wendyswonderlandgarden

It’s a dry day here in northwest England for a a change and having recently cleaned my pots and trays I decided to sow some seeds. The first of quite a few. I was given them both free with my gardeners world magazine and unlike my normal habit I’ve sown 2 per nodule in the hope I will get a good success rate. My friend has done very badly with free seeds from magazines so that is my reasoning for sowing more than normal.

It’s sweet peas and cosmos so far and both are now installed in their electric propagator.

  
Last years sweet peas while lovely and the scent amazing didn’t read the packet and therefore were much larger than expected and outgrew the support I gave them. I have been investigating better and taller support systems but yet to buy anything.

My next job is to transplant 2 of my dahlias to new pots as one has bust it’s pot and the other is not deep enough.

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More posts and pictures soon. 

So I thought Spring was on its way with the bulbs coming up and plants recovering from a not very cold winter (that’s not a complaint, I don’t like extremes of temperature, whether hot or cold) but today I wake up to snow. Fortunately it’s only on the garden where I live and not the paths or driveway. 

A couple of pictures of the mixed seasons:

Last week we had an afternoon outing to Rode Hall which is past Congleton. It’s basically an old house and lovely big garden. They were doing what they call the ‘snowdrop walk’ which I think finishes this Saturday. It was very pretty, we were a bit later in going so the hellebores (my favourite winter flower) was out too. It was a cold but dry day and I did enjoy it. I took a few pictures which are below but sadly my camera ran out of battery so not as many as I would have liked.

I keep starting my posts with an apology and here is another! It’s been too wet for any pictures until today so I am sorry about the lack of posts recently. It is, however, sunny today even if a bit cold but I’m so pleased to see the sun.

Things are growing and flowering in my garden, albeit a bit early in some cases. So here are some pictures of things currently in flower

   
    
 Yesterday I also bought some mini iris which are awaiting planting.

That’s all for now. Thank for reading, any feedback is always welcome.

So I’m very aware that I haven’t blogged for a while nor wished my lovely readers a happy new year! Sorry I’m late, happy new year folks!

I have been very busy working on a house refurbishment project and have had little time or the right   weather for gardening. I do, however, need to decide what should be done about the overgrown and untidy large garden associated with this project and to add to my difficulties it’s not for me a garden lover who would love the chance of a massive garden I could resign but for a yet unknown tenant. So grass, paving and hopefully some plants it is then! 

I don’t have any pictures this week either, however, my hellebores are mostly in flower now and my bulbs are showing themselves in the pots. 

Anyway, just wanted to check in with you all and I’ll write again very soon. 

We are nearly at the end of my first year of blogging and I’ve had 358 views from the uk, Ireland, Canada, America, Australia and the phillipines. Wow, I’m so pleased. I want to thank everyone for reading it and any comments you’ve made. I hope that you enjoy it and please feel free to ask questions, and share it with friends and family.

I wanted to do a little review of how things have gone in the garden this year. I have tried some different seeds this year with varying degrees of success. What I would say is, the newer the seeds the more likely they are to germinate. Any seeds over 3 years old for me just aren’t as successful. My sweet peas were amazing and grew much taller than expected so I will give them a bigger  stake next year. 

I leave you for now with a picture of a hellebore currently flowering. It’s a bit early, normally they flower in February.

If you’ve read my blog before you will likely know that winter is not my favourite season of the year. Mainly due to the fact I can’t get out gardening as its too cold. Now this winter so far it’s not been too cold but very wet so I still can’t get out.

I have, however, done the majority of the tidying up and all the plants that live in the greenhouse in winter have now moved in there. We are hoping to have some heating in there too this year if we can get them to work.

I like to try and post some pictures of what’s in flower at the moment and it’s been a bit of a challenge but I’ve got a couple for you. 2 pansies/violas. Such cheerful little things and the last one is a calicarpa with purple berries and dogwood on the background.

So it’s November and warm enough still to be able to get into the garden to weed and tidy up. I’ve not done much in my garden for weeks although I have been helping to clear and tidy a patch of mums friends garden for the past few months on a nearly weekly basis.

As it’s not been too cold there is still quite a bit in flower in my garden. The first is an acer tree mum was given about 30 years ago by her father and for some years was growing well with a takeover mission on its part of the garden. Sadly its suffering from die back which is a disease and can be caught by other acers but still looks good  

Also in flower still is a penstemon called ‘strawberries and cream’ bought on the early summer and  flowering for a second time  

Lastly is a dogwood that may be moving home next year as it’s taking over more than its allocated space and other things can’t see the light.  

It was lovely to be able to spend time in the garden this morning in October with no coat on. I guess I won’t be able to do that for much longer.

I was planting tulips in pots. They are one of my favourite bulbs and I like most colours. This morning I was planting the following: 

Tulipa ‘Margarita’an early double which is cerise

Tulipa ‘Ice wonder’ which is white with pink underneath 

Tulipa ‘Christmas pearl’ which is two shades of pink

Tulipa ‘National Velvet’ a dark red bulb

Tulipa ‘Cum Laude’ dark purple/blue

Here is a picture of them