This week's vase just had to include :
Thanks to Cathy over at 'Rambling In The Garden' for encouraging us to share our Monday vases. I wonder what spring sparklers are in other folk's vases this week.
The flurry of spring perennials starts the summer garden. One layer takes over from the next, replacing and adding like an increasingly complex textile".
From 'Natural Selection' by Dan Pearson.
If you enjoy Dan's writing and have not come across it yet he produces an excellent online gardening, growing, cooking and making magazine most Saturdays over at 'Dig Delve' together with his partner Huw Morgan. You can also subscribe to have it sent to your inbox.
May is such a beautiful month and although my favourite of the month I've noticed a distinct lack of May musing on my blog. I hope to return with another snippet or two as this magical time of year unfolds.
Well not just white but shades of cream, green and even some red too. In this week's vase are :
A quick recap of the month before it goes sailing over the horizon. March 2022 has been dry and mild in the main and we have recently enjoyed a fool's spring, basking in a most settled long spell of above average temperatures, blue skies and sunshine. That came to an abrupt end with some dramatic torrential rain on Tuesday evening since when the temperature has absolutely plummeted. The month is ending with a cold but most seasonal snap.
Various distractions have meant that I've not achieved a lot in the garden other than seed sowing in the greenhouse and continuing to plant up the dedicated snowdrop border, where I'm beginning to run out out of room for further snowdrops. I have been making sure to regularly water new additions and the established bulbs have had a seaweed feed.
A few more new plants have arrived in the shape of yet another pulmonaria 'Miss Elly', phlox 'Blue Paradise', epimediums 'Domino' and youngianum 'Niveum' and viola odorata 'Konigen Charlotte'. I'm looking forward to seeing all of these in flower. I've also had a delivery of dahlia tubers which now need starting off.
I've not sown any vegetable seeds yet but there is plenty of time left to do that. Shallot bulbs 'Red Sun' have been planted in cells in the greenhouse and will be transferred to the ground when they have made some growth.
I've made the difficult decision to sow fewer seeds this year but whether I stick to that remains to be seen. It's a decision largely influenced by the fact that I have developed osteoarthritis in my left hand, which ironically is not the hand that sustained two breaks a couple of years ago or so. I think that I need to ease the burden on my hands as I get older and sadly lugging seed trays back and forth adds to the workload. The special snowdrop pots have been turfed out of the greenhouse into the outer world, the sand bench has been turned on and seed sowing has been going on since the start of March.
To date I've sown panicum capillare 'Sparkling Fountain', lagurus ovatus (my own saved seed for these first two), larkspur 'Misty Lavender' (all of eight seedlings as of today), salvia viridis 'Blue Monday', two batches of sweet peas, ' papaver rhoeas 'Amazing Grey', more rudbeckia 'Sahara', phlox paniculata 'Isabellina' and 'Cherry Caramel', amaranthus caudatus 'viridis', cosmos 'Apricotta' and scabious 'Fata Morgana'. I've been mostly happy with germination rates with the exception of the poppy, larkspur (although the packet carried a warning that germination had been low in tests so there was a larger quantity of seeds included in the packet to compensate) and the phlox 'Cherry Caramel', which hasn't germinated at all so a second sowing has been made from a different packet. I will also sow more larkspur and poppy. The only perennial sown to date is heliopsis 'Bleeding Hearts' which is a new one on me. The seedlings from September sowings - orlaya grandiflora, ammi visnaga, perennial scabious, calendula and daucus carrota have been pricked out and potted up. Sadly all the puny snapdragons went by the wayside over the winter. April will see a few further flower sowings.
Anemone 'Mr Fokker' is now in flower from November planting but those that were planted this February have gone mouldy in their pots. However I'm delighted that six of ten ranunculus 'Champagne' planted in a tray in February have healthy green shoots and need potting up soon.
So that in a nutshell was March in my garden. A month especially memorable for it's unexpected weather and an unbelievable sudden woooooosh of growth, the return of our resident ducks and for the pleasure gained from sticking my head over the stream to to gaze upon labours of my guerilla gardening. When we moved here there were already clumps of snowdrops and some native daffodils growing on the other bank, which is nor owned by us but isn't maintained by anybody. I have slowly lobbed bulbs over to that side over the years. Numbers have depended on my finances and Wilko's sales at the end of the planting season. More yellow patches and the odd white are spreading slowly but surely with each passing year, with no attention from human hand whatsoever.
A few tiny spring treasures in my tiny vase on this sunny Monday. Making their way into this week's vase are :
A mention if February before March is well underway. It certainly lived up to its reputation of being a wet month. As well as what seemed vast volumes of the wet stuff it was an extremely stormy month. Three named storms - 'Dudley', 'Eunice' and 'Franklin' battered us within the span of just over a week. Fortunately there was no real damage in the garden although there was a lot of garden debris to clear up. We had battened down the hatches beforehand which was just as well. It was a month when doing anything in the garden would sometimes have been to akin to taking part in an extreme sport. However there was little in the way of really cold weather and only a handful of light frosts. I haven't seen any February weather statistics so will be looking out for them.
