I mentioned in a previous post that some some of the plants from last year's summer bedding had survived an Orkney winter in my old wheelbarrow ~ and here they are! I really was amazed that the wet and cold winter didn't kill them off; despite supposedly being tender perennials, those argyranthemums are a tad tougher than it would appear.
I'm so glad that I decided to "rescue" them from the wheelbarrow and pot them up. I think they appreciated a little spell in the greenhouse to recuperate before going back outside again!
They are a variety called Lemon and Pink and are very pretty. This year I will take them into the greenhouse in the autumn and hopefully overwinter them.
All six of the argyranthemums survived so I put the other three in a large terracotta pot along with three dianthus deltoides Alba. They had been sitting in their little nursery pots for a rather long time as I didn't get round to planting them in the garden ~ they were looking like they were on the brink of death if I'm honest!
But all three have greened up beautifully and are actually growing now they have better living conditions 😄 The marigolds are rather bold and brash, I know, but I really like them and the scent of their leaves is lovely.
In the autumn I will put the argyranthemums into individual pots to overwinter them in the greenhouse and plant the dianthus in one of the garden borders.
This year's summer bedding is osteospermum Berries & Cream. I confess that I was rather lazy and instead of putting fresh compost in the old wheelbarrow, I just mixed in a couple of good handfuls of chicken manure pellets.
They seem happy and are growing well. I believe they are also tender perennials, so I may try to overwinter at least some of them too.
My makeshift coldframe has worked really well. The wind doesn't normally blow into this side of the house too much, so the arbour seat been the ideal spot to protect the plants whilst they adjust to life in the great outdoors after being cossetted in the greenhouse!
Oh dear, these are my "pots of shame". I ordered spring bulbs for planting in containers last autumn, left them in the front porch ready to do so.....then completely forgot all about them 😕 I came across them when I was looking for something else and couldn't bring myself to just throw them away. I put them into pots of compost to tide them over until the autumn when I will plant them in the garden ~ hopefully at least some will pull through despite my neglect!
We've had some high winds again recently but even so the dahlias are all doing well.
I like to have something pretty to look at on the kitchen windowsill ~ the marigolds are very bright and cheerful.
The tomatoes are almost to the tops of the canes in this photo ~ they have reached the greenhouse roof now! Next year's tomatoes will be much shorter varieties methinks 😉
Froggie has moved down from the window as he doesn't want to fall out now that it's open all the time. The peppers are growing nicely.
The three geranium survivors are also doing well.....
.....as are the cucumbers.
And look at that, a dolls' house sized cucumber already😍
No comments:
Post a Comment