wendyswonderlandgarden

So yesterday I watered some of the garden and today while I write this blog it’s chucking it down with my washing outside and no I don’t want to bring it in as I’ll get soaked!

I have finally potted on my sweet peas although according to BBC gardeners world I should be planting them outside about now, which is fine but according to the weather forecast it could be cold at night so I think they are safer in the greenhouse for now, I have 30 little plants and I only really wanted about 10 but I couldn’t decide between pink or white so I bought them both! My seeds are doing pretty well – lots of cornflower, creamy yellow cosmos and zinnia have come up but so far no primrose, sweet William or white foxgloves. I think the latter may have been washed away. Such small seeds and I watered one day without the thing on the end of my watering can.

Last pictures of tulips today and I promise not to bore you anymore. They didn’t do as well as the expected sadly and I will be putting a numbe for pots worth into the ground shortly. The daffodils on pots continue to do well year after year so I will plant more of those next time. Also a picture of my wallflowers in pots and they smell lovely! 

Just a little post to end the week with my favourite tulip Jan Reus. I originally had 10 and now only 3 are still in my garden and sadly I can’t find them in the shops. I’ll keep looking and one day hopefully I’ll find them again. 

I can’t believe it’s April all ready, time is flying so fast! There is much to be done in my garden – yet more tidying, weeding, grass cutting, seed sowing, planning if we need any more plants. That said, I don’t look after this garden alone. Well 4 gardens – I’ll try and explain more in a future blog. Anyway, we each have our areas of work. Daddy cuts grass, does heavy digging work if I can’t manage and have already attempted it and looks after the compost heaps. He also looks after the fruit trees although I usually pick the ripe fruit. Mum looks after bushes and cuts the lawn edges while I collect them. Me – I look after the flowers, sow seeds, weed, tidy, plant containers of which we have quite a number, water in the summer and whatever else hasn’t already been covered.

Oh and if you thought that’s all I do as there is so much listed I used to have a full time job and will hopefully again one day. I only actually spend maybe 5 hours a week out there between April and October and much less in the other months.

I also garden for my neighbour across the road at this time of year once a week. She has a lovely spring garden with much colour and scent at the moment, with primulas, muscari and daffodils flowering, 

I have some foxglove and cosmos seeds waiting to be sown but I need to buy my seed trays first. Last years were too flimsy to be reused. 

There is so much on flower right now in the garden so here are a few things I haven’t already shared. Some gorgeous new dark red tulips, muscari and a pieris. (I hope that’s how it’s spelt).

My favourite colour of blossom or flower in the garden has got to be white. Although I’m sure some would say it’s not a colour. I have several plants and a tree currently flowering in white. I can’t name the daffodils sadly as there is no proper name on the label I kept! I also found a label for done gorgeous white tulips which didn’t flower last year or come up at all this time. 

Here they are: the magnolia featured in the last blog but it has improved since then and deserves another picture I think! Also pictured below is a dicentra (white bleeding heart), such a beautiful flower. I did have a pink one in the same flower bed but it’s disappeared this year!

Update – May 2017 another white flowered plant – Spirea Van Houti (probably spelt wrong) I have white foxgloves in the greenhouse too but as I sowed them as seeds it’ll be next year before they flower being biennials 

Just a quick post today. I just noticed my first tulips in pots flowering so thought I’d post my pictures. I think one of these is ‘orange emperor’ and the other ‘cilesta’ but I’m not aura which is which as one is open and other closed. I have a number of other tulips so will post them as they flower. 

Also 2 pictures of violas in pots, both with funny stories. The first pot has been on top of the water butt in the front garden for months and one day I went out and found the whole plant on the ground and the pot a few feet away. It turns out that storm Doris had blown the plant out! The other pot is actually primulas but violas have grown in there instead.

I am told it was the first day of spring earlier this week and it was so cold and wet, the garden couldn’t have been told about the season change! I love spring as every time I go in the garden I notice something different growing and in some cases flowering. It’s also a time when I can get out weeding, tidying and planning what to grow this year and if anything needs to move place.

I have a selection of pictures of what is currently flowering including some cute new daffodils called ‘minnow’. I hadn’t realised they’d be so small. Also a forsythia and magnolia and another hellebore. What’s flowering in your garden?

I have made this feature rather difficult for myself this month as I have been so excited to find new plants flowering I have been posting about them straight away. However, I am constantly finding new things in flower. This time it’s another paler pink camellia in the garden which is much older than the first one I posted and also a tree in the back garden which I can’t remember the name of which has lovely white blossom and looks great with a bright sky in the background. What’s in flower in your garden? 

On a day when it’s miserable and wet I have noticed some lovely spring bulbs flowering in my garden that I want to share with you, all yellow! Not really my favourite colour but so bright and cheery on a day like today! Firstly, the Tete-a-test in my wooden wheelbarrow that actually needs repairing but I have to empty it first. Then some crocus and finally more mini daffodils in troughs that have wallflowers in as well. 

Just a couple of pictures of my Camellia flowering in the greenhouse. I think it’s a variety called Debbie and I originally bought it for my late grandmothers garden that I planted last year but I fell in love with the pretty pink flower on the label so it stayed here in a pot and is currently overwintering in the greenhouse and I’m so glad I kept it. What do you think? 

Please excuse the bubble wrap, it’s protecting the plants in the greenhouse!

It’s been a sunny but cold winters day today but there is some colour in the garden to cheer one up. Many of my bulbs are appearing now and we even have a few tiny crocus flowering. My neighbour across the road whom I garden for in spring and summer has many crocus up but we’ve always said she has her own microclimate.

So, here is what’s flowering in my garden this month. A lovely hellebore that avoided being dug out last year (the leaves aren’t quite as diseased as the others) and 2 little primulas