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.

Autumn sown Sweet Peas; and Hellebores in the garden

Things are starting to happen in the garden; more on that at the weekend, but here’s a taster with this lovely Hellebore just about to come into flower:

There are also plenty of Sweet Peas coming on that were sown in late autumn last year. These should make strong plants but in order to try and extend the growing season I sowed some more Sweet Peas last week. The result of all this should hopefully be the soaring stems that you see below:

My wife cutting the Sweet Peas that we grow at the end of the veg beds.

 

My wife is picking the Sweet Peas. She is a florist and cut flower grower. Have a look at her work at