Monday, May 31, 2010

The Unexpected

a hot May weekend

Four years ago, when we moved in to this flat and reclaimed the garden, very little was left to give that 'garden' feeling. I can list them very easily: winter honeysuckle, two neon pink roses, a leaf of a sedum which somehow grew into a clump, forget-me-nots, bluebells, a creamy peony and a half dead hydrangea. Oh and the one bramble we left in for fruit. That was it - literally. Every single other growing thing was added by us, including the lawn. This short list left quite large expanses of empty borders to deal with.

Iargely my approach was to dump whatever we managed to beg, steal and grow from seed into the available gaps based on what colours I wanted to see together with a cursory nod to conditions said plant would like to grow. Chaos was added by leaving anything to that wanted to self seed to it's own devices. Now, last year I plonked a load of alliums in, having never grown them before. This has led to a mixed result. Firstly the gloriously unexpected acidic colour combination above: allium purple sensation and welsh poppies. It's actually even better now, this picture is a week old - more alliums and more poppys in flower. I want to improve on this further by seeding more of the prolific poppies under the alliums over the summer. Unfortunately, the Mount Everest alliums did not fair so well. For one, they're midgets and you can't even see them at the backs of the borders and for another one lot is in a hopeless place and have been squished under cat traffic. The picture below is an official reminder to self to move these once they've finished they're attempt at flowering - together with the agapanthus and iris swamped under the unexpectedly huge hydrangea.

Jobs to do

While I'm here giving myself a list of things to do - I need to lift and divide the hostas and flag iris' behind the pond when the time is right:

Jobs to do

7 comments:

  1. you're now accountable to get these things done once its on a blog lol Welsh poppies and alliums is a lovely combination. I must become a hunter gatherer in the next few weeks and get source some local seedheads as I've never grown those poppies in this garden. Welcome to Blotanical!

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  2. Thanks! Hopefully publicly shaming myself will have the right affect and getting these things done :)

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  3. The problem with blogging is people are checking to see if you have done it. I learned to be very careful in making statements, and I came up with some great excuses, lol!
    Welcome to Blotanical.

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  4. pretty pretty garden! Great blog, definitely be back! Come follow TBAG if you fancy.

    Happy Friday! x

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  5. Thanks for lovely comments, Deborah, Ruth and TBAG - This is the most comments I've ever received on a post! Better make sure I shift those alliums later in the season :)

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  6. You have a pond? I envy you ... I would love one. I enjoyed visiting your blog and peeping into your lovely garden. I look forward to following your gardening progress (although how you find the time to garden AND blog AND work on your PhD, I will never know - I'm retired and don't have enough time). Keep up the good work!

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  7. It's only a small pond! I think the answer is that I don't find the time. Works been crazy at the moment, if I didn't have Dan doing 50% of the garden work, it wouldn't get done. It also helps that it's a small garden. And the blog posts are pretty thin on the ground at the moment...

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Thanks in advance for any comments sent my way, they arere always appreciated!