Bank holiday weekend 2

We were away this weekend and visited our friends allotment and helped them plant some tomatoes.

On Monday it finally rained after a week of not doing so. And it rained and rained. Wearing my Glastonbury cagoule I managed to plant out some of the bedding - nicotina and pertunias and some of the cosmos.

The foxgloves have started to come out and everything else really seems to be growing.

Chelsea was fab

Read Tams review of the day.

I'll get some of my favourite pics up at some point.

My favourite gardens were:
The Laurent Perrier garden by Tom Stuart-Smith. It won best in show. It had the greatest trees. Plus i got some really good ideas for planting my side and back bed.
The Cancer Research garden by Andy Sturgeon. I liked the pools and the tree ferns.
The daily Telegraph garden by Arabella. The Japanese pool with the line of lillies was inspired. As was the mirror and slate behind the bamboo.

Oh and Cleve's garden. I liked his planting, the big ball and the path.

I liked the elevations garden because the planting was quite different to most of the others.

We saw lots of:
Iris's - which i don't have yet - but plan to get
Green and white - my fern bed is SO on trend
Aquilegia - I love it. There will be more in my garden. I saw all the ones I've already got in show gardens as well.
Heuchera - I may be unable to say the word but my garden is bang on trend

I managed not to buy any thing other than pimms but I do have lots more great ideas.

Dreaming of my design for Chelsea now - one day.

The day before Chelsea

And here is my garden...

Plus my first salad leaves

Pictures of the new bed..

and one of the barby.

The pictures aren't the best as it was so sunny. I'll take more in the week.

The sun is still shining

It has been a glorious week of sunshine and a lovely weekend. On Saturday I planted up the bed on the left of the garden. The bit near the house is in the shade most of the day but the bed gets sunnier the further up you go. I didn't want anything to over the top as that's what the sunny beds are for! The bit near the house had the phorium before but that has died since being moved. I've got 5 hostas on order for there. Then it goes to the bit where the grasses were. I didn't like them as it was too much of the same but now that there is bed in front and we've covered bits up so it is less uniform I've decided to go with the grass theme. So I've got some different grasses to go there. As we move up to the beginning of the (newly painted) fence I was going to get another phornium but then I saw some Cordyline at the garden center. When I went to buy it on Saturday I ended up getting a much smaller (and cheaper) one - it will grow. Then there is the photina "red robin" which is a bit of a funny shape because it used to get overgrown with the lavetera. Now the lavatera is dead the photina will get a chance to grow and I'll start shaping it next year. This is the point wher ethe bed starts getting a lot more sun and I've a sweetpea wigwam and planted some Daliah tubers. Then the bed ends with the lovely silvery shrub. At the front of this bed I've planted 5 Elijah Blue" and 2 Heuchera "coral". I read today though that Elijah Blue are meant to be in acid soil so I don't know how well they will do. There is also a Euphorbia here as well. Going back along the border into the shade are 3 more heuchera; 2 in lime green and 1 in purple. Then you get to the new grasses. I was going to get Carex frosted curls but they needed sun so I got a carex "milk chocolate" and a carex "northern lights" plus a chondspopetall tecturum (need to confirm that spelling!).

On Saturday we also put manure on the new bed by the house and dug it over. I'd like it to be a veg patch but most of it doesn't get enough sun. A bit does though and I'll put the tomatoes there. We also moved some other pots and containers (including the Japanese maple) onto the patch so it doesn't look bare. So that freed up the patio in front of the shed for the table, chairs and the barby. The new table and chairs will go on the slate patio at the end of the garden. They should arrive in July (by which time summer will probably be over!).

I also cut the lawn and trimmed teh edges. Our mower has broken. I think its just the blade but have been having problems finding a new one. In homebase on Friday I bought one that was far too large in a desperate bid to do something other than buy a whole new lawn mowe (wich is what I really wanted - one with a roller that does stripes!). Anyway on Saturday I actually borrowed the neighbours flymo. It annoys me that grass clippings go in the beds. But what I'm not sure about is whether all mowers do that or just flymos. If a normal electric rotary mower didn't shower the beds with grass then I might get a new one. Although I have promised D that I won't buy anything else for a while.

Sunday we relaxed, ate b-b-q, drunk Pimms and generally enjoyed the garden. Lovely.

Today I spoke to P and found out I need to water garden every day. So I'll try and get up 10 minutes early in the morning. Today I left work on time and despite waiting 20 minutes for the bus was still home well before 7 and had a good 90 minutes in the garden. I gave the beds a liquid feed as well as watering them with the sprinkler. I'd been meaning to do that for ages, ever since the tulips started dying back. I also feed the lawn with a lawn liquid feed. I'll try and do that every two weeks for a couple of months to try and get it looking nice.

May bank holiday

It was a lovely sunny bank holiday weekend.
I painted the fence and did some weeding. There are millions of little ash trees in the back beds.

daz made the new storage shed to go behind the shed so I was able to clear out loads from the shed which means I can now use it as a potting shed rather than a storage cupboard. we also tidied up the back area.

There are flowers and colour popping up everywhere. I've been cutting quite a lot of the tulips to bring into the house. The bed by the house has had a good succession of three different types. The other bed is definitely to crowded. I'm not sure the alliums will be able to grow properly. What I'm not sure about is whether I should lift the`tulips now and store them somewhere or move them next Autumn.

