Through the garden gate-- enjoying the flowers

This week I am joining with Sarah at  Down by the Sea for her monthly garden slot--'Through the Garden Gate'.

May and June are lovely months in the garden, more plants are coming into flower and all the foliage is a lovely fresh green colour.  When it rains this green looks even more vibrant against the dark wet soil.

I finally got to the end of my early spring weeding sessions and mulching the borders with compost.  Working through from the back garden to the front takes an awful long time, but it looks good when it is finished.

 I have been doing some planting in the front garden borders where we have cleared some space.  I had divided some big clumps of flowers from the back garden--a white campanula, giant scabious and lambs ears.  I also planted a geranium psilostemon which a friend gave me last year and I have spent ages deciding where to plant it.  I had some hostas  (from the same friend) which needed planting up too and I decided to put these in containers in the hope they may be less prone to slug damage.

For some instant colour I bought some container bedding plants from the local garden centre and potted these up.  I have big pots of them at the front and back doors and in various places around the garden.

There are so many plants now starting to flower that it's easy to miss them, so different to early Spring when you appreciate each new plant as it emerges. The aquilegia are all over the place, but I love them. There is one clump which has appeared in the yellow border, and is a lovely creamy white which goes perfectly in that bed. I wonder how it knew to put itself there?

We're having a spell of dry sunny weather at the moment, and it's lovely to be able to sit in the garden and just enjoy looking at all the flowers.

The wildlife pond

 

I really love our little wildlife pond and bog garden at the allotment. It was new last year and I loved finding plants which would grow in those wet and boggy conditions. It was a whole new area of gardening which I had little knowledge of, so I learnt quite a bit.  As the new plants started to grow, the wildlife came along to live there and by midsummer it was looking great.

Over the winter it has looked a bit sad and dreary. The heavy rain flooded the area and the pond filled up with silt. Earlier this year we had a few sessions of removing as much of the silt as we could. In the bog garden the weeds started to grow and I didn't want to disturb the ground too much by digging them out as I couldn't remember where I had planted some of the plants. So I left them until the new plant growth appeared.

Weeks ago we heard frog activity in the next door allotment pond and wondered if we would get any frogs. And yes, a few days later we spotted frog spawn and a few little frogs in our pond. Later there were lots of tadpoles, but we have only seen two recently.

Here come the frogs

The pond plants are now growing, the marsh marigold flowered for weeks and was a lovely patch of bright yellow which brightened the place up. It's finished flowering now so I cut it back to allow room for the other plants to grow. In the bog garden the plants are coming back to life. Every time we go to the allotment they seem to have grown another few inches.

lovley blue iris

Most of the hostas which I planted at the edge of the pond are showing no signs of coming back though, I think they may have got drowned when the pond overflowed in the winter rains. They may like damp conditions, but perhaps not so damp! However last week I was really excited to see that one of them is now coming back, no sign of the others though.

Last year when I put the plants in I thought I would see how they looked and grew and then assess it again this year. There is a grass which I have found to be a bit invasive so I have been digging it out but instead of getting rid of it completely I put some of it into pots to contain the roots. There are two pots which I have placed on the rocks around the pond. My sister-in-law gave me some little candleabra primula plants last year which she had grown from seed. I planted these out this week. I've always admired the displays when I've seen them growing by the streamside at RHS Harlow Carr and by the lake at Rosemoor, so I was keen to have some in my own damp garden area. They're on a much smaller scale of course, but they are still a delight to see. One of our local garden centres has just started selling pond plants, which pleased me, and of course I couldn't resist buying a plant-- a little geum rivale.

candleabra primula

We find the pond fascinating and spend a lot of time insect and tadpole spotting. There's a lot of movement in the silt at the bottom too, like tiny little wriggling worms.

        

A new addition to the area is a pile of rotting logs, for insects and frogs to hide in. I also made a small animal house with the help of the  little girl from the plot above us who likes to come and chat to me and we often do jobs together. This is a little box with a hole in it, which we filled with leaves and twigs and covered with more twigs. Hedgehogs or toads will be welcome to make their home there.  Whoever claims it first. Finally as we so enjoy looking at the pond we put an old bench by the side, so when we take a break from our gardening we can sit and enjoy watching the pond life.

Passing by

I always stick to the same path on my morning walk, it's just long enough for me to have some healthy exercise and then get back home to start my jobs for the day. But as I walk along I'm often tempted to go off in other directions as I pass by places which look interesting, other paths which seem to be inviting me to walk along.

