Trowel and Error

[Disco]

I’ve got more tulips emerging.

[absley]

They're so beautiful, Disco.

[Tabitha]

I am definitely getting more tulips for next year, yours are gorgeous Disco. I’m going to Holland in a couple of weeks so that should inspire me.

Your gravelly section looks brilliant, Goat.

We bought some pond plants at the weekend for the first time ever, being proud new pond owners. They have all been battered by wind and hail ever since.

[Mountain Goat]

Those tulips are amazing, almost not like tulips. Mine are almost all gone after yesterday, and I believe we are expecting another mad session in about ten minutes to finish the rest off.

Thank you! I think you could be right Derek, I measured out the size of the larger one and thought it was too big (but I mapped it as though it was a square because hexagons are beyond my capabilities and that made it feel more dominant so lots of doubt).

Ooh, what pond plants? I probably won't know them mind.

The wind has also whipped off a bit of one of my hydrangea Annabelles, taken a whole purple euphorbia (on an exposed corner) and snapped off tender climber arms on two clematis and some sweet peas. I think they'll all be ok (not the euphorbia but I have more arriving this week by chance) but for the climbers this was their first go at reaching the trellis so it feels galling. In better news, all my borlottis are germinated and having a look around the kitchen like sentient beings.

[Mountain Goat]

The mad wind just now reminded me that it was very blowy when we were trying to lay the weed membrane; I was having to lie on one end of the sheet while J arranged plant pots on the other end so I could then start hammering down the pegs while maintaining full body pressure against the wind and gradually wiggle down, keeping it in place with my heft. It was like celebrity cyclone only without the celebrities and without the fun.

[Disco]

Sounds like me trying to get the air out of our tent after Glastonbury.

I always forget the wind snaps long awaited for buds, plants, vegetables every year. Last year slugs ate 2/3 of my tomato seedlings in one fell swoop.

[Mountain Goat]

Your poor tomato seedlings. Though that has made me think to not give away all my 36 tomato seedlings immediately and to keep some spares back.

I've seen a few broken cold frames and wrecked planting on Insta that makes my moaning about my sweetpeas seem slightly trivial. I am choosing to believe that the weather madness is over now and anything that survived the past two days is now tough enough that it's going to thrive. I also got a delivery of 24 small plants yesterday and I can't move in my utility room or get all the way round the dining table (half of which is covered with seedlings anyway). And I don't want to plant anything out yet. I need massive trays so I can harden things off without taking 53 trips in and out the house twice a day.

[Bat Macdui]

My seeds have sprouted!!!!

I do realise this is the absolute basics of nature, but it's very exciting when it happens in a loo roll holder covered in cling film on your dining room window ledge.

[Tabitha]

My neighbour is back from holiday today, I can’t wait for her to see how well I’ve looked after her seedlings.

I’m genuinely really pleased with myself, even though all I’ve done is apply water and turn the trays. Her tomatoes have trebled (tripled?) in height and the empty looking pots she left are now all full of several centimetres high beans, sweetcorn and sweetpeas.

[Mountain Goat]

That's fantastic, I bet she'll be absolutely thrilled.

I have just taken three tomato seedlings round to another neighbour (who was not expecting to have them thrust in his face as his wife who I talked to about it had not thought to tell him I was coming over with them) and he is also excited about his various germinations.

My carrots have finally germinated so that's made me happy. What are your seeds Bats? Some sort of peas or beans I'm guessing from the loo roll? Also I've just taken in another six small plants and a bare root rose and it's getting beyond ridiculous. And yesterday I got a buddleia, a peony and three angelica gigas. I didn't order everything at once, they've just all turned up at once and my hardening off processes are being challenged by lack of manpower and surface.

[absley]

Well done, Tabs. I dread being asked my green fingered neighbour to look after her three greenhouses etc. if they go away. Thankfully they're in the habit of asking on the other side/ have local children.

I'm similarly excited about my loo roll sprouting, Bats - tall peas, borlottis and sweet peas in my case.

Angelica Gigas looks fun, Goat.

[Mountain Goat]

I am hoping it will quickly bring some height and structure to a tricky spot!

What a day, I've got a the graduating class for this week outside hardening off for what was meant to be most of the day today and then it starts bloody hailing again! I've brought them in but probably lost a cosmos which has snapped off. And of course I brought them in, getting soaked in the process, two minutes before it stops and the sun comes back out.

My loo rolls are just borlottis at the moment, the others are taking their chances outside now. In the bloody hail.

