Give Fruit a Chance

Impetuosity when gardening equals failure and dejection. Actually, impetuosity in life often equals failure and dejection. But this is a gardening blog, not a philosophy blog, so I will stick to seedlings. Today I planted out a multitude of Queen Anne's Lace, Nigella and Blue Lace Flower seedlings. Most had developed true leaves, but some still only had their seed leaves, so who knows whether they will survive the trauma of being transplanted. I thought about waiting until they were bigger to give them a better chance and then thought, what the hell.

I also cleared some grass away from the peach and an apple tree, fertilised each of them with a kilo of rose food, watered the fertiliser in and mulched them. The peach did not fruit at all last year, hopefully this year it will, so I can wander out in January, pick random fruit that I have failed to protect with a net and then throw them in the compost, having been half-eaten by birds and inhabited by insects. The forget-me-nots are blooming, as are the azaleas, jasmine, lavendar and daisies.

Forget-me-not

Bluebells 

Bluebells always remind me of Lord Denning, who began his judgment in Hinz v Berry [1970] 2 QB 40 with, "It happened on April 19, 1964. It was bluebell time in Kent". I have always been thankful for that segue.

http://www.kentonline.co.uk/kent/news/bluebells-in-kent-a64581/

Nasturtiums

Growing up in Mosman, nasturtiums (Tropeolum majus) were something that just were in the landscape. Tumbling over garden walls and scrambling over the ground in parks and gardens, I never thought of anyone actually planting them, let alone that there were different cultivars. The round leaves are a nice, peppery addition to a salad and the flowers are pretty and edible, too. When I was a child I loved sucking the nectar from the base of the flowers and eating the occasional leaf when I was playing in the garden.

They self seed easily, hence thinking they were a weed as a child. Actually, they probably are classed as a weed. Nasturtiums are originally from South America.

Here is a blue violet, with lobelia and borage in the background. Nasturiums would look great with these colours, but I don't allow any yellow or orange in that part of the garden except for the odd daffodil.

The sun is finally peaking out after a whole weekend of rain. I managed to weed the back rose bed where the nasturtiums grow, along with some blue Triteleia that I bunged in in about April 2013 after I found the bulbs neglected and sprouting in a bag in the potting area. 

Next week I hope to remove the grass from the base of the apple and citrus trees, fertilise them and mulch them and you never know, maybe we'll be eating our own apples in autumn. 

Stupid things I did in the garden today

I accidentally almost ripped out a lavander that was already stressed because it hadn't been watered for ages. I trod on another lavander and snapped the biggest stem. And I put weeds that had gone to seed in the compost.

On a brighter note, the some of the lace flower seeds have germinated and the blue part of the garden is coming along. I added a borage officianalis. I sowed salvia 'Cottage Blue' seeds, cosmos and Italian parsley. The salvia and cosmos will look gorgeous together. I sowed most of the seeds in trays, but sprinkled some around the new climbing iceberg, because I have to water that every day for six weeks, so the cosmos seeds will be kept damp enough to germinate. This is assuming I remember/can be bothered watering the Iceberg every day. Big assumption.

14 January 2012

 The lavandula x intermedia 'Grosso' was not the best choice for a hedge lavander, because it is quite small and since I think I killed two of them today, I might move the rest and replace them with a larger lavander or even something entirely different.

31 August 2014