Sunday 18 March 2012

Hints of Spring!















At last there are signs of Spring coming. I love Forget-Me-Knots and the early signs of blue flowers are cheering. I love the way some of the flowers are pinky purple as well as blue though I know these colours won't stay when the plant gets bigger and will revert to the normal blue.  















The creeping comfrey has gone completely wild and is everywhere. The flowers are like snowdrops and look most attractive but sadly a lot of it will have to be grubbed up! It is just like ordinary comfrey in that the leaves can be used on swellings and knocks on one's bones to help them heal. 















And I am delighted at the way my blackcurrant cuttings have taken off. They are being hardened off and then will be planted into a larger pot before being planted into the garden. 















The new potatoes I planted in buckets are breaking through the compost and soon I'll have to cover them with more compost. I'm really looking forward to having new potatoes in about twelve weeks time. Yummy! 

Thursday 8 March 2012

Then and now!



The above photo is of the garden now. Pots have been left since they last flowered and leaves have gathered around them. A sad and sorry sight. The rest of the garden isn't much better!


The photo above and below are of how it used to look at the same time but a couple of years ago! Unfortunately although I lost interest for a year or two things went on growing! Leaves fell from the oak tree and buried plants and earth. The birds had a great time scratching for bugs under the carpet of leaves.



Herbs such as lemon balm have grown where they wanted and spread over a large part of the herb garden. Marjoran and oregano have gone wild. The herbs I really like have given up the ghost and gone. So I have to plant more dill, basil and coriander. These are not hardy perennials but with our mild winters I had found they went on from year to year but neglect did for them eventually!  















A bit of good news! After Graeme moved the blackcurrant bush I pruned it and in a fit of waste not, want not, I put the cuttings into some compost and put it on the kitchen window sill. And now the cuttings are showing signs of life. The buds are breaking open to show green tips of leaves. So if all goes well I will have four new blackcurrant bushes. Of course blackcurrant is one of the easiest plants to propogate!

Thursday 1 March 2012

Sunny and Warm!

How lovely on the first day in March to have no wind and lots of lovely warm sunshine! It was so lovely that I had to spend as much time as possible outside before I had to go to work. Graeme moved a blackcurrant for me which is something I've been meaning to do for a long time. Now it is in the sun and hopefully will produce lots of fruit. It is a large sweet fruiting variety so will be a good addition to the smaller fruited varieties.

The birds have been collecting the moss that we have raked up off the lawn for their nests. The magpies have already got a nest going in the Hawthorne tree and are making a continual racket as they wage war with the wood pigeons! The squirrel is their other target!

Lots of self sown for-get-me nots, so there will be some colour a bit later on. At the moment the only thing flowering is the evergreen clematis and the flowers though pretty are fairly nondescript. They are white with purple streaks inside the bell shape which one doesn't see unless one is right underneath the flower. The camelia continues to be a riot of colour with more buds blossoming daily.

Sadly they have forcast rain for the weekend which apart from keeping the potato buckets moist will impinge on any gardening I might do. Oh well back to the sewing machine and the dyeing!