This week sees the end of Spring and the beginning of summer (in my head anyway). The bulbs are all going over and I'm replacing the ones in pots in the sales area seating areas with summer plants including Euryops, Salvias, Erigeron and Dahlias in pots. The bulbs will be stored away until autumn when I will re-pot them ready to burst into life again next spring.
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| Early morning flower cutting in the warm with the birds singing their hearts out is a good start to the day |
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| Garden meets wildflower meadow in the cafe flower this week |
Once the cafe flowers were done on Wednesday, I had a quick check of the tunnel then back to the nursery where I am going to spend the whole day in the grasses stock bed and I am going to finish them this week. It was cooler and more pleasant than recent days and I potted three batches of grasses, put them in place and managed to finish tidying the grass stock beds by the middle of the afternoon, happy? You bet! This end of the nursery looks much better now all last years dead growth and the weeds have gone, happy grasses too with a topping of fresh compost and feed. I spent the last hour planting annuals in the culinary beds in the herb garden, Tagetes, Sunflowers, parsley and coriander will add height, colour and flavour to the beds as summer goes on.
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| I had to rescue one of the baby blackbirds from the shade tunnel where it had got stuck, all in a days work for the Quirky Bird |
Another big job for this week is to weed all the borders in the nursery. I'm feeling a tad smug as the scented garden is already done (when I planted all the annuals on Sunday) and four of the herb garden beds when I did the same yesterday). No doubt it will all unravel in some way, all the best laid plans...... I enjoy weeding the borders, as well as making the place look better it also gives me a chance to see how plants are doing, replace failures and this time put all the bed labels David has written out in place.
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| One of my favourite planting combinations looking fab in the nursery this week. Nepeta 'Six Hills Giant', Stachys byzantina, chives and Sedum 'Bertram Anderson'. All the plants are available in the nursery so you could recreate this in your own garden, perfect for a narrow sunny border |
This time I've started in the borders in the stock beds (usually I start at the stream and nursery entrance). The stock bed borders are now a year old and have bulked up really well, which is reassuring given our height and exposed situation. This helps show why it is important to plant the right plants for your garden situation, you get the very best out of the plants and your garden with minimum loss.
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| Carrying colour through a border, Primula viallii, Primula 'Millar's Crimson' and Thalictrum quilegiifolium |
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| Thalictrum quilegiifolium |
Meanwhile at home the next job on the list is to re-do my alpine troughs. The troughs haven't had much attention in a long long time so I plan to remove all the plants and gravel, mix the soil up with some compost and pelleted chicken manure and then re-plant. This will hopefully rejuvenate the plants and I'll split some to give stock for the nursery. I did the first of seven last night. This one had Pulsatilla vulgaris, Primula vulgaris, Cyclamen coum, Gentiana sino-ornata and Hepatica noblis in it.
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| During |
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| After |
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| c my favourite fern, looking lush in the nursery gardens this week |
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| Lots of frogs in the tunnel again |
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| Favourite plant combinations, Aquilegia vulgaris var. stellata 'Greenapples', Corylus maxima 'Purpurea', Actaea simplex 'Brunette', Chaerophyllum hirsutum 'Roseum' |
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| We live in a beautiful corner of the world, driving to Biggar to get pizza for dinner after work |
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| One of my favourite plants from below, Chaerophyllum hirsutum 'Roseum' |
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| How often do you see ground so cracked in the garden here in Scotland Not easy for digging this week |
We made lots more progress in the herb garden this weekend, we're nearly finished! This has been an epic job and has caused a lot of blood, sweat, tears, disagreements, laughs, sore backs and love. Just the last border to plant up (grey foliage and white flowers in these last two borders), last of the gravel to put down and another box to build and we're done. There is something quite romantic about creating our own wedding venue, and it's come in vastly cheaper than any place we looked at to get married. This is Bracken the nursery dog considering his next chess move this afternoon.
Carrying on the wild life theme, we discovered that our stoat is a mummy stoat and has her wee family in a nest in our tool shed! It's no wonder the pesky rabbit has disappeared when there's baby stoats to feed.
Our day off found us in Glasgow, not quite washed away in the torrential rain. I know I said we needed rain but I wasn't meaning in almost biblical proportions! David had a tree survey to do first before we headed into the city centre to do some shopping. We were thankfully mainly indoors, I got everything I went for except wedding shoes. We met up with Jamie and spent a while in Waterstons book shop, where better to spend a wet afternoon. I added some books to my book list and had a browse through some new gardening books. It's interesting that fruit and veg growing books have really increased lately. Is this a fashion thing or are people really getting back into semi-self sufficiency? What's your thoughts? We rounded of the day taking Jamie for dinner in a grown up burger restaurant. Food was great and it was lovely to spend time with middle son.
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| Lots more veg growing and self sufficiency books on the shelves now a days |
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| Lost in gardening books |
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| Indeed! |
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