Note: If any of the pictures are too small on your hand-held device, try turning the device on its side.
It was a shorter weekend just gone, 2 days instead of 4, and we spent one of them down in the midlands. The weather was dry, but not as nice as it has been recently. Following the long drive on Saturday, we didn’t feel like doing a lot on Sunday, but we wanted to still do a bit.
Hedge trimming
The hedge isn’t really part of the portable garden, but it’s still a job that needs doing. Since we had a new gate installed, the dog could get through again to The Outside, so we had to shove pots in the gaps again, at least for now. The cat’s a bit narked, as she now has to go a longer way around, but at least the dog can’t escape.
There are 2 hedges in our gardens. A short one in the back, and a longer one that goes all the way from the end of the back garden, up the side of the house, and to the top of the front garden. I think the short one is photena and the long one is privet.
On Sunday, the poet trimmed the outside edge of the ‘photena’ while I followed him filling the green bin with cuttings. This one side alone almost completely filled the wheelie bin, so he’ll do the other side another day, either when the bin’s been emptied or when we have some garden refuse sacks.
Pots
As we were on the outside of the back garden, work continued into the front where there are 3 pots. Two of them we brought with us after rescuing a couple of irises at the last house.
These have only just started to grow again after the winter.
The other pot, the big one, we inherited. It was overgrown with weeds and grasses, but before I had chance to take a picture, he’d pulled them all out and had topped it up with fresh compost.
I had some free seeds with a gardening magazine recently. The magazine is about kitchen gardening on a patio, yet 5 of the 9 free packets were for flowers. I chose cornflowers and calendula and sowed those in the large pot.
Once this was done, we moved back into the back garden, but the only job I did there was move all of the pots off the patio and closer to the side of the house.
The point of installing the rotary clothes line was so I can reach it from the patio when the ground’s wet, and with the pots where they were, I still had to step onto the gravel, which is fine if I’ve already done a dog poo patrol.
We have life
That really was all we managed to do last weekend. However, while the poet was away I was delighted to make 2 discoveries when I was watering the pots at the back of the house.
- We have our first 2 seedlings.
- We have a flower.
Yes, 2 of the 15 sunflower pots have seedlings coming through, and the flower is on the strawberries we rescued.
How’s your garden growing this week?
Oh, that’s so exciting. Our dahlias are coming up. It’s still too cold to set up the back balcony and set up the front porch the way we want it — we keep having to take plants in at night. But I hope we can get everything set up soon, for our enchanted garden spaces!
Some here are saying the tender plants can go outside now, but I don’t think we’ve seen the last of the frost. I’m hoping that’s why the tomato plant plugs haven’t arrived yet. I’m not looking forward to chasing them.