I love the stile at the top of the hill--I know where it goes--we've walked along there before.  It goes over the fields to the scout camp where there are beautiful views.  But that's for another day.

Down through the park and I pass by the woods.  It's always muddy there and I'm reminded of when our daughters were young and they used to play on the big rotting tree trunk.  It's rotted down completely now to feed the earth with its remains.

Further along a haze of blue catches my eye--a clump of bluebells beyond the trees enticing me in.

Then past another entrance to the woods is the wild garlic, a mass of white flowers, the subtle garlic smell will linger long after the flowers have gone over.

I continue along  and take in the pink confetti like blossom fallen from the flowering trees lining the path. It will be blown away in an instance with the first strong breeze.

Down the lane to the farm, I stand at the gate looking over the fields for a while then back home with thoughts of places to go, paths to follow on another day when there's more time.

A different sort of garden place

Last week we had a lovely morning out with lunch at Stydd Gardens, Ribchester. We first attempted to visit the gardens a year ago but turned down the wrong lane so of course we couldn't find it. This year with better directions we finally found it.

It's  an unusual garden place. I thought it was going to be a garden centre and although there is a plant centre there are lots of other things too. It's full of rustic, vintage gardenalia, some of which are for sale.. There's a garden to look around which is divided up into different areas, with a pond and fountain, a dove cote, pergola, lawns and borders. There wasn't much going on in the borders, it's a bit early in the year yet, and it needed a bit of a tidy up, but I expect that soon there will be lots of colour. The one plant which caught my eye was a big clump of white honesty. I have purple honesty in my garden which I love, but this was beautiful. It's now on my plant wish list, I will have to find some seeds.

The garden is  well designed and as we walked around we admired the way it was decorated with old garden paraphernalia. This theme continued as we left the garden and walked around the rest of the place.

 

 There were old stone troughs and sinks planted up with alpines, massive ones. Big old metal containers and statues, all very artistically arranged.

 There were also little shops housed in wooden units which were like trendy garden sheds. But the place which I found really amazing was the cafe in the big greenhouse.You could be forgiven for thinking it was just an indoor plant area because the place was full of plants in pots of all sizes.

Lovely old rustic pots with scented geraniums, big galvanised tubs with trees, benches with old tools, garden ornaments, and even a little frog pond.

 

The cafe tables were nestling amongst all the plants and statues. Some of the tables and chairs were fairly rustic and vintage too. I liked the fact that a lot of the tables and chairs didn't match, it all added to the rustic charm.  I thought we might go again in the summer when there are more flowers out and it's warm enough to sit outside for lunch or coffee.

Through the garden gate--planting alpines and herbs

 

 It's been a busy month in the garden. I've had a couple of projects on my to do list which I've managed to complete this month. The first one was to plant up an alpine sink garden. I bought the old sink from a second hand shop a couple of years ago and since then it's been stored in the garage. There's been the occasional comment from my husband about it lying around doing nothing, so I finally I decided to get a move on and do something with it.  A visit to the RHS garden Harlow Carr inspired me. The alpine house there is something quite special and there are lots of stone troughs planted up with alpines which gave me some planting ideas.

Alpine house at RHS Harlow Carr

Alpine troughs at RHS Harlow Carr

I got carried away when I was buying plants and bought too many! That was no problem though as I have a couple of little stone alpine troughs which were looking a bit untidy so I replanted them with some of the new plants.

The sink was very heavy to move but we got it in place outside the back door. I used a mixture of John Innes compost, sharp sand and grit as a planting medium and after planting I covered the top with a layer of grit. I also put some slates on end in between the plants which finished it off nicely.

The next project was to plant up a herb bed. My herbs have always been dotted around the garden, some in pots, some in the ground and I have often thought I would like a specific area for them. We have three raised beds at the top of the garden which have become redundant since we took on the allotment and stopped growing vegetables in the garden. So I decided to use one of these as a herb bed. There was already a clump of sorrel in one of them which had seeded from a nearby pot, so it seemed an obvious place to start the herb bed. I planted chives, lemon balm, French tarragon, three sorts of sage, bronze fennel, oregano and a golden marjoram. There is room for more, so I will add to them over the next few weeks. I have a variety of mint plants growing in pots which will be left as they are to contain the roots.

As usual I have joined with Sarah at Down by the Sea for her monthly 'Through the garden Gate' slot. Have a look at her blog it's really good. I hope you have enjoyed coming through my garden gate this month. Maybe you would like to join us and let us come through your garden gate to view your garden.

