"And Spring arose on the garden fair.......

Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;

And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast

rose from the dreams of its wintry rest."

- Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Sensitive Plant

Primula 'Old Port', one of the earliest primula to flower and a hose-in-hose primula where the calyx is turned into petals of another flower so it looks as if one flower is nestling inside another. The name derives from the way fashionable Elizabethan gentlemen wore their long stockings (their “hose”) one inside the other and with the top of the outer one turned down. Very floriferous plants which will flowers for weeks and occaionally through summer. Available in the nursery.

My working week began with our pot delivery at last, terracotta and glazed pots are now in stock. Lots of great pots to go with our compost and fab plants. I brought up pallet by several trolley loads, they are heavy! I also got on with tidying the stock beds, into P's now (having started at Z) great to get plants tidied, potted and labelled.

The bumbles were enjoying the Frittalaria flowers at the weekend

Moonlit bay

On Thursday Sam was in and spent the day potting up annual seedlings into strips ready for selling in May. It was much nicer in the tunnel out the cold wind, great to get the seedling potted. I was moving plants from one tunnel to the other to make space and working on giving the stock beds their spring clean.

Looking good in the nursery gardens this week

Anemone nemerosa 'Viridiflora'

Chionodoxa lucilae

Helleborus orientalis and Pulmonaria 'Blue Ensign'

Helleborus orientalis, Pulmonaria 'Blue Ensign' and
Primula denticulata

Primula elatior

Pulmonaria 'Opal'

Another bitterly cold day on Friday, what happened to spring? The wind was coming straight out the north bringing snow flurries, sleet and rain. Rory spent the day potting more annual seedlings in the tunnel carrying on from where Sam left off. A great job done. I was carrying on with the stock bed tidy and pulling orders to be collected at the weekend.

Sanguinaria canadensis f. multiplex 'Plena'

The weekend and its not much warmer, but at least its dry and not raining ...... or snowing! Rory was back in the polytunnel potting the last of the cuttings that were done last year. We are so ahead this year its great thats the difference great staff make. I was pulling more orders and working on more of the stock beds. 

Behind the scenes - as well and doing lots of propagation from seed, we also do a lot from cuttings. This is where having the nursery gardens is crucial as it gives us lots of healthy plant material to propagate from. Many plants will come from cuttings including a lot of perennials. It is always worth experimenting to see what you can prop from cuttings. With perennials, as long as you get some of the woody base of the stem and use material that isn't too long or mature, there's a good success rate to be had. So if your plants aren't big enough to split, try a few cuttings, sometimes you even get some with ready made roots, which is great.

In the first photo you can see the stages of doing Phlomis fruticosa cuttings. From the material I have removed from the plant, divided into individual shoots, then tidied up with most of the leaves cut off and some that had roots. These are put into 1 litre pots and will go over to the poly tunnel where they will root through and then be grown on until big enough to pot up.

Propagation is one of the jobs I love, producing new plants from seeds or shoots, brilliant!

Last summer and autumn Fiona spent most of her time in the nursery doing pots and pots of cuttings and now Rory has been potting them up over the past two weeks and they will now grow on for a few months until they are either ready to sell or be potted up, and then the cycle begins again this summer.

Abstract misty trees, using three colours - Sap green, paynes grey and Violet and a bank card

Another work day in the life of the Quirky Bird gardener. Monday is polytunnel day, which on a cold day is welcome. Almost finished working through all the shade, herbs, alpines, alliums and tenders tidying, top dressing and propagating ready for the season ahead. Annuals are almost potted and all the cuttings are potted and in the tunnel next door and lots of plants taken over to the nursery for potting then into the stock beds. Its all go, busiest time of year. The Ribes at the cottage is in full flower and the sky on the way to work was great over the Moorfoot hills.

Tuesday was wet and miserable so we went and did the food shopping and on to lunch and a browse at Main Street Trading in St Boswells. A lovely lunch and some books bought, of course.

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