some promise of things to come.

You are forgiven for not seeing this through to the bitter end.

The spring bulbs bed at the 'front' of the plot. Now has tiny narcissi in flower. Lots of tulip foliage showing (from years past, so many probably won't flower), there are allium foliage too. Approximately ten thousand honesty seeds have germinated. Might need to thin these.

The next bed has scabious in mostly which will need some thinning soon.

I also added some gifted irises from another plotholder, plus some more baby scabious plants grown from dropped seed. I also have astrantia in there, which was unimpresive, plus mini sunflowers last year - so cute.

Above, is the first dahlia bed. In an attempt to give it some spring interest I sowed wallflower seeds. I then forgot about that when tidying up and probably pulled most out before it figuring out. A small collection still growing.

Above, dahlia bed 2. Don't tell anyone but I am considering ripping up the path in the middle for another dahlia row. At the fence end 3 peonies live. This one is growing again.

You can see what a state this one is in, tufts of grass and all... Rudbeckias and bergamot grow here. The perennial of both are looking intact. I have several annual rudbeckias sown in the greenhouse. Again, sadly no marmalade but I couldn't get hold of it.

The bed at the back (yes, there's a very thin wire fence behind it). The echinacea and zinnias grow here. Nothing good at all to see here.

On the other side, the bed at the back has the giant schubertii alliums and sweet williams.

Lots to see although the clumps of sweet williams generally look a terrible state in early spring until more foliage and flower stems are produced.

This bed is a puzzle. For the last 2 years it has been home to cornflowers and ammi. The ammi self seeded everywhere after it's first season. The bed, paths and surrounding beds were sown with seeds and it look a lot of weeding to ensure they didn't take over. Last year, I removed stems a little earlier but it seems there is not one seed growing. Nada. I'm almost certain that seeds would have been dropped. I had assumed I would never need to sow ammi seeds again! But here I am, sowing ammi seeds in an attempt to replenish my supply. I sowed cornflower too as only a handful are growing. I hope they grow or I'll have to fill it with something else. As the flowers were due to be mostly finished by mid to late summer I've added some lilies for additional interest.

Into the double size monster bed. In the middle I planted 5 thalictrum which are supposed to get to approx 2m tall each year. I have 2 that grew last year to just over a foot tall (others perished). Conditions are in line with their preferences so I'm disappointed that they haven't performed. There are the old verbena bonariensis stems which should re-shoot alongside all the seed that should have been dropped from last years' flowers, I usually tuck sunflowers in here too. The delphinums are now shooting. Annual cosmos are planted in to the front of the bed.

The poppy bed is also looking distinctly sparse. You can't move poppies easily as any root disturbance and they just give up. At the end I'm trying to establish some lupins. Last year pests destroyed most of them so I'm very pleased to see the return of one plant.

The last bed, back to the front of the plot. This one has been a dumping ground for oddments in truth. I have anemone in flower, only a few at a time. The clumps of greenery are (I hope) nigella. The ought to appear later along with the lilies.

Keep your fingers crossed for me that the flowers appear once more.

Take care,

Sophie

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The garden under snow

countryside Tuesday, March 02, 2021

It was such a novelty to have so much snow that I had to take lots of pictures to commit the scenes to memory. It's so strange how we have unbelievably diverse weather in the UK. Well, all over the UK it's different, so that's even more curious. From carpeted in six to eight inches of snow in the winter to sizzling in over thirty degree heat in summer, we have it all.