The latter half of last week saw a flurry of deliveries winging their way to St Abbs ~ including this pair of flat-pack growhouses. As you may recall, my lovelies, we were to-ing and fro-ing over whether to convert the arbour into a growhouse ourselves or just purchase something to stand inside it. In the end we decided we really didn't have the skills to build something ourselves ~ although to be fair, fitting suitable shelving would have been fine but constructing doors is definitely beyond our skillset!
I had to do a fair bit of hunting around on the internet to find something that was a) the appropriate size, and b) that suppliers would actually deliver up to Orkney ~ the latter in particular can be really difficult 😒 In the end, the RHS came up trumps, although I was also tempted to buy a few plants from them at the same time 😄
They came together without too much trauma, although we did have to drill pilot holes rather than simply screw the pieces together as per the instructions. They are quite cheap 'n' cheerful so aren't the most sturdy of things, but hopefully standing within the arbour will help to protect them and prolong their life somewhat.
Adrian kept the seat sections that he dismantled from the arbour so he is going to put in a shelf for me, spanning the whole width, for some additional storage space. The set-up is mostly to provide protection for plants and garden ornaments/lights that I don't want to leave out in the elements over winter. Although it won't be quite as suitable as a coldframe would be, I should also be able to use the growhouses to transition plants from the greenhouse to their eventual places out in the garden.
Talking of the greenhouse, the tomato plants are looking a teensy-weeny bit less sorry for themselves. Hopefully they will continue to straighten up as they grow.
I had another delivery from Marshalls, this time via Royal Mail's 24-hour delivery. The good news is that these little brassica plants arrived in much better condition that either the tomatoes or French beans, the less-than-good news is that they got somewhat dislodged in their packaging. This meant that I had to make an "educated guess" as to which little plugs were which 😏
Fingers crossed I've got it right! I decided to pot them up for a little while so that they can grow larger and, hopefully, stronger before I plant them out into one of the kitchen garden beds. I also need to sort out some fine netting to keep the cabbage white butterflies away.
Whilst I was potting up the brassicas, I noticed a couple of sparrows were coming to drink from the water bowl. I shan't not be adding any more of the chemical to the water that helps to keep it clear, obviously. They seemed rather precariously perched on the edge of the bowl to drink, so I thought I'd make a little platform for them.
As you can no doubt tell from the photo above, I had a bit of a mishap 😯 I had rummaged around in the greenhouse for a suitable plant pot to use as the base. Nothing I had was quite the right height so I had the "brilliant" idea of filling one pot with some of the grit I still have, and nestling a shorter pot inside it to bring everything up to the right level. All was well until I was very carefully placing the two pots into the bowl.....the large pot split completely in two, disgorging all the grit into the water bowl 😱 Had I had the foresight to wash the grit before using it, there wouldn't really have been a problem ~ sadly, I didn't 😏 The water bowl was filled with a cloud of grit dust, you couldn't see anything at all! Although the water has now cleared, there is a layer of grit "silt" on everything at the bottom of the bowl *sigh* I've just left it for the time being but will have to empty the bowl to clean out the silt at some point. I must love to make unnecessary jobs for myself 😒
Anyhoo, on to more cheerful things! I planted the supermarket rosemary into the container with the chives. I shall be interested to see how it fares over the winter.
As I'd also had a delivery of plants from Shire Plants, one of which was destined to be planted in the pot behind the bins, I removed the tulip bulbs (Apricot Beauty) from said pot and relocated them to behind the standard redcurrant. I also added two of the overwintered fuchsias, trailing Pink Galore, to the front. I shall leave them in situ and keep my fingers crossed that they manage to survive the winter outside!
Amongst the plants in my order from Shire Plants were two that I intend to put in the large tubs either side of the arbour. On the left is sambucus nigra Black Lace, on the right choisya ternata (Mexican orange blossom). They arrived in rather small pots, which they had clearly outgrown, so I potted them on into something bigger for a while. They both have the potential to grow quite large, it seems, but equally can be kept pruned to a suitable size for life in a large container. Well that's what life has in store for them in my garden, anyway 😉
Last year these two bowls contained nemesia Wisley Vanilla, which had the most divine fragrance. Alas they didn't survive the winter, despite being in the greenhouse, which was a shame. I've replaced them with potentilla ~ x tonguei in the larger bowl, and verna nana in the smaller. I will most likely overwinter them in either one of the growhouses or on the shelf above, just to keep the worst of the wet weather off them really.
The broken pot on the display bench is now planted up, too. I've put chaenorhinum origanifolium Blue Dream (dwarf snapdragon) in the top, with delosperma sutherlandii (ice plant) in the lower section. Again, I will move the pot into the shelter of the arbour over winter.
The little bird was originally one of three that decorated the now-cracked bird bath (standing in the container with the chives and rosemary). They snapped off one-by-one, so I just placed them as little garden decorations. When we made the nature pool in the kitchen garden out the front, I sat them on a big lump of tree trunk beside the water. I don't know what's happened to the other two ~ hopefully I'll come across them at some point ~ but thought I'd better rescue this little chap before he too gets lost!
Finally, here's Sunday's update on the sunflower seedlings progress. Because I wasn't convinced that any seeds would germinate, I put two in each little peat pot. Every pot, bar one, now has two little seedlings 😄 Once they start to produce their first "true" leaves, I shall gently remove one seedling from each pot into one of their own. It will be interesting to see how many continue growing on into fully-fledged sunflower plants 😊
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