Signs of Life! My Gardening Progress

Signs of life in my new garden at last - here are my gardening plans and progress so far.

I’m so proud of my little baby cuttings!

Is it weird to feel a sensation akin to pride on behalf of a plant?

Gardening progress

I ought to stop anthropomorphising everything, but my lil babies are growing up so well that, well, I’m just plain proud of them. My hydrangea and plum tree spent a night outdoors at last (yes, I took them out and forgot them) and I think it’s time they moved out for good.

I need my kitchen windowsill back, since indoor plant-growing real estate is in very short supply thanks to my propagation mania. I can’t wait to see them grow into great big permanent garden dwellers.

I’m stunned by the flower spray on this tiny hydrangea.

Summer bulbs

Over the last few days I’ve seen some much-anticipated signs of life from the Thompson & Morgan summer flowering bulbs I planted earlier. I have to admit, I was fretting about them for a bit, since I left it a bit later than I should have to plant them out, and then once I was racing against the clock to get them in, I kinda stuck them in without being too careful about the depths of the holes I made.

Still, it seems that my haphazard planting has been forgiven, at least by some of them; I’m not sure, but I think it’s allium moly that’s starting to shoot up.

Can you see it? They’re barely visible, but they’re there! There’s a patch of bare ground at the very end of the garden under the ash and oak trees where there’s no grass, just a mass of twigs and self-seeded ash saplings. It was a dump when we moved in, and we had to fill many, many bags of garbage that the previous owner had actually buried there.
We’d love to build a treehouse there, but for now I’ve decided to fill it with bulbs and I’ve scattered lots of free wildflower seeds that I’ve collected. My favourites are aquilegias or columbines: they self-seed so profusely and cross-pollinate freely, you never can tell what you’re going to get the next year, but you’re guaranteed a beautiful surprise.

Free seeds

I’ve been collecting seeds from dried seed pods for years; I try to keep them in envelopes with their names written on the front for planting in the future. I scattered some nigella (love-in-a-mist) and aquilegia seeds one freezing April day, so I’m waiting to see what happens there.

My father-in-law loves sharing his seeds as well – exceptionally convenient for me – and he let me raid his garden for seeds and also gave me a few packets.

My father-in-law gave me these packs of seeds – two down, keeping the rest for the right time.

I felt bad about taking so many at first, but I think he got them ‘free’ with a magazine, by the looks of the packs. He’s winding down his gardening to more manageable levels since he doesn’t get around easily any more, and he gave us his greenhouse as well, but that’s another story…

I didn’t label the pots! Rookie mistake.

I planted some of the scabious and escholzia in pots and then forgot which was which… and which weren’t planted at all… and then got fed up and scattered the leftover seeds onto a patch of earth yesterday. Hey, I’m easily distracted. But today, I saw the first signs of germination, so hooray!

Either Jonagold or Braeburn… again, mixed the labels up!

Last month, I spent ages trying to convince the husband to buy some £5 fruit trees from Asda – so long, in fact, that they got reduced to £2.50 – get in! I got two- thought I shouldn’t push it as his face was falling whilst I pulled every tree out and inspected it.

Apples are a bit of a gamble for me since I’ve got no experience with growing fruit trees, and I’m not entirely sure whether the two cultivars I picked will cross-pollinate well. After some furious googling (after getting them home, of course) I decided they’d do… I didn’t think he’d respond well to “I need another tree”, seeing as I’m acting as the resident plant expert, and I need to inspire enough trust to divert funds to my pet project!

Vader catches some sun, but no birds.

Meanwhile, Vader’s been loving springtime. He tends to stay around the garden, lusting after visiting birds but mercifully, not catching any.

Today, I’ll be repotting and fussing around my other cuttings (more on them soon), and generally watching stuff grow. Have you got any plant babies? How are they doing?

Update: signs of slugs 🙁

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