First poppy of 2023
wendyswonderlandgarden
My passion in life is gardening and specifically growing flowers from seed
Category: Planting
May 2, 2023
Tulips 2023
April 13, 2023
RHS Bridgewater, Salford visit April 2023
Spring is my favourite season and I love seeing the plants and beautiful bulbs appearing so I decided to visit this garden again to see what was flowering there. If I hadn’t already booked tickets I’m not sure I would have gone today as it was so cold and windy but anyway I wrapped up warm and off I went. Some of the daffodils had already finished but there were lots of tulips and other pretty things to be seen. Here are some of my pictures
April 2, 2023
April 2023
I can’t believe it’s April already although I have to say I love the lighter evenings and driving home in the light even when I finish late and I love the sense of expectancy in the garden and seeing new things flowering every day. I have done a little weeding and some seed sowing but have lots more work to be done in the coming days. For now I leave you with pictures of what’s currently looking good in my garden
February 27, 2023
Winter/ Spring 2023
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
January 8, 2023
First hellebore of 2023
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
January 1, 2023
Happy New Year 2023
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
November 27, 2022
Late November 2022 in my garden
It’s late November, we’ve had thanksgiving and are heading towards Christmas quickly, how prepared are you. It seems a strange time in the garden, I still have summer flowering plants with flowers some for a second time – a Fuschia, hydrangea and Hesperantha (I think it’s changed name again but I can’t keep up).
We haven’t had any frost yet here so my dahlias are still in pots outside. This is the latest by far that they’ve been outside, usually mid October they go to their winter home – the greenhouse and I’m thinking I might put them in anyway. The fact it’s not been so cold is great for the rising heating bills as it means we haven’t really needed it much as yet but it worries me for the garden as we need the proper seasons in order for plants to grow properly. So while I have some summer plants still in flower I also have the hellebores showing their buds and they are about 2 or 3 months early!
October 2, 2022
Acers in the garden
We tend to grow our Acers in pots as we can give them the soil they like (ericaceous) and also a sheltered position more easily. They are looking so good at the moment apart from a little wind damage.
September 21, 2022
Summer 2022 review
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.
wendyswonderlandgarden 