Disaster strikes

The weather has well and truly turned, I have found this out the hard way. My small greenhouse propagator took a reasonable about of damage from the elements the other night. The forecast wasn’t for high winds but, we got some rather hellish gusts during the night and the guide ropes snapped. Obviously this made the whole unit fall over and all the contents went everywhere.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think most of the plants will survive, I had to refill some of the pots with compost but no damage was done to any plant. The majority of plants are cuttings so I’m hoping that the tumble will not affect any possible viability.

 

Although, as some of the stems were lying spilt on the floor out of the compost I did spy some beginnings of roots. This has excited me a lot as I have never had a cutting set root and be successful before.

 

 

 

 

As you can see the damage was bad, the bottom of the structure was bent and buckled. I managed to twist and pull it back to shape. It’s not perfect but it is back in shape (sort of) and the main thing is that the structure is back to being strong

Identity unknown

I have recently received 20 bulbs, at a glance I'd they are all spring bulbs but some look like they might be lily's.

 

I would have ordinarily checked at source what the bulbs were. Unfortunately as they were from someone, through someone I knew this was not possible.

 

 

The majority of the bulbs i believe to be daffodils (well this is more an un-educated wild guess) mixed with a few crocus( again wild guess) . There is one bulb that's interesting me, it is rounded but elongated, I do not recognise it. I'm mostly looking forward to seeing what that bulb turns out to be. I suppose I could Google it and find out but to be honest I'd prefer to wait and see.

 

Obviously Im planting the unknown, so Im going to plant all the bulbs in multi-purpose compost. I have planted the larger bulbs in the larger pots and the smaller bulbs in the smaller ones.

 

 

 

Nothing will happen now until spring but as soon as the first shoot comes through i will be straight on here all excited telling you all about it.

 

 



Planting out Crocus bulbs

As autumn is firmly upon us, it is now time to plant out our little springtime beauty's. Of course i'm referring to the spring bulbs and today i'll be planting crocus in my lawn.

 

As modelled perfectly by Charlie my "helper"

 

 

One thing I have learnt, through bitter failure, crocus need to be planted naturally to look good. To achieve this all we did was hold the bulbs at waist height (Charlie's shoulder height) and dropped them. Excuse the laundry but we live in a busy household :-)

 

The bulbs will drop nicely and will spread out in a naturalistic way. I've covered the majority of the lawn simply by dropping handfuls of bulbs whilst walking around.

 

Now comes the tedious bit, going around planting them about 50mm deep in the position that they dropped. This job, for me, was made all the more harder by the fact the previous tenants had planted over a gravel path.

 

 

To plant, I stuck the shovel in roughly to depth lifted the lawn slightly and placed the bulbs the correct way up. As you can see I was digging down on to the buried gravel path, which made it hard work every time I stuck the shovel in. However, every cloud has a silver lining I now have superb drainage directly under the bulbs.

 

The picture below denotes by way of my finger pointing, the bottom of a bulb the bulbs should be planted with the top pointing skywards.

 

I hope you enjoyed reading, I really enjoyed planting these with my little boy and can't wait for the first crocus to poke through. I will be sure to blog when they do.



Climbing Rose

I have been looking forward to pruning my climbing rose for the first time, however I have read online at gardenseeker i shouldn’t yet. The issue I have is that the plant was only planted last year and on advice from the site it suggests that a climbing rose should be left for two or three years. This is to establish a good horizontal frame work as you will get more flowering shoots from horizontal branches.

In the first three years you should train the branches in to a good horizontal framework cutting surplus branches off.

I have not been training the branches this year, as i was unaware this would provide good flowering stems. So, my plan of action is to cut back most of this year’s growth and train next year’s growth in to the required framework.

I want to end up with something looking like this.

I found this on a site with a good explanation of how to prune your climbing rose. I believe it was a blog site so I think I will follow and get some tips, remember I do not profess to knowing much about gardening.

Anyway, my weekends plan was some what scuppered by not being able to prune and blog. So i will have to just settle for a bowl of the Wife's lovely leek and potato soup. Sadly the ingredigents are not from the garden.

Three Common Attributes Of Successful Blogs | Spice Up Your Blog

Three Common Attributes Of Successful Blogs | Spice Up Your Blog

Thoughts about spring

Spring seems along time away, but is it ? The ground works for a beautiful spring display have to be laid now, it can be alot of work for seemingly no return. But come spring, time spent now thinking about the planting of daffodils, tulips and crocus to name a few can pay truely magnificant dividens in Febuary-April.

 

This weekend my efforts will be spent planting out groups of crocus. I'm going to plant the bulbs in the lawn to give a natural look. Planting the bulbs in groups will also lend its self to a more natural look.

 

I will take plenty of explanatory photographs for a blog at the weekend.

