Pansies

I thought it was time I updated this blog as I've been busy in the garden of late; digging keeps me active, and sowing seeds and planning for future harvests helps me keep anxiety at bay in these strange times.

 I was going to share pics of my seedlings and apple blossom but checking out the last post I realise I mentioned some 'clearance' pansies - and they're now all doing well. So I'll start with portraits of them :)

Post-christmas

It's a dull time of year, especially in the garden. Here and there though winter jasmine brightens up walls and fences, and I now have a couple of pots of christmas roses flowering - hopefully this time they'll stay live through summer.


















On a diy store trip to buy bird-feed I got slightly side-tracked and rescued some pansies from the reduced-to-clear rack. They're now potted up in wall baskets and tubs, and will hopefully bring more colour into the garden in the coming weeks

Pumpkin time

The allotment pumpkins aren't huge this year, but hopefully they'll prove to be enough for us.

I started using the smaller pumpkin this week, and so far we've had two meals - soup and chilli - from it, and I've not used half.

Once they're chopped of course, they have to be eaten quite soon, so I shan't be carving them for Halloween, as if I do the flesh never gets eaten quickly enough.

I might just draw scary patterns on them.

Autumn Flowers

 I've neglected this blog again over summer, and autumn feels like an odd time to pick up a gardening blog. There are still flowers to be seen though - an advantage a perennial garden can have over a 'summer bedding' style planting.

This white Michaelmas daisy, the orange violas and a couple of still-flowering dianthus are all 'rescues' from the garden centre clearance racks. I'm fond of a bargain (who isn't?) and with perennials a little care will see them flourish for years.






































Michaelmas daisies are the mainstay of my autumn flowers with these long established plants now forming good-sized clumps.
I just wish I last year's rudbeckias had survived to add a splash of bright yellow to the garden.

Blossom time

One wonderful thing about spring is blossom bursting out all around (even though I occasionally suffer with hay fever from it)

Easter weekend brought the first apple tree into full blossom, and three more are racing to catch up.

Two are 'proper' purchased trees, though I've forgotten what sort (!), the other two grew from pips, so their fruit is, at first, a surprise.

And to turn the garden completely pink, the ornamental cherry has flowered.

A plague of maples

A large tree grows just the other side of my back garden fence.
For years I've believed it to be a sycamore, because of its 'helicopter' seeds, but having looked more closely at its flowers I think it may be a Norway maple.

In summer and early autumn it shades our side a little too well, hiding the sun from most of the lawned area.

But the greatest problem with it is propagation. Each autumn those 'helicopter' seeds come whizzing over the fence, and each spring those seeds take root.

These little seedlings are an absolute nightmare this year.

I'm sure they'd take over completely if left to their own devices!

I started off with a plan of pulling up half a dozen of them each time I went in the garden. 

It wasn't enough!

I moved on to a dozen, then two, but more seem to keep springing up wherever I look.

Clearing open areas like the vegetable patches isn't so difficult - turn the top few inches of soil, and the roots will shrivel - but they always find a place under a prickly rose bush, or hidden by daffodil stalks, and, before I realise, they're too big to be easily pulled out.

This one escaped last year's cull, though, and is shaping up as an attractive bonsai!

Camellia

Only one flower on my camellias this year but it looks beautiful - even in the rain