Raking up leaves, sowing seeds, and enjoying the garden

The central bed on a February day.

I’ve had a busy day in the garden today, raking up leaves, weeding, sowing seeds, filling a raised bed with topsoil and some general tidying. The garden is starting to look more alive than it has for a couple of months and there are plenty of new young shoots coming up.

The Delphiniums seem to be doing especially well at the moment and I have a number at different stages of growth; some are in the ground, some are mature plants that were removed from a bed at the end of last autumn and kept over winter in pots, and others are small seedlings from seed that I sowed in august/september time last year.

It was also cheering to see the Pulmonaria breaking into flower. I’m not a huge fan of the foliage as it seems to very easily go brown and slimy so I tend to cut this back to the fresher green stuff which makes for a tider, more attractive plant. The flowers are dainty but the colour is intense when there is so little else around it.

I managed to get some seeds sown too today: Broad beans, Nicotiana Affinis, and Lupins.  But the most exciting part of the day was discovering the root cuttings of the poppy ‘Patty’s Plum’ that I had taken on 9th January had finally sent up shoots. I had given up hope that they were going to do anything so I was overjoyed to see the little shoots reaching for the light! 

Tiny shoot but HUGE excitement!

I know it doesn’t look like much, but trust me, this is very exciting stuff!! A successful bit of propagation.