wendyswonderlandgarden

Sorry it has taken so long to post this second and final set of Madeira pictures from my holiday in March. I’ve had some issues in getting them from my phone to the computer but here they are. The garden ones are mostly the presidential gardens in the new town of Funchal and a few of the boardings at the front where they are still working to prevent future flooding.

I love this season the most, when every tine you look at the garden there is something new to see. My tulips are lovely, the bluebells are flowering, my hellebores mostly still flowering although 1 has been eaten, my dahlias in the greenhouse are shooting, the day lilies coming up from their winter sleep and one of my favourite flowers the poppy has big buds ready to flower. I also have a garden full of blue, pink and white forget-me-not. The cherry tree has been covered with netting to protect it from the birds, they ate all the fruit last year. The tomato plants potted on and awaiting their final larger pots. If I was a poet I could continue this on, but I’m not!

My seeds are having varying degrees of success and some packets due to be binned! I have sowen 30 scabious and 4 have come up, I don’t think this is a good return! On the positive side, 13/15 cornflower are outgrowing their small pots and doing really well. 

Pictures for today:  

It’s a lovely sunny day in northwest England and so I write this sat in the garden listening to a few birds and a loud neighbour across the road.

I have been busy sowing seeds in the greenhouse. Yesterday I sowed pink cosmos and also white ones (Sarah raven variety), good for cut flowers. I alto sowed some bright pink zinnia. I have often sowed these and they are normally very easy and flower all summer. My cornflowers nearly all came up and about half of the Agrostemma, a pretty white flower. My scabious haven’t bothered at all so have sowen dome new seeds in the same tray. 

To finish a couple of pictures of bulbs planted late last year. 

Mum, Daddy and I recently went to Madeira for a holiday. We have been there a few times before and love it for the blue skies, blue sky and the lovely gardens which is why there is a blog about it.

We have been to most of them before, the presidential gardens, botanical and tropical gardens on the cable car.

The plants they can grow outside are often things we would have inside and even then not to the same extent as there climate allows, such as cactus and orchids.

A few days before coming home Daddy and I ventured up in the cable car to the tropical gardens. It was quite a wet morning but I took lots of photos and want to share some of them here.

After 10 days on holiday in Madeira and away from the garden I was eager to get going again. I have been unable to sow many seeds til now as I wouldn’t have been able to water them when I was away.

Today my delphiniums came in the post so I was able to get them potted on this afternoon. My 6 little sweet peas were due to be repotted as well. I have sown a tray of wild cornflowers in the greenhouse and some apparently deliciously scented stock in my propagator.

Picture for today is a camellia and primulas  

I’ve had a busy few hours in the garden this week. Every time I go out there seems to be more to tidy up so I’ve been doing that yet again. Surely I must be done with that now.

Some plants – alstroemerias came in the post today, much earlier than planned. Anyway the soil isn’t warm enough for them yet do I have put them in pots in the greenhouse for now.

We’ve also transplanted 2 pretty pink hellebores from pots into the garden.

Every time I go into the garden I notice something different. Our camellias have started flowering in the past few days. One of my dianthus in the greenhouse had buds on it too.

Lastly a little picture of the few purple crocus we have in the garden.



While this blog is mostly about my garden I do love visiting other gardens too. This weekend mum and I went to Kew Gardens and RHS Wisley on  a coach trip. 

Kew Gardens is huge and we hardly saw any of it in the time we had. We did, however, see the orchids in one of the greenhouses and they were amazing. Here is a selection of my pictures. 





I loved visiting Wisley the next day and seeing the butterflies in the hothouse however they were very difficult to take pictures of but I do have some of the rest of the  the garden til my phone run out of battery.  Anyway here is a few pictures.





Just a short post today with the dwarf daffodil pictures in my garden. It’s the first year I have grown these and they are actually shorter than I expected but cute. For information they are called dwarf daffodils tete a tete.