Caitlin Atkinson
22.07.2023 - 19:35 / ramblinginthegarden.wordpress.com
Having successfully got five streptocarpus through the winter and into bloom I am a little more hopeful of my prowess with them, but will feel more confident once I have got them through a second winter too – and may even be tempted to add one or two more! The fern behind them is a couple of plantlets lifted from the saucer under a pot of sarracenia, kept topped up with water and seemingly an ideal breeding ground for ferns – the asplenium is understandable as there is a lot of it in the garden but I don’t know what this fern is or where the spores have come from.
I meant to show off the streptocarpus last week after watching a buff-tailed bumblebee, in its search for nectar, puncturing the corolla of several blooms with its proboscis to reach the sugariness. The series of puncture marks disfigured the blooms, noticeable after a few days, but thankfully the bee didn’t comprehensively work its way around every bloom.
The weather has been very mixed this week, with frequent showers but some sunshine too. The urge to achieve at least some small task in the garden today became too great and I ventured out for an hour in the afternoon to plant out some new acquisitions from a recent visit to Avondale Nursery. This nursery holds a National Collection of sanguisorba and having been enamoured with the genus after visiting a local open garden last year and buying one or two plants, I now wanted to add more. Below is one of last year’s purchases, S ‘Candy Floss’, although not all of my small collection are as fluffy as this (or as tall):
Also pink and dangly is the suddenly reappeared dierama shown below. This blog tells me that I purchased a group of three perhaps as long as ten years ago, of which one flowered once in 2016 and
Caitlin Atkinson
…well, one bee, although there were several on the echinops above, E Arctic Glow’, when I was trying to take a photograph, but they wouldn’t stand still or long enough! The garden, is, however, currently swarming with bees and butterflies, which is good to see.
Have you ever heard that planting a small garden is like writing a short story instead of a novel? Well, I hadn’t either—until Los Angeles designer Adam Sirak said it—and I think it’s brilliant. “Some people might think they can’t have an amazing garden or that it’s not worth the trouble because they don’t have a big space,” Sirak says. “But a small space only means you have to take all your ideas and distill them down to a concentrated big idea.” He adds that, as with a short story, there’s no room for filler, and each choice must be thought of in relationship to the whole. “In this way, a small space can be a very exciting puzzle to put together,” he says.
The term pullet refers to a young hen, usually under one year of age. Once a chick develops feathers rather than down, it is then called a pullet if it is female or a cockerel if it is a male. Pullet can refer to a laying hen or a meat chicken but it is more typically used for a laying hen.
There’s nothing better than growing your own organic vegetables, freshly harvested and available to eat that day. However, here at Garden Organic’s demonstration garden we also want to grow produce that’s attractive and encourages pollinators and beneficial insects.
You can’t throw lilies away if Lily is still wearing them (Lonnie Donegan)
A common site in many town gardens are trees that have outgrown their space. Large native trees like Oaks, Copper Beach, Planes, Weeping Willow and horse chestnuts are wonderful, but to be really enjoyed they need suitable space, like in a park. If they are planted in the garden they will
Where space is limited or very limited there are still many ways to create a productive kitchen garden.
The last week or two has seen an influx of butterflies in the garden, which may or may not be the norm at this time of year; some have even paused long enough for me to photograph them, which is certainly not the norm! I hadn’t planned to seek them out for Six on Saturday, the meme hosted by Jim of Garden Ruminations, but nevertheless they still wangled themselves into the photographs. Above is a meadow brown.
Zinnias are easy to grow. They are half-hardy annuals, so need to be sown in the protection of a greenhouse or a propagator on a bright house windowsill in mid to late spring. Once they’re large enough to handle, prick them out individually and grow on before transplanting outdoors when all risk of frost has passed.
We can employ many tricks to grow more fruit in less space. One key strategy that is very useful to understand is growing fruits as cordons in small spaces.
Most items that are an integral part of our daily routine are made of plastics. Plastic is an incredibly versatile and durable material, which is why it is so popular today. Furniture, containers, appliances, packaging, and even synthetic clothing can lead to the release of tiny plastics called microplastics into our environment and water systems.