How the garden is looking

The borders are neat and tidy. In October I pruned back the shrubs and roses and fuchsias and dug a bit of rotted manure around them. The rest of the space I dug to 4-5 inches and laid down some bulb compost and planted as many spring bulbs as I could fit in. I went for the standard tulips and daffodils with a few clumps of crocuses. I put some crocuses around the shrubs with the idea that they would spring up into life while the shrub is dormant and die off before the shrub starts sprouting. As I had some blue hyacinth bulbs already in the ground, I replanted them around a shrub as well. I’m hoping that all the bulbs will grow and provide us with a wonderful colourful display in the spring. There are also loads of bluebell bulbs in the soil that we inherited when we bought the house, both blue and white petalled ones. Now here’s a question – are white petalled bluebells called whitebells or are they called white bluebells?

 So much for the spring display; it’s early summer and beyond that is always the challenge for me to provide colour for. I had a few sunflowers last summer but they lasted far less a time than anyone else’s seemed to. I tried growing cosmos but the slugs ate all 30-odd of them. My plan for this year is that once the bulbs have died down, because they are at a good depth, I can put other plants in the soil that won’t disturb them. I am perusing the catalogues to see what to buy.

 Even on Christmas day, there were the top shoots of crocuses poking through the ground, and now a few daffodil shoots are starting to appear. This goes for the containers as well as the border. It is encouraging to see the brave little things poking up – an early sign that there is life there, although it always seems ages before the flowers come despite the head start.

 

When I had completed planting the bulbs, the borders looked great as they were freshly dug over and had the dark earth-coloured appearance, but the late autumn and winter rains have washed soils off the stones that were there and now the borders look rather grave. Apparently this has something to do with worms taking soil downwards as well, but I think it’s mostly the rain. Now, however, there are masses of tiny, two-leafed weed shoots that are plaguing the border that I need to deal with before they all get established.