A post for February
My plan to get on with the garden while I am only half employed has not worked. This is partly because most of February has been cold. Not dramatically cold, but persistently only just above freezing during the day. So I have been unable to do any more mortaring, or indeed, very much at all. Today I realised it was almost the end of February and if I didn’t get a post in, I would have missed out a whole month.
So I went out and inspected the bulbs I have planted in the Residents’ communal areas.
Snowdrop from a dry bulb
Early dwarf iris
It has been well known for a while that snowdrops planted from dry bulbs don’t work. The RHS now advises that planting them in the green doesn’t work either. It’s amazing that anyone has any snowdrops at all. Fortunately, the 15 snowdrops that I bought from Wilkinson’s haven’t read the advice. Only one has flowered, but as far as I can tell, all or nearly all of them have produced leaves.
I then spent an hour or so tidying up my rubble collection, sweeping up the crumbs and leaves. I have chosen the rubble which I want to use under my log effect stepping stones and taken most of the rest to the dump. Since my last post I have laid the last of the square stepping stones. I have decided that I want to install the log effect stepping stones myself, but I definitely need someone to install the six square stepping stones down the left hand side of the garden. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find anyone who is interested yet, because it is such a small job.
It’s now getting more urgent that I finish off the stepping stones, for two reasons. One is that the plants I ordered from J Parkers have arrived.
Plants from J Parkers
I have received: a Daphne Odora Aureomarginata, Hebe Heartbreaker, Japanese Azalea (free), 12 cascading begonias (also free), 5 Gallery Lupins, 10 heathers, 20 Phlox subulata and 6 Thymus Serpyllum. The Phlox and the Thymus are for planting in between the stepping stones. I don’t really know exactly where I am going to put all the plants, but ideally I need to plant them at the end of March so I need to make a decision.
The other reason is that I have now got a job, working for Hampshire County Council in Winchester. I don’t have a start date yet, but when I start, I will suddenly find myself with virtually no spare time again. So I am really hoping that next week the temperatures will perk up and the rain will hold off, and I can do as much to the garden as possible.