More planting and Eric cleans patio

Eric has been hard at work cleaning the patio with a combination of patio cleaning fluid and close up work with his new hose aka magic snake hose! 

Today we went out and I bought six lily bulbs to go in the remaining big pot, v Siberia, which should grow to about 80cm tall. Put them in the pot and then some violas on top. Put remaining violas around the base of the silver birch, in a couple of small pots and near the flowering currant. 

Also, realised that the 4 in 1 lawn treatment has gone on very much in stripes! So put some more on in the less green stripes. Fingers crossed it works!

Can you see the stripes?

End of March

Just realised that the clematis Rebecca should have been pruned in winter or late February. Apparently I can prune it after the first flush of flowers. The weather has been very mild and the grass has greened up considerably after the application of 4 in 1 earlier this month. 

Jobs completed this weekend include pruning the buddleia, the Cotinus out the front and cutting right down the ornamental grass near the rosa rubrifolia. 

Tiny flowers on the geranium

Buddleia cut right back

Hellebores 

Spring is springing

So much early growth.

  

White Pulmonaria in amongst the forget me nots

 

The hellebores are doing well

 

The amelanchier buds are starting to break

 

The dianthus is now blooming as well

Glorious weather for planting

The new shed was put up on Friday, and yesterday we started putting the contents away, hanging up various items with nails etc. So nice to have a dry shed and one with no spiders. I wonder how long it'll be spider free!

Today Eric and went to Codicote and bought three dark blue/brown glazed pots for the patio. Planted up the smallest with a yellow thyme, Thymus Citr. Aureus. In the middle sized pot put in a tiny Hutchinsia Crystal Carpet (white flowers), a Dianthus Sherbet (pink), and an Armeria Ballerina White. 

In the flower border next to the new fence I put in a Sedum Crystal Pink, a Salvia Sensation Blue and an Anemone Blanda Blue. I also had a Parahebe Snow Clouds which I'd intended putting in a pot but there was no room so it's in the far border next to the rose.

I also sowed some Sweet Peas below the fence but not sure that they should be sown outside at this time of year or under glass, we shall see. I still have some spares if they don't go. Also sowed the free poppy seeds (from Gardeners World) out the front, probably way too close to the Cotinus, but again, we shall see! Also planted out 50 snowdrops in clumps of about 5 under the grey buddleia and under the Rosa Glauca. 

While I was doing all this planting up Eric was working hard scarifying the lawn, as most of it is moss. It's in very poor shape, even more so after having all the shed broken up on it during the week.

Then I spread a 4 in 1 moss and weed killer and fertiliser on the lawn. It should be effective even this early in the year because the forecast for this week is extremely good, temperatures above 12C every day.

All in all a good mornings work! There is even washing on the line.  Off to clean my secateurs now!

Prep for the shed

So, old shed down (courtesy of EB), fence between us and next door's greenhouse mended at the last minute thanks to some urgent phone calls when Stuart the Fence failed to turn up, and now Eric's favourite activity, burning! The old shed and remaining broken fence panels all broken up and burnt In a very hot fire. Thankfully no wind!

February half term 2014

The start of my first blog!  I wanted to do a gardening diary but couldn't be faffing around with printing photos. Let's see how it goes!

New fence has gone up between us and no.12, now 6 foot tall instead of the previous 4 feet. Jezzer not terribly helpful, refused to allow us to put anything on his skip and warned us that when he renewed the fence our panels would be coming out. Got rid of old fence panels on freecycle.

Dug out old straggly buddleia (well, Eric did!) and a large number of self seeded aquilegia, foxglove and forget me nots which had completely taken over the border next to the new fence. Went out with Elsebeth and bought New Dawn climbing rose and Madame Alfred Carriere climbing rose from a nursery in Mole Hill (?) right next to Stansted airport, put them up against the new fence along with a new honeysuckle.  Moved some variegated periwinkle which was creeping in from next door to the far fence where I hope it will provide a bit of colour in the shade over there.  Today I planted a Cistus Purpureus Alan Fradd where the buddleia had been.

During half term also visited another nursery with Elsebeth, Langthorns nursery, and went to the garden centre with Eric in Codicote. Bought some primroses which I planted up into some reasonably sized terracotta pots which had been stuck behind the shed since we moved in. Eric drilled some holes in the base of another large pot from behind the shed which I planted up with Armeria splendens, (pink), Saxifraga alpino early pink heart, and Dianthus sherbet. Also found a shallow long rectangular container which I planted up with some sempervivums.  Bought some gravel to finish off the pots and they look really good.

Planted up a metal container with a Sedum acre Yellow Queen which is now by the front door. Put the two remaining alpines (a sedum album Athoum and another Armeria) into the corner of the garden by the spotted laurel where the soil is very poor, on top of what was probably the remains of the base of a patio. Weeded the other beds and moved a grass from one side of the variegated pittosporum to the other, as I'd planted them too close together last year. Planted a winter flowering Viburnum tinus French White in the far left hand corner near the remains of the ash stumps. Still lots of big roots there.  I also put in three lots of Leucojum bulbs underneath the grey leaved buddleia on the right hand side of the garden next to where the rabbits are buried. Finally, I planted out a very pretty and massively flowering deep pink Hellebore (Walburtons Rosemary) right at the front of the border in line of sight from the living room. I'd bought it before Christmas but hadn't made a space for it. I hope it flowers equally well in the future.  All of this planting has been helped by huge amounts of well rotted compost which came out of our composter, which hadn't been emptied for two years.  It was quite a mild half term, with temperatures so up to 10C, so there are plenty of plants sending out new growth e.g. Clematis, roses.

Eric and I coppiced the hazel down to about 1 foot in order to be able to remove the shed. It's always leaked, because of damage to the felt caused by branches of the hazel and the silver birch, but this winter was the wettest for about 100 years so everything inside is damp and mouldy. This week Eric took the shed down and we've ordered a new one from the shed company next to Ayletts which should come next Friday.

In the process disturbed a hibernating frog in the leaf mould behind the shed, attracted a lot of attention from our resident robin, and cleared out heaps of snail shells and nibbled seeds and hazelnuts from under the old shed, evidence of the mice.

All in all a lot of gardening done, which was really satisfying. I didn't do anything last spring because of my ruptured Achilles, and the year before that we did the patio and I planted up the new flower bed which had been created next to the path to the shed. Prior to that there were the rabbits! Also, we've generally booked holidays in the spring half term and Easter, but with nothing booked this half term and nothing booked for Easter I am hoping to really enjoy some gardening this year. I have ordered some Scabiosa Butterfly Magnets plants for April, and some in-the-green snowdrops for next year.  Have subscribed to Gardeners World magazine, so I can make sure I do the necessary jobs each month!