Wall-to-wall sunshine

image from Clipart Library

We are currently having a run of glorious weather ~ warm and sunny.  This has made it very nice indeed to be out working in the garden, although I have had to water the beds and containers a couple of times.

The sunflowers are still doing well.  They are starting to develop their "true" leaves so I'll be potting them on soon.

The difference is probably not so noticeable to you, my lovelies, but I can see that the tomatoes are starting to look a tad healthier.  Fingers crossed their recovery continues!

I mentioned earlier in the week that I had moved the tulips, Apricot Beauty, out of this pot.  I've now replaced them with an erodium chrysanthum, from my recent delivery of plants from Shire Plants.  It has pale lemon flowers, and looks a little like a geranium I think.

Some of the dahlias are starting to come up: Cafe au Lait Twist and Cafe au Lait.  Hopefully the other three will follow on soon.

Whilst the tomatoes are starting to recover, alas the same can't be said for the poor French beans 😒  I'll leave them in situ for the time being and hope for a miracle!

The strawberries are starting to look lovely with their pretty white flowers.  I wasn't sure how well they would do after being moved this year, but they seem to have taken it in their stride 😊

The compost I ordered last week arrived on Monday, so I was able to top off bed 5 which holds this years potato crop.  I should think this will be the last time I top the bed off as there really isn't much space left to do so now 😄

Two more dahlias are coming through, Creme de Cassis and White Aster, beside the wooden tubs on the patio area in the front garden.

I've had a large tub either side of the dining and living room windows for a while now, both planted with similar plants.  Unfortunately I can't remember what said plants are called and, of course, the labels have disappeared 😏  I think the shrubs, though, are varieties of euonymus.  I had planted them in the borders originally but they weren't doing so well to be honest, so I moved them into these large tubs where they've been much happier.  The tub in the photo above is by the dining room window.....

but the little plants in the one beside the living room window died.  The euonymus is absolutely fine, and indeed is happily sprouting new leaves, so I don't know what happened to the two little plants 🤷  Anyhoo I've now replaced them with another of my favourite little garden plants, erigeron karvinskianus ~ let's hope they fare better than their predecessors!

To round off my working day, I decided to spruce up the wheelbarrow.  I was too lazy to completely replace the old compost but added a good sprinkling of chicken manure pellets to add some nutrition and did top it up with fresh compost too.

I've left space between the plants for them to spread out as they are perennials.  I may well lightly cover the barrow with some fleece, or even netting, over the winter to protect them a little from the worst of the weather.  I've planted pratia pedunculata, which apparently has sky blue flowers, in the back two corners, with two fuchsia Pink Galore between them.  There are two more pratia pedunculata, Alba, in the front two corners.  In the middle of the wheelbarrow are yet more of my garden flower favourites, this time three little bellis perennis.  This is a variety called Dresden China which has very pretty pink flowers.  Hopefully the blackbirds won't keep picking over the compost like they did when it was planted up with pansies!

A flatpack weekend

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 😊

I need supervision!

image from Freepik

I woke up in the early hours of last Wednesday morning with cramp in my right calf ~ bloody painful it was, too.  So as you can imagine I didn't start the day in the best of moods.....

although I did feel more cheerful when I saw that the two sunflower seedlings were pushing their way further up from the compost 😊

As I was expecting the arrival of more plug plants, including tomatoes which were part of this year's greenhouse crop, I decided to move the still poorly-looking dwarf French beans out into the kitchen garden.  I separated out the clumps and put four individual plants into each of my 12"/30cm squares.  Then came the point at which I really should have been supervised 😲

As you know, my lovelies, I'm a big fan of chicken manure pellets for fertilising my garden and as luck would have it the two tubs I'd ordered also arrived this week.  They come in big plastic tubs, which have a tab that has to be prised off to open the lid.  I always seem to struggle with these bloody tabs and this time was no different.  I somehow managed to wrench my thumbnail in the process and boy oh boy did it hurt 😱  I must have actually pulled the nail away a tad as it bled a little ~ luckily I always keep my nails short!  Thankfully I was wearing gardening gloves at the time, which I suspect may have mitigated the damage somewhat.  As I was working in garden soil I thoroughly cleaned said thumb with an antiseptic wipe, and then wrapped it over the end and around with a couple of plasters.  It was so f***ing painful and, being right-handed, it was of course the right thumb that I managed to hurt 😒  There's still a bruise visible beneath the nail but it's not a painful as it was.  Like I said, sometimes I think I could do with a little supervision 😉 

Apart from watering the kitchen garden beds (the first time I've felt it prudent to do so this year), I decided not to do anything else in the garden and spent the evening feeling sorry for myself 😄      

Although I again woke up with cramp in the early hours of Thursday morning, this time in my left calf, I was cheered up ~ and amazed ~ to see the sudden rush of sunflower seedlings! 

