Sorry folks it’s longer since I last blogged than I thought. I haven’t really done much in the garden lately other than a little tidying. There’s always tidying to be done. However, I have been taking pictures when new bulbs/ flowers start appearing so I thought I’d share those with you
This my third attempt at posting this, maybe it’ll get through this time.
One of my hellebores has started to flower this weekend. It’s not looking very healthy though and I understand it’s not cureable. The plant should be dug up and disposed of as it can spread to other hellebores. It’s such a shame as it’s a pretty delicate flower that brings some much needed colour to the garden at this otherwise dead-ish season in the garden
Thank you for following my gardening journey last year and here’s hoping for another good year in the garden in 2023. It starts with a little flooding in the front due to too much rain at once. However, I do have snowdrops flowering already. A bit early I think as I don’t think they are early flowerers but I’m not sure and my hellebores buds are coming up too
I feel like it’s been a long dry and rather hot summer. If anyone says to me ‘we haven’t had a summer this year’ expect me to be cross. I struggle a lot with the hot weather (huge migraine trigger for me) and the constant watering of the garden has definitely been hurting my shoulders and the pain goes straight to my head! I live in the north of England where everyone thinks it rains non-stop, well this year it’s hardly rained all summer! Despite this I feel like the garden has mostly faired pretty well. I’ve done a lot of watering, I know people say you don’t need to water so much but I don’t work hard all year on a garden to let it die because I can’t be bothered!
So the roses have done well and I’ve had just one new one this year called Queen Bee (picture below) although if I see a Queen Elizabeth one I’ll be very tempted to buy one.
I’ve sown some plants from seeds that I’ve never tried before and some I do each year. The cosmos didn’t even germinate, the zinnia did but they were tiny plants and didn’t flower for long. My Ammi, sweetpeas, honeywort (cerinthe), verbena bonariensis (or as someone I follow on Twitter calls it verbena bananarama) and Tithonia have done really well. My sweet William and wallflowers have germinated well and hopefully will flower just as successfully.
Fruit wise we have strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, cherries (actually the birds had them all), apples and tomatoes. We didn’t have such a big raspberry harvest this year but it has meant we didn’t need to give so many away as usually we have way more than we can eat or store!
My perennials have faired pretty well too.
As much as I normally love gardening I find this time of year I have such a long list of jobs to do in the garden getting it ready for winter including moving things, weeding, tidying and bulb planting that I don’t enjoy it as much because I’m just trying to complete my to do list. This year I also have 2 bags of bark chippings to spread, hoping this will reduce the need for so much watering in future dry summers.
Taken in August, this I’ve taken today
My friend and I visited Fryers garden centre in knutsford last week and I got this new rose partly with some birthday vouchers, it smells lovely and fits well beside the alstroemeria of similar colours
I’m sorry to say that I didn’t plant it and looking at the state of the basket I may not be able to use it again but I’m enjoying looking at it
wendyswonderlandgarden 