Happy New Year

by Wendy Syddall

Welcome to my one new follower and anyone else reading!

Well I started this with the intention of regularly writing about my garden but to be honest, got very busy in the garden and haven’t really had much time.

The part of the garden this was originally named the ‘wonderland garden’ has now been built over. However, I do have a new patch which is mostly full of self sown foxgloves, I will leave them in as I think they are such pretty flowers. I also have 2 front and 2 back gardens to look after so that will keep me busy.

Looking back on last year, I sewed 4 lots of seeds in my greenhouse, potting them on before planting in final positions and all were very successful. The white cosmos, I planted out in July time and with at least weekly deadheading flowered until December. They also grew so tall they needed staking and where probably 5ft or so. The pink cosmos although a lot smaller which is how they should grow were lovely as were the zinnia, scabious (also continued flowering til December) and the chrysanthemums.

The lupins were covered in white fly which wouldn’t die no matter how many times they were sprayed but still grew well. My dahlias in pots didn’t flower much and are in the greenhouse overwintering and hopefully considering a better show for next year.

The tomatoes in the greenhouse did well but were also covered in whitefly, I think this was due to poor ventilation, we didn’t want to open the door as we would have had a cat inside! Will have to rethink this for the summer.

I will endeavor to post more often this year.