My poor 'ole thumb was still very tender, as was my left leg, but I pulled up my big girl panties and tackled this bed in the back garden patio area.  I'd planted a "something" which has lost it's label and I can't now recall the name of 😏  Anyhoo, the bloody thing seemed intent on taking over the bed, via runners beneath the soil, so I decided it would have to be dug out.

I ended up digging out the three little plants in the far left corners and the centre front so that I could get as much of the mystery plant out as possible.  I put the former back in their original spots and gave them all a good watering to help settle them back down again.  Hopefully they won't be too resentful at being dug out🤞

I decided to plonk the mystery plant in the bed between the log store and garden shed, where it can fight it out with the willow, narcissus, and rosa rugosa 😉  The latter is full of buds, one of which had already opened.  Despite their deadly thorns I do like them, especially in a bed that I usually leave pretty much to its own devices 😄

The plum tree has lots of lovely fresh leaves but alas hasn't flowered this year.

The apple tree is making up for it, though, and the cherry has quite a lot of blossom as well.

More plug plants arrived.....

in, as I was expecting, not very good condition.  They are both bush tomatoes, Tropical Ruby and Indigo Cherry Drops.

They looked terribly sad and sorry for themselves; it remains to be seen whether they will pick up.

Friday was a much slower day as I had an appointment at the hairdressers in the morning, and my left leg was still pretty sore.  In the afternoon I just pottered about, really.  I moved the pots of dahlias out of the arbour and placed them in various positions around the garden.  I was able to move the fuchsias and geraniums out of the greenhouse into the now-empty arbour to get them used to being outside for the summer. 

It's incredible just how quickly the sunflower seedlings are growing!  If they continue like this, I shall have more plants than I was anticipating 😄

Trying again...

image from Clipart Library

more fool me 😒  You may recall, my lovelies, my enthusiastic post about trying to grow my veggies from seed this year.  Well, what I completely forgot to take into account was the fact that we would be down south for virtually two weeks in April.  Normally this wouldn't be a problem as our lovely neighbour kindly looks after the greenhouse for me when we are away, and I do the same for her.  This time, though, we were all away at the same time which would have been a tad difficult for delicate seedlings.  So I decided to try, yet again, plug plants from Marshalls.  A lot of their plants were due to be sent out around the time we were away but I was able to select some that had a later dispatch date.

I really wasn't holding out much hope that they would be any better this year than they had been previously, but despite my misgivings I nevertheless went ahead.  The first plants arrived last week.....

looking both leggy and sorry for themselves.  These are French beans Dwarf Tender Green.

I potted each cell into a larger pot, without separating the seedlings for the time being.  I'm not convinced that they will turn into sturdy, healthy, plants but maybe a miracle will happen 🤷

I have a selection of plants yet to be dispatched but this is the "journey" information from the courier regarding the two varieties of tomato that have now been sent out:

My parcel's journey

+

08/05/2508:25

We have your parcel. Please check back for updates

08/05/2506:17

Your parcel has arrived at your delivery depot (Shetland And Orkney Service Centre)

06/05/2509:49

We have your parcel. Please check back for updates

03/05/2509:41

Your parcel has arrived at your delivery depot

02/05/2521:43

Your parcel is at our national hub

01/05/2500:00

We're expecting your parcel from your sender. We will provide updates here once we receive it

As you can see, it takes a fair few days to get from Marshalls to me.  The above was the latest information from the carriers so even though they state that they have the parcel, there isn't as yet any indication of it actually being out for delivery.

Next year I will definitely be growing from seed!

Dahlia day!

You'll be pleased to hear that I did get round to doing some actual work in the garden last week, not just stroll around taking photos 😏  I was out there all day on Wednesday, which was a glorious day, and I made my first job getting our old duvet washed and hung out ready to go in the guest bedroom in due course.