 

I'm still learning, i'm trying to give you as accurate information as I can however if you know something I don't, or even if you have something worth mentioning please comment and i'll try to include the information.

 



Cosmos Seed collection

I've been wondering when I should be collecting my cosmos seeds. I've not dead headed it for about two or three weeks now, but before now i've been thinking arghh how do I know when to collect their seeds.

 

Today i've cracked it, as I was looking over all the dead heads I noticed a few were looking very open and very seed like. This made me think that they were ready.

 

 

I have taken pictures of a head that isn't ready and one thats open and ready.

 

Seed head not open and not ready.

 

Seed head open and ready to collect.

 

 

The seeds are the dark bits, they are fairly obvious. You can the difference between the two pictures.



DIY slug traps

Due to the relative success of my slug traps, and the fact the world seems to be being taken over by the slimy sods, I feel I should share how to make them.

I didn't really have to buy anything except some lager 'ow the hardship' however pouring it into the garden hmmmmm.... good job it's cheap stuff !

All I used was a stanley blade (be careful), an empty robinsons juice bottle (any size can be used so long as there’s no handle) and obviously as previously mentioned the bait, asda value lager.
 

To start with I cut about an inch and a half off the bottom of the bottle.

Then I cut the top of the bottle off about 3 inches tall, leaving u two halves a bottom basin for the lager and a top roof as shown.

 

Mark on both halves three slots to cut, we need to mark them before we start cutting so that the gaps will match up nicely.

Then cut the slots, you marked out, using the Stanley blade.

Once both halves have been cut your done, dig a little hole for the bottom half to sit in then fill with the lager. Replace the top half to protect from rain, I like to make convenient mud ramps for them to slither to their drunken ends :-)

Cutting of a phlox

Just a quick one today.

One thing i'm doing at the moment is attempting to sucessfully increase my stock of Phlox, this is a cutting from the plant I bought in the summer. I read online how to go about it, I think I have done it correctly, however only time will tell. I've uploaded a picture and will keep you up to date on how they go. The next time I take cuttings i'll upload a picture with more detail on how I have taken the cuttings. As this blog is still early days for me I did these cuttings before I started it. 



Phlox Cuttings after 2 days

It's worth mentioning i'm covering the pot with a clear polythene bag, I try to air it out everyday as it gets a bit stuffy. I'm also going to be using a mist gun to water it. I'd like to say im doing this because...... however I just read somewhere that you should so lets experiment !

To see the parent plant please see my last blog, also here is a link to see one how it's supposed to look ;-P mine is a slightly whiter version from the flame series.

http://www.gardenersworld.com/plants/phlox-paniculata-balmoral/2469.html



Slug traps worked

Recently I made some diy slug traps, mainly because the phlox that I planted this summer has been all but destroyed by the little swines. However the plant seems to be responding well to not being eaten and we have the first flowers re appearing which is exciting as I thought that the slugs would have totally wiped out any hope of more flowers :-)

The slug traps are reasonably sucessful and I feel i'd like to share them with you so i'll be blogging about them soon , they are so simple all I used was a robinsons juice bottle and cheap asda own brand lager .

I've loaded a photo of the first few flowers re appearing but you can see the traps in the background. If you were wondering the phlox is planted in the front garden.

This is my garden

A few pictures although they don't really give a great overview of the entire plot and where everything is, it's a start. I've arranged some pots on a slope leading up to my garage, in the pots i've got some pansies, some cyclamen, a few red Geraniums and also a small bay tree to add structure. In six of the pots I have planted tulip bulbs ready for spring, i'm in half a mind to get some daffodils bulbs in with them, this will increase the season of interest. Decision pending also bank balance pending, kids aren't cheap ;-P

As you can see I have a smallish lawn with my flower beds up one side with a number of pots on the other. I try to keep the place a child friendly garden however its a fine balancing act . Well this is a start of an introduction i'll blog more pictures of the front and more detailed pictures of what I have in the garden plant wise soon :-)

 

Introduction to me

I'm James, i'm 25 and I have been renting my house for appox 2 and a half years with my beautiful wife and two soon to be three amazing children. I've been extremely lucky that my landlord is more than happy for me to garden until my hearts content baring no major ground works or construction projects, I have free range to grow away.

I've decided to share with you all my experiences and here is where I start, it's worth mentioning now that I have no horticultral back ground this is my second year of gardening and I do not claim to know anything i'm on the begining of my learning journey !

So I guess you can expect failures ( and i will blog them ) and my triumphs, experiments, various projects down the way and anything in between .

My plot is a small semi detached property with small front sloping garden with a larger rear garden and a drive way up the side.

Anyway this was a short introduction more is to follow I will give a run through of what sorts of plants i'm growing in my garden now, what i'm doing in the garden now and what plans i've got ! Keep ur eyes pealed Blogs on their way !