More Time in the Garden

It’s that time of year when I could almost write a blog post about the garden on a daily basis as there’s so much happening. Even on the slightly grey dreary days there’s plenty to do and plenty of new plants and flowers emerging. On the sunny days it seems to transform itself.

Jobs to do

That does of course mean there are plenty of jobs to keep on top of too. First on the agenda last weekend was to build a new log store. It didn’t take long at all. All we need now are some logs to fill it so that they can season during the summer and then keep us warm next winter.

Other than that it was mainly pottering about, weeding, mulching and generally continuing with the Spring clean-up over the weekend. The pots out the front have some colourful tulips in them, but the narcissus that are supposed to be in there too don’t seem to be doing very well.

Various borders have been tidied a little and weeded.

Our new hawthorn trees that we planted earlier in the year all seem to be doing well and have fresh new leaves poking out the top of their protective sleeves.

While cutting back the dogwood I decided to plant the stems that I’d cut off to see if any of them take to add a little to the hedging/shelter around the edges of the garden. It’s barely ‘planting’ really I just shove them into the ground and hope for the best. It saves cutting them up for composting and some of them might take.

Talking of trees, the bonsais trees are springing into life as well. The larch tree is literally ‘popping’ out into leaf and the alders that I grew from seed last year are doing well too. I don’t think I can quite call them bonsai trees yet even if they are trees in pots, but they are pre-bonsai if nothing else. I had a few hawthorns left over that I put into pots as well. I’ve decided to try to make a couple of these into bonsai trees too and might turn a few of them into a small group planting as well.

The Cherry Tree is about to burst into blossom, and there are others that are just ahead of it.

The bottom of the garden is always left a little more wild. Here the Celandine is looking lovely. I know it’s kind of a weed, but the flowers are nice at this time of year, the heart shaped leaves are nice too and as ground cover it’s fine by me. What’s weird is that I never see any bees on it. It looks like the sort of flower they would love, but clearly not as it’s always devoid of bees. The bees were super busy on Saturday, but there wasn’t a single one on the celandine.

The comfrey however, which is also doing well at the moment does attract bees. Not the honey bees so mich but the bumble bees seem to love it. The comfrey is pretty much left to go wild and looks nice with the spikey leaves of various irises and crocosmia poking up through it.

As always there’s plenty to do. Next on the list will be to sort the pots out I think. There are quite a few with Day Lillies and Hosta’s in. I think I’m going to divide them all and put half of them into the garden somewhere. The day lilies seem to do well wherever I put them and it’ll be good to see if we can get hostas growing in the beds and borders too. Somehow I think the slugs and snails will have other ideas with those though!

Tags: GardenHome & Garden