I then took a deep breath and made a start on the poor dahlias, which as you can see from the photo above were once again left out all winter 😳  I didn't bother taking photos of all the tedious emptying out of the pots and rootling around to ~ hopefully ~ find tubers that hadn't rotted away, especially as I had 19 pots to rootle through!  Needless to say they didn't all survive my shameful neglect but, somewhat amazingly, 12 of the poor little buggers did!

 As it was such a lovely day I made the most of it by sitting myself beside the arbour, rather than lugging the pots into the greenhouse, and emptied them into the wheelbarrow  ~ which I filled up twice!  I can't remember if I told you that we decided to keep the bed along the wall in the little front garden patio area after all?  Anyhoo, that's where I tipped the old compost.  I usually keep my old compost as "bulk" to top up beds and borders as needed, replacing the by-now exhausted nutrients in it by adding a good sprinkling of chicken manure pellets 😊

Then it was into the greenhouse to pot up the tubers.  Some were able to stay in the same size pots they'd been in last year, with a handful needing to move up to larger ones.  I decided to make more of an effort this time by adding a drainage layer in the bottom of the pots.  As I only had a bag of rather fine horticultural grit, I thought it prudent to put something in the base of the pots so that I didn't lose said grit out of the drainage holes.  I had a supply of strawberry mats that I don't now use, so was able to cut them to size for all the pots.....

then slung in a scoop or so of the grit.

Look at that lump of, well I don't know exactly what it is to be honest ~ granite perhaps? ~ that was lurking in the bag! 

Three or four of the tubers are already sprouting and hopefully all 12 will grow.  I would have added some chicken manure pellets just to "beef up" the compost to give the tubers a good feed but I've run out.  I've ordered a couple more tubs so will sprinkle some over the pots they arrive.

I had to re-do two or three of the labels as the writing was starting to wear away.  I was left with one pot, though, where the label was totally illegible so had to work out which variety it was (turned out to be Prinzessa) through a process of elimination ~ luckily I was actually organised enough last year to keep a list of what I had on the computer 😆

What I'm left with now are:

Bahama Apricot (orange)

Cafe au Lait (pale pink)

Cafe au Lait Twist (creamy-white/pink)

Creme de Cassis (purple)

Grand Prix (lemon/white)

Mikayla Miranda (purple)

Peaches & Cream (yellow)

Prinzessa (creamy-yellow, pink tipped)

Purple Gem (purple)

Souvenir d'Ete (orange)

Tyrell (orange)

White Aster (white)

I'll keep you up-do-date with their progress!

After I'd finished the mammoth task of dealing with the poor dahlias, which as usual took me far longer than I had anticipated, I decided to try my luck sowing some sunflower seeds.  I was inspired by seeing the sunflowers that my Dad is growing, so thought I'd have a pop at it myself.  Vincent's Mix, as the name suggests, is a mixture of different colours and flower shapes, so it will be interesting to see what (hopefully!) comes up 😊 

By the time I'd sorted out the dahlias and sown the sunflower seeds, I was too tired to do anything else on Wednesday.  Thursday wasn't anywhere near as nice a day; although the sun did shine quite brightly later on, there was a pretty chilly breeze out there!  I was very tempted just to have another lazy day, but in the end decided to bundle myself up in layers and get on with setting the strawberry supports in place before the plants got any bigger.  It was definitely easier to do with the plants now being raised up in pots and more separate from each other.  I'm hoping that this will help them get more air circulation, and avoid the mildew/mould issues I had last year.

There's still lots to be done in both the front and back gardens, but I feel that I've at least made a fairly good start out there now 😊  

Before I finish off this post, I must just show you what I hauled all the way back from Leeds with me ~ three lovely new houseplants from a super shop not far from the hotel we stayed in 😀  The one in the photo above is, at it states on the label, Gynura Purple Passion.  It caught my eye as I thought it was quite an unusual-looking plant.

This is Coffea Arabica (coffee plant).  I was attracted by those lovely glossy leaves.

And finally, here's Monstera Adansonii Monkey Mask.  I did have a very small one of these but sadly it died so I thought I'd have another try at growing it, this time starting with a somewhat larger and more established plant 🤞

I packed the plants tightly together for the journey home and thankfully they survived pretty much unscathed.

The shop I bought them from in Leeds is called Nice Things, and really is chock-a-block with very nice plants indeed!  Sadly they only ship to mainland UK addresses, so I had to be very good and only allow myself to be tempted by three plants.  Trust me, though, I could have bought very many more had we been travelling by car 😄