Mr Grinch's Garden

Had a real garden day today.

Dug up all the Geranium in the bigger part to my border. I managed to keep a good 9 plants for re planting, the rest went for green waste. Moved three Echinacea which were at the back, one had died the other three looked ok so had then out ready to be moved to the middle. Dug over the soil and weeded, looks much better. The 9 clumps of Geranium have been left on the soil ready for planting over the coming days. These will go at the front. I dug up a Forsythia that has never done well. It was one of the first plants i planted in the garden but it use to grow, then flop in rain, it then got die back and hardly ever flowered. Enough was enough so it went a replaced by a Cornus moved from the other side. Hopefully will do a lot better. I then moved another Cornus to where the Echinacea were at the back.
Then went to the garden centre and bought three Rudbeckia called "Cherry Brandy". Look very nice and will go well in the middle of the new border. Also bought two Lupins to replace the ones that died.

Very busy but good. Still blooming cold though.

G

 

I grew some of those last year (job-lot "special" from one of the Mail Order outfits where I was ordering something else.) They did well and were a nice colour

 

Did you find it as perenial or annual ?

 

I dug 'em up and put them in the conservatory. They look pretty dry right now, bit early to know if they will recover again this Spring .... i'll let you know in a few weeks

 

I take it you don't think their perennial and that's why you dug them up?

 

I read that they might not be very hardy (if I thought they were definitely annuals they'd be on the compost heap )

Usually sold as annuals. Just looked on the forums and people (back in 2009) disappointed at the range [i.e. inconsistency] of colours from seed-sown plants. Mine were bought as plugs and maybe tissue-culture, rather than seed raised, but they were a consistent colour. Maybe they've sorted out the quality of the genetic strains of the seed-parents. Be interested to hear how you get on with them

 

Thanks for the reply Kristan. I won't be too pleased if they aren't perennial as they were in the perennial section. I vowed not to spend loads on plants and that I wanted to be pretty much self sufficient using seeds and division only to fill the garden. I paid good money for three plants that I hoped would be in the ground for a good few years then be able to chop them up and move about. If I'd known I could have paid 2 quid on seed
I'll keep you updated.

 

Keep the receipt and get some replacements next year ... and the year after that

 

These flys are annoying how do I get rid of them?

 

I think we will have to line all the Mods up and spray them

 

Why has my Avatar gone up side down ? Are i see, April fools day !!! That would account for the flys.

Had a busy morning, placed all of my plant in the positions i want them to go in. Tried to get a mix of earlly and late flowering plants. Moved another stray clump of dafs to a better position. Dug up some dwarf dafs that just wernt right.

Pic to follow.

G

 

Had a very busy day yesterday. Loads of planting but still got lots to go aswell as moving a few more plants about. I also potted up four Dahlia tubors. I will let these grow on in the pots before planting out as ive never had much success with just planting the tubors out directly into the border. I chose two and my daughters chose the other two. I also sowed a few more Marigold seeds as i feel the ones i did a few weeks ago have rotted off in the cold and wet snow.
I keep saying it but the Crocus have been amazing this year and have lasted for weeks and weeks:




G

 

Sunny to this today.




G

 

The last couple of days have been nice. Sun out and a wee bit warmer, around 9c. I think we are at least 3 weeks behind here in the south Essex. Yesterday, it felt like a nice early March day.
Lots of planting done. All the potted perennials are in, i moved a few aswell. The re-organisation has sure left a few empty areas.

Nice to see Chris Beardshaw back in full time TV presenting on Beechgrove today. The new full time presenter.

G