Category: Spring

Dahlia Disaster

Published on by Catherine25 Comments

Six on Saturday: The Before, The Now and The Future

Today, it’s six images—from the past, from the present, and from what is yet to come.

Each year it’s the same – I pot up the dahlia tubers and look forward to the day when the garden will be vibrant with the colour, shape, and form of spectacular dahlia blooms! Like many others in this country, the miserable summer weather of 2024 was a challenge for plants. The abundance of snails here had only one aim – to eat everything in the garden. However, it wasn’t all gloom, the dahlias bloomed but did fall short of expectations because of an excess of rain, wind damage and snails with their insatiable appetites. But as every gardener, amateur or professional will testify, there’s always the hope of a better growing season one year ahead!

At the first frosts, the tubers were lifted, cleaned, drained upside down in the greenhouse and stored in open crates in the garage. l checked them just before Christmas and they were fine, but another look a few weeks ago revealed a sorry sight. Every dahlia tuber was mouldy and rotten and every last one had to be binned.

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Seeds

Published on by Catherine14 Comments

The blog has had a long autumn/winter break, but it’s now time to wake it up. The garden is starting to show signs of returning to life and now is the time to think about sowing seeds.

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve declared that I was finished with seeds, convinced I wouldn’t be persuaded to sow another single one. Yes, there were challenges in the past with multiple trays of seedlings damping off, or seeds that simply refused to germinate, but here I am – happily about to start sowing seeds once again!

Last week I placed an order for various seeds but forgot two I really couldn’t be without, Ammi visnaga and Verbena bonariensis. Luckily I could add them to a separate plant order and within a few days all the seeds had arrived. Only then did I remember I’d been to a garden centre a few weeks before and had already bought seeds!

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Chelsea Week

Published on by Catherine38 Comments

Six on Saturday

Hands up if you are following the Chelsea Flower Show on tv this week! Or perhaps some of you were lucky enough to be at the show in person? Did you enjoy it, what do you think about this year’s gardens – did any give you inspiration, make you want to rush out and dig up your garden and start all over, or maybe you weren’t enthused about the show gardens? Whatever your feelings about the creations there’s no doubt that a huge amount of talent and hard work (not to mention expense) went into creating them.

I spotted some little cameos in the gardens that I thought were lovely. The floral marquee, was as always, full of magnificent displays of floral magic. My favourite gardens have always been those created by Chris Beardshaw who sadly wasn’t exhibiting this year. I’m sure we all managed to find something that had us reaching for Google to find out what online nursery stocked it!

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A Floral Six

Published on by Catherine38 Comments

We’re still being blessed with mostly dry, sunny and warm weather. We’ve had thunder, a few torrential downpours and heaps of sunshine. Friday was very warm, prompting my 10-year-old granddaughter to complain that it had been too hot for the school sports day! The teachers though, were delighted – it was a welcome change from rainy sports days that usually result in cancellation.

My garden has suddenly sprouted but it’s not only the flowering plants that love this weather – the weeds do too! I can’t believe the amount of weeds that have sprung up since last week! And now there’s abundant evidence of slugs and snails! The herbaceous plants are growing too big for their space – I should have predicted that and thinned them last Autumn, but here we are – I’ll have to lift a few here and there and put them in pots, otherwise the borders are going to be too congested throughout the summer.

Here is my selection for this week’s Six on Saturday.

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Visit to Dumfries House

Published on by Catherine18 Comments

My visit to Dumfries House last week with my husband was the first since before the pandemic when we went with our daughter, her husband and the two children. The grounds had partly left spring behind, most noticeably in the walled gardens. Elsewhere though, spring loveliness was still a treat.

The car parks were busy, but apart from the area around the cafe, the grounds were large enough to absorb the visitors and on our walks, we barely passed a soul. It was lightly overcast, but warm and perfect for a leisurely walk.

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