There are also lots of slugs about and I've started waging a war on them. They completely eat a delphinium plant.

Look at this little white flower - how pretty is that? I found that hiding away.

Rain and grass seed

Its been proper April showers all week. Not good for my mood but good for the new plants and grass seed i sowed last week.
Or so I hoped.
The grass seed still doesn't seem to have done anything - even with the mix of lawn soil. umm.

Strawberries and lettuce

Spent the afternoon giving the lawn some looking after today. Racked to scarify it then used an aerator to make some holes. Then covered in lawn feed and seed with a bit of lawn compost over the top. I've just watched a video on gardeners world and I more or less got it right. Hopefully it will grow nicely now.

I've a problem with the lawn mower. It doesn't seem to be cutting. I tried to lower the blade but can't work out how to do it. I don't like the mower anymore any way. It blows bits of grass clippings everywhere - including all over the flower bed. So I guess I'd like a proper one.

I also planted some strawberries in a planter. I'm worried is a bit small but the man in the garden centre said it woudl be fine. And I planted some lettuces in the movable planters.

I bought 2 more plants for by the patio in the fern bed. A Euphorbia Efanthia and a Fatsia Japonica.

I was tempted to buy lots of things for the other new bed along the other side of the garden but i think I better plan it first rather than just buy random things. I did buy one hosta - a golden tiara.

The Clementis Montana has now started flowering. I really must not prune it for a few years. It is so little to how it looked three years ago. I looked back through some old photos today. A lot of the shrubs as well as the clementis were much bigger in 2005 than they are now.

I repotted the 3 box plants as well. I had been keeping them all in one planter together on the front step but now I'd like to have three going up the steps.

Very tired

Well I planted all those plants today (almost - still 5 pinks to go in). The clay soil is pretty heavy and sticky so i was mixing it with manure for every hole. It took about 7 hours so I'm pretty tired and am going to really ache tomorrow.

I also repotted my tomato plants and put them in the plant house. The sweet peas and salad leaves I'd been growing by the window in the spare room hadn't really worked. P said they need more light. So today threw a lot away that were no good and everything else has gone in the plant house. The tomatoes which were a bit leggy just got planted in long pots and the soil a bit further up the stem. I'll do more salad leaves next weekend.

I'd hoped to mow the lawn today but was too tired. I put some feed on at the end of the day. Hopefully I'll get to mow it in the next week. It does need some serious tlc as it looks a bit wrecked at the mo. It does need some more seed at some point. The seed i put on before is still just sitting on the top - so much for the growth it promised within 4 days. I think I need to mix some more with compost and rake it in. I'll do that after its had a mow.

So here are some photos taken with my phone of the new planting. The hot bed is planted and the cottage garden was waiting to go in. Plus I've just realised now I haven't put the fennel seeds in either. So I will need to find some time this week or next weekend. Wish I could have another day off work. Could quite happily spend it finishing stuff in the garden. The weather was actually quite nice today as well and was quite warm this afternoon. In fact its still 10 degrees now. The thermoeter in the plant house isn't working though. umm. Not that i know what temp the tomoatoes are meant to be kept at anyway.

48 plants

P (from D&P fame) came to help me today plan my new flower beds. We spent lots of time talking about what I wanted and looking up plans and nearly missed the garden centre being open.

But I now have 48 little babies that are just waiting to be planted. P has placed them out so I'll be busy doing that tomorrow.

He also helped me move the shrubs around a bit as well and confirmed that the lavetera is dead. So this evening I chopped that right back to the stump. I also got to ask him several more "plant or weed" questions and so was able to pull a lot of weeds up.

So I now know that the three shrubs I have are:
1) Choisya ternata - Mexican orange blossom. This makes a really nice smell when you knock against it. There was a little one of these as well which we've moved to go between the two parts of the big flower bed.
2) photina - red robin. This is the shrub in the middle which currently has lovely red leaves. There is also one opposite which used to be smothered by the lavetera. It looks a bit straggly at the moment but might thrive now the lavetera is cut back.
3) pieris - this we moved to in front of the Photina. there are also 2 small ones which we've put in the opposite bed.

The pretty shrub that was between the Choisya and the photina with the papery leaves looks a bit dead now. The landscapers moved it forward but it wasn't looking very healthy today. It turns out its not got many roots that's why. So we moved it to over by the gap left by the christmas tree and I gave it a light prune to make it a little less top heavy. We did find out what it was as we were moving it - but I've forgotten and not written it down. I'll look tomorrow.

So here are the flowers that are going in the new beds:

HOT BED
Helenium "the bishop"
Kniphofa - royal castle and red hot poker
Rudbeckia
Oriental poppies
Lupins - gallery red
Coreopis
Daliha tubers

PINK / COTTAGE BED
Cistus Corbariensis
Rose - Graham Thomas
Geranium - himalayene Gravetyre
Campanula
Foxglove
Aquilegia - rose barlow
Lupin
Cistus Hibridus
Penstomon
Delphinium
Cistus Decumber "sun rose"
Coreopis - american dream
Pinks
Fennel
plus the alliums that are already there
plus I've 3 iris bulbs

Camera is away again so no pics for now.