Create a beautiful, practical, and productive garden

Well, some of the seeds that I planted a couple of weeks ago are now getting quite big, and are ready to be planted out into larger pots. Because of moving, there hardly seems any point in planting things I want to take with me into the ground, so these will be decorative in pots on the patio instead. I’ve planted up a whole lot of new seeds now also – which hopefully will all be ready in a couple of weeks…and I still have a dozen or so pots of seeds to plant up. I’ll do these shortly.

I have a new greenhouse! It’s one of those little ones with a plastic cover that rolls up at the front. I mean, it’s quite small – but it’s much bigger than I had expected it to be before I assembled it. There’s three large(ish) shelves for pots to stand on – it’s just perfect for what I need at the moment, and it’ll be so easy to pack up and take with us when we move. It was a steal too – only £15!

The weather seems to be levelling out a bit now too – hopefully we won’t have any more frosts, and if so, I’ll get the seeds (that are ready for moving) outdoors in a few weeks. They’re all on the half-landing window sill at the moment. It’s a great place for them really – they’re out of the way, they’re a bit protected from all of the pets, and they get a good deal of sunlight over the day. They’ve been doing really well there so far.

Other than that – there’s not much to say. I have lots of plans, but as I say, most of them are on hold until we move. I have a new rose – a purple climber – which is quite small at the moment…but is all potted up and hopefully will grow quite large. I’ve got some trellis for it as well – but it’s going to be a long time before I need to use it!

I was given some seeds from my Mother the other day! She knows that I’ve been busy working in the garden (not very much planting in there though!), and putting out seeds ready for the next house, so she bought some for me!

She bought a few salad vegetables – lettuce, spring onions and cress. I just love salads – and have been talking about getting a little greenhouse for a while. I guess now’s as good a time as any!

She also bought some Nasturtium for me – it’s so pretty, and has little yellow and orange flowers. I haven’t decided whether to use it as a border flower, or grow it up a trellis (or both!) just yet – but I think it’s so pretty, and it will fit in perfectly with all of the other flowers.

Thanks Mum. :o)

I went out the other day – and invested in some more things for the (next) garden: some more seeds and a (large!) pack of peat pots. I know I probably should have waited, but I’m just dying to get stuck in to planting something – and now is a good time of year for planting things.

I think I have enough seeds to be going on with for now, at least until we move, and I can use these in various plant pots stood around to look nice in the current garden until then.

The peat pots will be useful – I can put the seeds into them, and keep them out of the cold until they are strong enough to go outside for good. It means I can start using the liquid compost from the wormery again – so that’ll be good. I’m sure there’ll be a few seeds left by the end of it, and I’ll put those straight into the ground, so that the garden here looks amazing come later this year.

Anyway, I just wanted to post an update. The new seeds are as follows:

Columbine (Aquilegia)
Verbena (Speciosa) (...I did tell you I had seen it!)
Coneflower, “White Swan” (Echinacea)
Hollyhock, “Queeny Purple”
Fennel, “Florence” (Foeniculum Vulgare)
Cornflower – Polkadot Mix
Nemesia (Nana Compacta)
Virginia Stock (Malcomia Maritima)

The Fennel and Hollyhock are both shorter than the usual varieties, and won’t take up quite as much space as perhaps they might usually have done.

I’m so ready to get stuck into this goal…but just at the moment, I can’t. I’m currently in the process of moving house, so it’d be completely pointless for me to have a major re-vamp of the garden.

I’ve been busily working towards it though – I can’t do anything huge until I have my new garden to play with, but there are little things I can manage.

I recently bought a variety of different flowers – in seed packets, and I plan on planting and starting them off in the next few days. They all looked so beautiful on the packets (I bought them recently gathered from a plant nursery), and they all fit in so perfectly with the colours and ‘themes’ I have planned.

I think my favourite of them (so far) is the Love-In-A-Mist, as it just looks so unusual – but they are all fab. I bought…

Corn/Flanders Poppy (Papaver rhoeas)
Lobelia, “Sapphire” – trailing (Lobelia erinus)
& Lobelia, “Crystal Palace” (Lobelia erinus)
Lavender, “Common English”
Gaillardia, “Pulchela Lorenziana Mix”
Love in a mist, “Miss Jekyll” (Nigella damascena)
Lupin, “Hartwegii Nanus” – “Pixie Delight Mix”
Clarkia, “Apple Blossom”
Foxglove, “Foxy” (Digitalis purpurea)
Chives (Allium tuberosum)

You can’t beat chives. :o)

I’m sure I’ll be adding to these shortly, I already have my eye on some verbena and some bluebells that I’ve spotted, but I’ll get these growing first, and then add them to my other already-potted plants.