This afternoon I got out into the garden and shifted some weeding as well as getting the lawns mown and soaked. The soaking may have been superfluous as there was a huge downpour this evening that will have helped the crops in both the garden and the allotment no end.
The re-seeding on the back lawn is starting to germinate – indicating that the relatively old seed is still viable, so I’ll use up the rest of it on the remaining bare patches in the front lawn.
Over the last few days I have been putting in a renewed amount of effort in the garden.
I finished planting out the front beds with home grown dahlias and bought cosmos plants and have got the hedge trimmer on to the rosemary hedge and the white rose bush in the front garden. Both will need further, and more severe, tidying up later in the year, but for now they look presentable. I used some of the rosemary clippings as cuttings with the view that it might be best to replace the whole hedge. I also got some box cuttings going to give us the option of using low hedging to divide up beds on the allotment.
I managed to get both of the lawns raked and mown despite the threat of showers. I have also started the next phase of propagating. I have started to split the blue primulas that we have in readiness for using these to plant up the front border to its new blue/white and yellow palette.
The big news from the garden is that a second asparagus fern has appeared followed a couple of days later by a third, so I am now hopeful that all five crowns will prove to be viable.
Earlier this week I raked, mowed and soaked the lawns and shortly after there was some heavy rain, and the grass is really starting to grow. I stand by the view that grass is be one of the least rewarding things to grow as it is fickle and takes an inordinate amount of effort. However, if our garden is to be a model of what you can do in a small patch then neat, green lawns really do make a visual impact, so I am going to keep putting the effort in this summer.
This morning Lynn and I worked together tidying the wisteria and pyrocanthus and largely re-filling the green bin that had only been emptied the day before.
The sugar snap peas at home have been the best we’ve ever grown, with healthy plants and heavy crops.
Sugar snaps
Over the last few days I have put in some effort in the garden. We have bought some plants to fill in the newly (and yet to be) weeded borders and used these as a catalyst to really get moving on clearing the beds so that we can start to develop a colour scheme for each bed. We have loaded up on compost, for planting out, potting on and taking cuttings. I am keen to propagate a number of plants this year, including rosemary and heathers to provide additional plants for hedging. The borlotti beans from my pound shop kit have all sprouted nicely and are now out of the propagator. They will be ripe for planting out fairly imminently, if we can get a wigwam built on the allotment
The home cabbage bed and the salad box are well worth showing again, and we now have life in the asparagus bed (although I’d like to see more than one of the crowns sprouting).
Home cabbage bed
Salad box 30 June
Asparagus fern
The lawn efforts have continued with a bout of raking and mowing followed by a good soaking of the back lawn.
I had a long afternoon/evening in the garden and as well as finishing off the planting up round the back, I also got the front beds fully weeded and tidied and got the planting done in time for Lynn’s return. I also got the power washer out to get the drive cleaned. This was a gloriously mucky job, I hadn’t realised quite how high a pressure there was and managed to spray muck in a variety of places, including all over me.