Royal Horticultural Society workshop day @ RHS Garden Wisley

Without mentioning names,  *someone* did very well indeed with this year’s Christmas present: A workshop training day run by and taking place at the Royal Horticultural Society’s Garden in Wisley, Surrey (South UK). This place is beautiful and run by knowledgeable staff who are regularly brought in to provide expert advice in the UK’s gardening press and on TV.

The day was called ‘What now?’ and was designed to talk attendees through the different jobs to do in the garden during March/April in Spring.  We also got a bit of a tour of the Wisley’s Spring gardens too, which were gorgeous and clearly attended to meticulously.

Below I’ve pasted jpgs of my notes from the day (prepare to get slightly nerdy about Ph levels and fertiliser) – and then the blog post is back on even ground with lots of pretty pictures 🙂

Enjoy!

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The season is turning

The season is definitely turning.  I know because today was the first day that our cat Molly hung out with me in the garden, quite content quietly pattering around me, finding various good vantage points to observe from. The key word in there for anyone that’s not met our cat, is ‘quietly’.  She’d let you know if she felt she should be getting more attention.

So I planted out some giant snowdrops,  bought ‘in the green’. Apparently these have more of a success rate than just planting bulbs – although my bulbs of the common smaller snowdrops came out just fine. And that was after I left them out unplanted for a fortnight longer than you’re supposed to and they got a little mouldy so I had to rinse them in a *very* diluted lot of bleach and water. Anyway, hopefully these will settle in well. I’ve planted them in clumps this time in the largest flowerbed by the cabin (though I kept 5 or 6 back for the windowsill box) – so they should have a little more impact than the scattered effect the single  drops have had, when even though I planted 100 they still appear quite sparse. Hopefully that’ll improve over the years as they multiply out.

What else? The first daffs in the garden have appeared in the window box. I planted some sporaxis bulbs in the raised bed (from the 99p shop!) to provide some height and colour before the crocosmia comes out in September.  Gave the lawn it’s first cut, edge and scarify (scraping with a fine rake), got loads of dry/dead grass out.  Hope that will help it to bounce back from the winter as it gets a bit of sun to the growing leaves,  now the thatch is gone. That might not be enough for the back bit,  which had suffered with some damp/water logging (possible drainage issues) and under the mulch which blew onto it. We have sporadically poked drainage holes in it through the winter… Guess we’ll see.  If it doesn’t recover then we can consider taking more drastic measures if need be next year.

Now, in another sign of the times, I’m sitting with my feet up in the cabin – where it is warm and sunny enough to have both sets of doors propped open for the first time this year.

Enjoy the pics.

Snowdrops

These appeared about 10 days ago now, from bulbs planted in November. Apparently, snowdrop bulbs can be very fussy and do not always flower in the first season after planting, but I appear to of had some luck here… l didn’t think so at first of course, in fact I had all but given up on them after no-shows of anything even sprouting by the end of january; but then, all ofa sudden they were just there! And although the camera I’ve used for these pics isn’t the best, I think there is enough detail still to see how charming the snowdrops are. Here’s to an even more impressive display next year
(possibly with the addition of some nivali galanthus ‘giant snowdrops’ by then also 😉 ) !

Bulb planting. Ouch, my back!

Today I planted up a flower bed at the end garden just in front of the cabin. As you can see there quite a few bulbs to go in the ground, I’ve got something to pop up every month for about 5 months next year:

Snowdrops flowering from January to March.
Miniature narcissus flowering from March to April.
White and maroon fritillaria meleagris flowering from March to April.
White triumph tulips flowering in April or May.
White dicentra (bleeding heart) flowering from April til June.
A selection of white and purple alliums flowering in May or June.
And finally 3 beautiful calla aethiopica lilies flowering from May until October.

The snowdrops, daffodils and fritillaria should provide interest in the darkest months. The long fronds of white bleeding hearts from the dicentra will hopefully have beautiful impact in amongst a sea of white tulips. The calla lilies nestling under the fronds of the tall ostrich ferns will be quite striking if the tall,  curling ferns get up to their full height this year.  And who doesn’t like tall spikes of allium hovering above the mêlée and bobbing in the breeze?

Of course, the only thing is that it took sometime to plant! My back will be grateful for a spot of putting my feet up later this evening…