‘Can you all get in an orderly line please?’, I feel like saying to all the seedlings that are clamouring to be potted on, and particularly to the 19 tomato plants, which have demanded a lot of my time and attention this week. All of them had to be potted on, staked and tied in, but after doing about fifteen of the them, I got … Continue reading Six on Saturday: 24 Apr 2021: Tulips and Tomatoes
As the much anticipated tulips open up in our gardens, it’s a joyous moment, but also a curious one, as we see just how much the promised shade in the bulb catalogues or online suppliers matches the reality of what we see with our own eyes. I have found myself delighted with some of the new tulips I planted, and disappointed in others, which didn’t … Continue reading Just the right shade of red, Your Majesty?
We’re having a very cold spring here: the garden table, optimistically uncovered earlier this month, is used mainly by the pigeons as a landing site for their droppings, as they roost in the trees above. It’s not exactly the kind of weather than induces much gardening. In fact, I’ve been away from the garden this week, as we took off for a refreshing change of … Continue reading Six on Saturday: 17 April 2021: still cold!
Where once RAF pilots were shot out of the sky by enemy fire, and Russian prisoners of war awaited their fate in a harsh wilderness, now a patch of naturalised daffodils grows. I’m in the high fens of eastern Belgium, or Ostbelgien, right up against the border with Germany, an atmospheric, wild place, borderland country which once belonged to Prussia, became Belgian after the first … Continue reading Whisperings of war among the marsh daffodils
Plans for a leisurely Easter break pottering about the garden were stymied by the fickle weather. Snow only looks pretty when there isn’t gardening to be done, and I was most disappointed to see the garden on Wednesday looking like this: The delicate spring blossoms were all smothered in snow, although the viburnum did carry it off rather jauntily: Thankfully, the snowy interlude was a … Continue reading Six on Saturday: 10 April 2021
In researching an article on annuals for a gardening newsletter (while it snows outside), I came across this startling quote: “An annual is a plant that lives and dies in one growing season. A perennial regrows and reblooms year after year. In our busy world, why plant anything but perennials?“ – Jeanette Marantos, The Los Angeles Times, 28 Feb. 2020 – quoted on merriam-webster.com Now this … Continue reading Annuals or Perennials? Can’t we have both?
Oh what a capricious time of year, as spring toys with us, flitting cruelly between a glorious taste of summer and the slap of a ten degree drop in temperature and the threat of snow next week. Today, we’re being slapped, but for the past week, we basked in the magnificent sunshine. Mind you, I did not sit on my laurels, I was busy as … Continue reading Six on Saturday 03 Apr 2021 – Happy Easter