Seed sowing started in the heated propagator starting with the tender cobaea scandens at the beginning of the month. I've sown the purple flowering one. This climber takes a long time to come into flower so an early start is advised. The seedlings are already like triffids but it will be May before they can be planted in the big wide world outside. They have moved out of the propagator and are now on the kitchen windowsill. I hope to prick the most well advanced ones out into individual pots next week. From there they will need a lot of tender loving care and mollycoddling if it is cold. Another early sowing was some rudbeckia 'Sahara' which were sown during half term week here, again in the heated propagator. They have germinated but fortunately grow slowly and caring for them is not as demanding. They have now become a must sow each year. That was the extent of my February seed sowing although my fingers were itching to sow more seeds.
I have indulged in some online horticultural retail therapy treating myself to some spring treasures. First to arrive were a trio of pulmonarias - 'Spring Awakening', 'Stillingfleet Meg' and 'Blake's Silver.' I have a vague inkling that I may have purchased the last one in the past but have no idea what happened to it. In the same box was a diminutive almost invisible epimedium 'Purple Pixie'. I'm relieved to say that it eventually showed signs of life and continues to grow. A trio of hellebores have also descended, a pink from the excellent 'Ashwood Nurseries' and two much smaller but sturdy plants from 'Twelve Nunns Nursery' - both Harvington doubles. All three hellebores were very well packed. You can photos of two of them in this post.
The one remaining pear tree has been pruned. We had two but one has never flourished so the decision was made to remove it. The Charlotte potatoes have now moved from shed to the spare bedroom where they are now chitting on the windowsill.
The snowdrops continued to sing throughout February, along with crocus, iris reticulata, hellebores, cardamine quinquefolia, cyclamen coum, muscari and towards the end of the month little daffies showed their colour. Towards the end of the month the green garden waste bin was emptied for the first time this year, always a welcome sign that spring is really on the way.
I picked my flowers for 'In A Vase On Monday' yesterday in the sunshine as the forecast was for heavy rain today which has turned out to be spot on. It was good to enjoy a weekend of calm and sunshine and to blot out the outer world albeit for a short time. My vase contains some familiar friends in the shape of :
A slightly naughty vase from me today in the shape of a recent supermarket purchase made when I was feeling very much in need of some instant sunshine. I rarely buy flowers from a supermarket or florist these days but occasionally make an exception.
Sunshine seems to have been in very short supply this last week with three named winter storms more or less in succession. There has been much in the way of gales and heavy rain.The latest and let's hope last one 'Franklin' raged furiously for a good part of yesterday, throughout the night and well into this afternoon. I was rather deprived of sleep but am glad to say that apart from a good bit of twiggy debris and the odd snapped tree branch there was nothing serious in the way of damage. I hope that everyone who was in its wake escaped its full wrath. It looks as if these intense storms are likely to feature more regularly in the future because of global warning. A most sobering thought. Thanks as always to Cathy, over at 'Rambling In The Garden', who provides a platform for us to share our vases on Mondays come storms or sunshine.
January is all but over so a diary update is called for. I can't say that I've done that much in the way of actual gardening. A combination of days of grey grim weather and other matters have been responsible but there has been some behind the scenes activity. A January birthday called for a garden centre visit. Here unlike most of the other customers I resisted the compulsion to make a beeline for the bargain price festive paraphernalia. We headed straight for the outside and plants and it was so sad to see that just after 11.00am we were the only people out there for a while. Still it was pleasant to be able to browse comfortably. I came home with the above helleborus 'Lily' which in fact was not the one I intended to purchase. I was guilty of not checking the label as it was a flowering helleborus 'Tutu' which had grabbed my attention. I was guilty of just seeing colour and not looking carefully enough. Still it's a pleasant enough plant. A couple of witch hazels also landed in my trolley - 'Ruby Glow' and 'Jelena' thanks to a garden gift voucher from my dear sister. I also bought a modest amount of half price seeds. In the last couple of weeks or so more packets of seeds have arrived in the post mainly of sweet peas. I think that I'm more or less done now on the seed purchasing front but I've said that before. Shallots 'Red Sun' and seed potatoes in the shape of the salad potato 'Charlotte' have also arrived. 
Picked on a bright, blowy and cold Sunday afternoon, these few stems of galanthus elwesii 'Fieldgate Prelude' only fully opened to reveal their markings when I bought the vase into a cosy warm kitchen. It rained overnight but it is now possible to see their full colours.
