wendyswonderlandgarden

Just a little blog to show my Iris bulbs flowering, they came up yesterday. I haven’t even got the snowdrops yet and I thought they usually came first

Happy new year! Sorry it’s late but I like to include a picture on my posts and there is nothing flowering in the garden at the moment. However, it’s not all doom and gloom, there are signs of life with bulbs and other plants.

Anyway, today I bought some pink lilies for my owl planter (he has a separate post of his own but I’ll include a picture too). Also on the pink theme – some sweet-peas – Painted lady which are apparently very old and intensely fragrant. I will be planting these in my electric propagator soon.

Look what Father Christmas bought me! A lovely owl planter so now what to put in it is the question

This is likely to be the last blog post of the year so here I am thanking you my lovely readers and wishing you a peaceful Christmas and joyful New Year. I hope you manage a little time to consider what we are actually celebrating this season.

I leave you with a picture of our real tree that lives outside in a pot most of the year and we decorate at Christmas. It might be the third or fourth year for this tree.

It actually snowed at the weekend but hasn’t melted yet as it’s still so cold!

What is your flowering in your garden this month I hear you ask? Well, not a huge amount I’m afraid but I’ve had a little trip round the garden with my camera and hopefully these are things I haven’t shown you before.

A little Borage plant growing under the lupin – not I hasten to add where it was planted 

A red valerian that was moved from another part of the garden earlier in the year as it has a mission to take over. It’s the first time it’s flowered since being in a pot

This plant I have shown before but it’s flowering for a second time with a different coloured flower. I have managed to kill a number of echinacea plants in the past few years so need to find out how to keep this one alive and flowering for more than 1 season. Any ideas are gratefully received 

I love spring bulbs especially tulips and daffodils and like to have them in pots so I can bring them to the front when flowering and hide them away afterwards. In the past few years I’ve bought about 5 or so bags of new tulips each year and planted them in pots but with little repeated   flowering the following year. I have noticed, however, that daffodils seem to be ok in pots. So I have bought 3 bags of the ones below and potted them in bulb fibre with some grit in the hope they will do better for the improved growing medium. 

I was about to plant the below anemones but having my pot ready I noticed they must be soaked overnight first so that will gave to be done another day.

I will likely post next spring when they are flowering.

I have nearly completed all my winter preparations in the garden now, just a few more annuals to remove, home made compost to spread and greenhouse to fill once it’s insulated. 

I thought I’d start with something amusing. Last weekend we were forecast stormy but warm weather as part of Storm Ophelia. So I got in my car to come home after church on Sunday and it said ‘warning there may be ice on the road’ and showed -1 degrees. It was actually 18 degrees! Poor car. She was back to normal by evening. It has and is still is windy here but not as much as forecast. 

So back to gardening. I read a recent blog about laid back and extreme gardeners and I’m extreme apparently which means I like the garden to be tidy and if possible weed free for winter. I start the job of removing dead annuals, tidying up peranniel plants, compost spreading earlier every year and hardly ever get finished. This morning I was compost spreading from our own bin. We put all vegetable matter, coffee grounds, tea bags, shredded paper, dead plants into it. No weeds or rose cuttings, grass cuttings or hard wood. It looks pretty good but while the tea inside the bags rots down the bag itself doesn’t.

I have still to clean and insulate the greenhouse, treat my poor unhappy rose (diluted jeyes fluid after removing all leaves), finish tidying peranniels and more compost spreading and I’ll be ready for winter. I must add that as soon as it gets too cold I hibernate until it warms up, so it’s a race against the weather to get finished! Wish me luck.

Lastly I have a few things still in flower including a confused hellebore (should be flowering in February).

Alstroemeria that has been flowering for months

Michaelmas daisy rather late to the party and sometimes forgets to flower at all.

White scabious that I thought should be blue – doing well though!

Confused hellebore