WHAT ARE WE DOING IN THE GARDEN TODAY 2023

A lovely plant shelf in the kitchen Balc. Can you open the two lower small windows besides top?

 

@Victoria Thank you! I intend to put the 'Bird of Paradise' & the 'Clivias' outside on the balcony sometime in May. That will free up a lot of space in the kitchen.

 

Sowed a tray of 2 types of Dahlias.

Checked over some of the stored ones in the greenhouse. I removed parts of the tubers that were soft and cleaned them before repotting them, still have a good few more to do tomorrow. I hope this year to get them all in the borders to save all this worry of storing them undercover. I must also check over the Lilles too tomorrow.
Watered all the seedlings in the greenhouse.

 

Nothing today it's too cold outside and just keeping an eye on the seedlings, they're coming on well.

 

Spent 90 minutes out, mostly sitting in filtered sun and looking at seed sown on Sunday ...
Dwarf Cosmos seed underplanted on Sunday in the Hibiscus syriacus French Cabaret Violet which is starting to bud ...

Took two large cuttings from s Geranium @pete sent me a couple of years ago and potted on ...

Took a cutting from my Sunseeker rose and stuck in a pot hoping it might root.

 

I'm with you @Upsydaisy, have had to pot on 85 tubers so far, some new but the others were stored after coming out of pots. About 90 more to do. Running out of room in Favolosa, my greenhouse, so they will have to take their chances next year in the pots. All the rest are in the garden with a mulch so much easier. 32 centigrade in greenhouse today so lovely and warm in there. Sharing space with Remus Nautilus, my black cat. He is laying on some cosmos seedlings so off I shall go and move him along to his empty tray to continue a snooze in the warmth.

Have fun everyone

 

Did a lot of direct sowing this morning before a light shower arrived.

Pulled out all the tubs of Hostas from their undercover Winter homes ,so they will now get a good watering from this afternoon's rain.


Yes @Dahlia Queen the majority of ours are left in situ covered in mulch + bagged polystyrene chips then covered in large heavy upturned flower pots. I like to also keep some in pots ( like my Giant Lilles too) so they can be placed around the garden and when needed to fill any unwanted gaps in the borders

I must resist sticking bits of broken off tubers directly into the ground at this time of year because as you know they are so easy to root......and I need spaces for other lovely plants as well..

 

Swept up a pile of leaves that had accumulated in the Hostas Winter storage area. Found a Wallflower full of almost opened blooms completely snapped in half , so stopped to take a load of cuttings.

As the rain is now quite hard I have moved back into the greenhouse. I am currently shuffling everything around in the bubble wrapped enclosure that takes up half of the space to make room for more trays of seedlings. I hoping it will reduce some of the trips back and forth each day carrying trays and pots to allow the seedlings to get maximum hours of daylight each day....hopefully most will now be able to stay out there.

I have some classical music playing in there so despite the rain outside it's very pleasant...they say music helps plants to thrive .

 

I spend a while this morning potting up cuttings. I had 4 or 5 Fuchsia 'Garden News' cuttings rooting in water. All but the last one I put in have the beginnings of roots so I potted them up.
.

.

 

I have had a succulent plant whose name I can't seem to remember now, Epi, I think it is most commonly called. I've had it 4 or 5 years as I was given it by a friend who used to live in Brazil. He has many at home & when I commented how nice they look he asked me if I would like one. So he gave me one but it has never flowered for me.

This morning I thought I might repot it - or al least change some of the compost. But I found it was either soil he had used or a John Innes type of compost. I also found it was sopping wet even though I try not to water it very often. I usually go by the weight of a pot when judging if I need to water it or not. But this pot being very heavy I seldom touched.
.

It had been growing quite well but I was a bit concerned that the leaves were drying out from the tip going down to the base. When the plant came out of the pot it started to break up into several pieces. Rather than putting them altogether in the pot again I decided to put them in individual pots with the compost I normally use. But I left it very loose & didn't press it down letting the weight of a little water to do the job. I hope now they will grow better & I shall be able to care for them much easier.
.

.

.

 

Here is a photo of the original plant that I've just found on the computer!
.

.
I'm not sure if this is the first photo I took of it (Epi?) but it's been in the same pot ever since I took this photo in April 2021.

 

Oooooh, appears I'm fairly keen on cosmos too as well as dahlias. Just checking my seed box and there are still these ones to sow...............
That's on top of those already sown in my Favolosa greenhouse.

Do you like cosmos as much as I do peeps? Tee hee

 

Epiphyllum @Balc .