Sunny days, goats and a lot of seedlings

Last week  we had some lovely fine sunny days and it was  great to get down to the allotment and catch up with jobs. Working away in the warm sun is so relaxing and then to sit down with a welcome cup of tea admiring our hard work gives a great sense of well being.

The goats which belong to a man who lives nearby are becoming regular visitors, wandering about the lane. They are quite cute, especially the  baby ones, but we have to keep the plot gate shut otherwise they just wander in and eat anything. Up to now they have just eaten the ivy around the gate and we're not too bothered about that. They smell awful though and we can usually smell them before we see them.

I finally got the rest of the onion sets in the ground and then covered them with netting frames to keep the birds from pulling them out. The earlier planted ones had been started off in module trays to get some growth going. This does away with the need to cover with netting.

I planted the broad beans (The Sutton) which were started off weeks ago in cardboard tubes in the greenhouse. They made a double row. We put support sticks around them with string which should stop them from flopping over as they get bigger.

 As the soil is warming up now I decided to sow a row of carrot seeds directly in the ground. We don't have a lot of luck growing carrots. We have tried different ways but the carrot fly always seems to get at them. I think sowing too many is one mistake we have made as when the first carrots are pulled that's when the root fly dives in and gets at the remaining ones. This time I sowed the seed very thinly so there will be no need to thin out. I then covered the row with a fleece cloche and secured it well to the ground. Hopefully the root fly won't be able to get underneath. I will be sowing some more carrots in a deep container in another week or two. This sometimes helps as the root fly doesn't fly over a certain height.

In the asparagus bed we've spotted a couple of  spears poking through the soil. We've also spotted Ziggy the cat sunning herself on top of the bed. So before any more asparagus appears and gets squashed I have covered the bed with prickly holly branches to try to keep her off.

We planted up another big tub of strawberries at the weekend and still had a good number left over, but our grandson's school gardening club were happy to take them off our hands.
 

The greenhouse is a busy place at the moment. It's a constant job, sowing seeds, potting on seedlings, watering and regularly checking to see how they are all doing.  There are trays of seedlings all over the place and I wonder if I will run out of space. I always pot on a lot more seedlings than I will need, some will be spare just in case any die off.  Others will be given away to allotment neighbours or donated to the plant stall at the Church Coffee morning later in May.

Changes in the fruit bed

I've been making changes to the allotment fruit bed recently.   The strawberries which had been in there a couple of years now had completely taken over the ground around and under the fruit bushes. I found it quite difficult scrambling about on my hands and knees to pick the strawberries last summer, and more recently while trying to dig up the runners. It didn't do my back  much good and the bed looked really messy.

As we already have strawberries planted up in an old bath on another part of the plot I decided that I would grow all the strawberries in containers instead of in the ground, where they take up such a lot of space. I have a variety of big containers not being used--old dustbins, dolly tubs, big plastic crates.  You know the sort of thing, that when you have an allotment you save things which might come in useful one day, things which other people are throwing away and you know they could be used on the allotment. That's how we got the old bath.  I decided that now is the time to put some of this 'junk' to good use.

Weeks ago I dug up all the strawberries in the fruit bed and selected good ones from the runners to pot up. I kept them in the cold frame for a while to protect against frost until a couple of weeks ago when Helen planted them up in two of the big containers. There are a few left and being a bit greedy for strawberries, I think I will plant up another container.

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Also in the fruit bed are an apple tree, three blackcurrants, a redcurrant, four blueberries, three rhubarb plants and another tree which has never fruited in the three years it has been there and we don't know what it is. The unknown tree has one last chance this year, if it doesn't produce anything it will be dug up. The redcurrant has been in for two years and also hasn't produced any fruit, so that too is on it's final warning, but I have noticed some flower buds appearing in the last few days, so there's hope yet.

Two of the blueberry plants are new this year and these have been planted near the other ones where some of the strawberries were. Blueberries like an acidic soil, so I put some ericaceous compost in the pIanting hole and a good mulch of shredded pine needles around them all. We love blueberries and have found them easy to grow. Finally I have some gooseberries to plant. These were brought over from Helen's old plot when she gave it up last year and were potted up into big pots until I made some room in the fruit bed. They will be planted in the next week or two, but I'm not looking forward to that as they are so prickly, I might have to use Richard's big heavy duty gloves for that job.

Here's looking forward to a fruitful summer.