[Disco]

I saw my tulips on Gardener's World! The man said they are likely to deviate from their pretty hybridness and will shrink/ might not come back again.

[Mountain Goat]

Oh no! I imagine they're not cheap either, not to buy anew every year. I read somewhere that all hybrid tulips are a bit chancy like that, but have no idea if mine are hybrid are not - guess I'll find out next spring.

[Disco]

I don't mind as it will be good to see what happens next year even if they're dwarfed and deformed. A lot of them are two or three headed already so they might become more monsterous.

[Mountain Goat]

I look forward to the dawn of the mutant tulips.

[Bat Macdui]

Mutant tulips! It is a whole voyage of discovery, this gardening lark.

My seeds are all floral so far. Astrantia and rudbeckia and delphiniums (which I have been promised will grow in anything). And some lobelia for hanging baskets and containers. I went to the RHS Urban Show at weekend, and to a talk on seed germination, which was very encouragingly about how it all sounds over complex and requiring of kit, but to remember that nature's been doing this for ages, so just stick stuff in. I didn't get any gardening done, though, for going to gardening shows and taking Mum to a garden centre. One of her friends has started proper gardening as her husband left her (ultimately a good thing, he sounds like a lot of a knob) so she's feeling left out, what with me and J wittering about germination at her all the time. Added plus, J is now offering me all sorts of divided plants and seedlings, so hopefully that will fill gaps and I can return the favour when I find myself with a zillion tiny rudbeckia.

Evenings and next weekend is sorting the raised beds and clearing some rubble for another bed. Apparently Lidl is good for value peat free compost, so I might have a trip there this week.

[absley]

Just stick stuff in is what I keep reminding myself of - making sure every seed is spaced properly and planted at the right depth etc is far too structured/intimidating for me, I just want to scatter and lightly rake over!

I had a good weekend - cleared space for where my sweet peas will go and relocated alpine strawberry plants along my hedge. Potatoes are also in the ground and D has netted the other strawberry bed plus cleared a load of ivy to expose ground for said seed scatterage. I also picked up some erigeron plants and am going to plant them plus cream nasturtium seeds in a raised pot, to see if I can get the nasturtiums to tumble*.

*I saw this years ago on the balconies at the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum and have wanted to recreate a version of it every since. My single pot will be v feeble in comparison to balconies on multiple floors, but it's a start!

[Mountain Goat]

J sounds like a fine addition to your life though your poor left out mum.

Has your astrantia germinated??? I have a lifetime of astrantia difficulties, and am currently staring at a tray which has not germinated. The packet says it can take 80 days, it'll be snowing again by the time they're ready to go out. I don't know if it's a particularly tricky cultivar or it's just an astrantia thing. Though I got some white astrantia that I didn't order in a delivery last week so I potentially might actually have an astrantia in my garden at some point.

Big news: I finished my tiny greenhouse!!! It doesn't look like it took 16 hours to put up. The shelves are all moveable, I just put them in random and not madly useful spots as I was building it. I think I can use a high shelf to tie my tomato cordons to, and remove the other shelves, when we're at that point.

greenhouse.jpg

I also planted out the class of 15/04 (bought plants, not my own seeds), next lot are now being hardened off this week. Also lots of weeding and digging in grit and manure in the spots that kill everything (too dry in summer, too damp in winter). And so many things have been badly damaged by the rain/hail, especially on the wide open corner by the road. More casualties than successes out the front at the mo. This weekend's planting was: salvia caradonna, salvia amistad, achillea terracotta, angelica gigas, buddleia black knight, echinops blue veitch (all in the front/side bit), plus a peony in a massive pot for my gravel bit. Some red hot pokers have shot up some buds already! Slow down, wait for the contrasting dark purple planting please.

Oh and I've offloaded 3 more tomato plants and 2 pepper plants to my neighbour's mum. J is now calling me The Mad Tomato Pusher, because no-one is escaping without me at least trying to give them a tomato plant.

[Demelza]

I would love some tomato plants (but I think I'm a bit too far to get them from you!) I'm seeing my friend with the allotment this week and hoping she has some veg plants for me.

I spent the weekend digging out the lavender plants that were taking over the flower beds by our front path – they'd become very straggly and woody – and have replanted new lavenders (managed to dig out a lot of creeping buttercup too). Looks much better now (and means the postman won't get soaked trying to push past them). I've also managed to get an obelisk (metal from Lidl – just the right size for a big pot I already have) so if it ever stops raining, I can finally plant out my sweet peas properly.