KING OF BLOGS: plants

Showing posts with label plants. Show all posts

Monday, March 28, 2011

Psst! Fancy Some Nasturtium Seeds?

As you can see I have rather a lot of packets of nasturtium seeds, which I acquired in the process of telling you about Nick Hamilton's Twitterchat last year.

They're the perfect thing for a giveaway as they can be used by both gardeners and food growers alike. I started growing nasturtiums up at the allotment a few years ago, where they've made a regular appearance ever since. Gardeners concerned about their self-seeding tendencies may like to restrict them to their summer pots, where they can be kept under total control ;)

They flower prolifically and all parts apart from the stems are edible. NAH is usually quite conservative when it comes to vegetables, so it's pretty surprising that he happily munches away on the flowers as well as their peppery leaves in salads. I also make delicious nasturtium capers and have been known to give my plants an allotment version of the Chelsea Chop.

The variety I have on offer is Jewel Mix, which grows to around 9-12 inches in height. I don't usually go for seed mixes, but I rather like the rich yellows, oranges and reds of these. Now's the perfect time to sow them and I can confirm they have a good germination rate.

If you'd like a packet, then do leave me a comment below. I have 25 packets of around 20 seeds per pack to give away, so I'll do it on a first come, first served basis. Once they've gone they've gone! Sorry, this is only open to UK readers.

Update 29th March 5pm: Note to self: I must also ask you to send me your address details when setting this kind of thing up! Everyone who's replied up to and including Juliet should have been contacted by now for your address details. However, I can't get hold of 30foxley, Karen and Hilary. I do hope you come back here, see this and contact me via vegplotting at gmail dot com so I can arrange to send you your seeds. Assuming you do, I have 6 packets left for anyone else who'd like some :)

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

GBBD: Not So Mellow Yellow

March of course is unashamedly yellow. There's lots of daffodils nod, nod, nodding in the breeze, their cheerfulness reassuring us that spring is truly here, even if things might go out with one last wintry roar at the end of the month. Until now, I've always chosen them to showcase March in my garden. However, 2011 already is turning out to be an untypical year: if there is such a thing as typical in the world of gardening.

After the cold of December, January saw my snowdrops blooming far earlier than usual by around 10 days. They're just beginning to go over and now my daffodils are taking their place. But what's this? We have a usurper in our midst: my Forsythia has decided to bloom ahead of its far daintier cousins. This is a first for my garden and is just plain wrong.

I'm sure it's because I've decided to get rid of it this year, so it's decided to play by the rules of Houdini Plants I devised a while ago. As you can see it's flowering its socks off in a kind of last hurrah. Until now it's never been a prolific bloomer, usually preferring to proffer an odd twig of gold here and there instead.

Today it's as loud as its far lustier cousins and showing just how garish a Forsythia can be. I bought it because the corner it's planted in is usually dull and I wanted it to brighten the spot. It's also a variegated variety, my reasoning being that this would make it more interesting during the non-flowering period. How wrong I was: a variegated non-flowering Forsythia is just as boring as the more conventional kind. So I'm showing it off today because I've never shown it before and as a final record of how that part of the garden looks before I change it.

In other news I've lost my heart to a Hellebore. This is most strange as I don't usually go for them at all. I get irritated by their downward looking flowers and have had lots of difficulty when growing them in the past with ugly black spots on the foliage. All that changed when I went to the RHS Show last month and met Helleborus 'Winter Moonbeam'. I spent a lot of time looking at her whilst Victoria made her snowdrop selection, but the visions of that black spotted foliage made me determined not to cave in to her charms.

Returning to the Halls late on in the afternoon was a dangerous move as the crowds had gone and there was time to chat at length to the pleasant woman on the Harveys stand. I explained my previous difficulties with Hellebores which prompted lots of questions about my garden and soil. It appears its previous life as a farm means that the ground is trying to return to a meadow and the clay soil isn't really helping re the fungus responsible for the black spots. I really need to rework the soil, dig deep and add lots of gravel. There was lots of advice and absolutely no pressure to buy, just a cheery 'well you need to go and do a bit of thinking about what you want to do then'.

Then I spotted one of them in a large pot. 'Oh, can you grow them like that?' I asked. 'Oh yes' came the reply, 'These have been potted up for 3 years. Just give them some bonemeal a couple of times a year and they'll be fine.' That made my mind up and I now have a pair of delightful large flowered Hellebores lighting up the steps down to my shed. I love their marbled foliage too: a double unexpected delight. It just goes to show that perhaps if we dislike a particular plant, it's not really dislike at all but probably because we haven't found the right one yet.

I'll make an exception in the case of the Forsythia though ;)

Garden Bloggers Blooms Day is hosted by Carol at May Dreams Gardens.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

GBMD: Dear March, Come In!

Primrose 'Cottage Cream' - in flower since July last year

Dear March, come in!
How glad I am!
I looked for you before.
Put down your hat–
You must have walked–
How out of breath you are!
Dear March, how are you?
And the rest?
Did you leave Nature well?
Oh, March, come right upstairs with me,
I have so much to tell!

I got your letter, and the birds’;
The maples never knew
That you were coming,–I declare,
How red their faces grew!
But, March, forgive me–
And all those hills
You left for me to hue;
There was no purple suitable,
You took it all with you.

Who knocks? That April!
Lock the door!
I will not be pursued!
He stayed away a year, to call
When I am occupied.
But trifles look so trivial
As soon as you have come,
That blame is just as dear as praise
And praise as mere as blame.

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)