First daffodil to flower
This is daffodil Minnow and they have appeared in the last few days
wendyswonderlandgarden
My passion in life is gardening and specifically growing flowers from seed
Tag: cottage gardening
June 20, 2017
Sweetpeas
They’ve quickly become one of my favourite summer flowers. I should probably say cut flowers but actually I don’t bring them in much. I love them on the plant where I can get my daily fix of the amazing scent.
White ones in the back garden, some in a container and some in the garden. Pinky/purple in the front, some in the garden and some in a pot. In general the ones in pots are doing better.
June 12, 2017
Busy, busy, busy!
Well we were certainly lucky with the lovely sunny weather on Friday for the day out at Chatsworth flower show. It’s not been as nice since! However, there was some dry weather on Saturday and I managed to get 2 trays of seedlings in the garden. 1st picture cosmos and 2nd picture zinnia which some pest has been eating in the greenhouse. I don’t know who or how. I put a line of slug pellets in front of the door on the outside and have been collecting dead slugs ever since.
I think I could do a post daily at the moment as there is something new flowering daily but that would probably be too much for you my lovely readers. Here’s a few things flowering right now in my garden. The pale coloured foxglove is so pretty and I don’t think I planted it myself, think it’s self sowen.
June 14, 2016
June in my garden
So, this morning I did something I don’t do often.. and that is garden in the rain. Here in the north-west of England we’ve had more than our fair share of rain in the past week or so – fortunately we haven’t been flooded here but I know people who have. Anyway, I had some cosmos and agrostemma (corn-cockle) grown from seed in the greenhouse desperate to be planted out and as we’ve had so much rain I wasn’t sure I could wait until it stopped for me to do some gardening so I got out my special new garden wellies and out I went very quickly. I didn’t even water them in as, well the weather was doing that for me!
This afternoon, however, its dry so I guess I could have waited but I wasn’t to know! My garden is coming on really well at the moment with all this rain, with some things flowering and fading away too fast because of it, but its saved me watering the garden lately. My poppies have nearly all finished now, and lupins are fading fast too, not helped by the pesky aphids that I keep spraying but still keep coming. Don’t they understand they are just not welcome in my garden!
Last month I showed a picture of a bright pink shrub I named an azalea, however, it has since been pointed out to me it is in fact a rhododendron! Sorry about that.
This month flowering in my garden, are gorgeous white foxgloves, definitely one of my favourite colours in the garden (if white is considered a colour), a valerian which strictly speaking I moved to the front but is still in the place it came from and in the front garden! A dark red trailing pelargonium on the wall and my red lupin with a purple flower (I do have a purple lupin in a separate flower bed). Lastly my first dahlia to flower – mystic dreamer I think its called
Lastly, some exciting news. A lovely girl I know who blogs her paintings and poems is currently painting one of my garden pictures. If I like it and I’m sure I will, I will post it here when its complete. Watch this space….
June 29, 2015
Summer
Sorry not to have posted for a while, but in this season I am out in the garden every dry moment I can. There is always something to be done, weeding, deadheading, planting, moving of plants and watering. Oh and when all that is done admiring and planning for next season and year! A gardeners work is never done, but I love it.
Last weekend, we went to Arley Hall garden festival, its usually on for 2 days at the end of June and is a chance to buy lots of lovely plants at cheap prices, it also has a lovely flower marquee and some school show gardens. Its a great place to go just for the cheap plants. I bought 8 cottage garden types for less than £30 this year and have 1 left to plant. Among other things I bought a lovely lilac coloured tall delphinium, white with purple splashed geranium and a white and pink penstamen (still to be planted).
This weekend just gone Mum and I went to see some private local gardens that opened in aid of Wilmslow Wells for Africa. These again were lovely, we saw 2 of people we knew and 3 others. 1 was very long and thin full of colourful flowers, trees and bushes. Another had a huge wild flower meadow. I came away, wondering what we have to do to be able to open our garden for this charity. Apart from the obvious weeding and covering up bare patches of soil.
I have also recently started gardening for an elderly neighbour when I can fit it in. I am mostly weeding and tidying up and there is plenty to be done.
I will leave you this time with a picture of my first small vase of cut flowers. These are sweet peas grown from seed and in my garden. They smell amazing and I will definitely be sowing more next year.
June 9, 2015
Cottage gardens
Sorry for not blogging for a while, but when the weather is good I need to be outside doing stuff so have little time to say what I have been doing.
On Saturday I went to a free talk on cottage gardens at a local garden centre. While I love cottage gardens, I am not aiming to create that here, as in its true sense its lots of plants growing a bit too close and looking a little untidy and I prefer a tidier garden. I do, however, love the cottage type of plants – roses, foxgloves, poppies, lupins etc and have these in my garden.
The talk was interesting and did take some things away from it which I will try and explain here.
Firstly, that it is important to annually feed the soil, whether its with a grow more powder or pellets that need to be rained in or compost/well rotted farmyard manure raked into the ground. Just an aside, but we have a neighbouring cat who loves soft compost on the garden for him to do his business as its soft on the paws so this will be tricky when I put the compost round in autumn as I usually do.
Secondly, not to buy all your plants at the same time of year if you want to create a garden that lasts longer than a few months, as the garden centre is always selling what is best at that particular moment. This may be common sense but something I hadn’t thought of.
Thirdly, the need for some plants that don’t die down or have some winter berries or at something to look at otherwise come the winter months the garden will look bare.
My last point from the talk, when using slug pellets they are more effective if you use less.
Something I saw on a gardening programme this week, if you want your seedlings to grow quicker, stroke them or talk to them. Somehow the air movement does something that makes them grow faster. Sorry I am not very scientific so can’t explain this further.
Regarding my garden, I have been busy potting on in the greenhouse and also planting out zinnias, cosmos and agrostemma (corn cockle). I have also been removing the spent forget-me-nots and all the weeds hiding underneath. I may be about half way now but we have so many it will take a few more sessions to complete the task. Then I can look forward to cutting the edges of the grass, a job I don’t enjoy but needs doing.
Lastly some pictures from my garden:
wendyswonderlandgarden 