Growing away nicely in this year's snow free zone.

What a difference a year makes.  This time last year I was coaxing forgetmenots to flower in desperation after a foot of snow on Easter Sunday, whereas this year I'm spoilt for choice with flowers to cut for my stall!  Tulips abound in every shape, size and colour and everything is bursting into growth and filling out the garden.

I've even managed to get down to the allotment a few times - but have to remind myself to clear and plant, clear and plant…  Otherwise I find myself clearing, clearing, clearing, and then having to start again where I first began as the weeds have come back.   So far, broad beans, peas and parsnips are in. Everyone I meet at the plot seems to be in a good mood and the whole place is starting to look business-like. Even the abandoned plot next to me has been taken over - another family with children so our little corner is starting to look like the youth chapter of our allotment association.

So many veg and annual flowers still clamouring for attention in my seed box and so little room left in my greenhouse and cold frame.  Have sown some annuals direct, but I don't seem to have the best success rate that way. Generally I do much better by sowing in pots and planting out later. But needs must, so am giving it a try again.

In the garden, I'm starting to plant out stocks and sweet peas sown under cover in March - a gamble as there is still potential for frost during the next month, so hope it stays away and my gamble pays off.  Hmmm. We'll see.

Did my first stall of the year on Saturday.  So nice to be back arranging my own flowers as they are so much less uniform than those available commercially and it gives such a different feel to arrangements.  Feels a bit like coming home when I get my mitts on flowers I've raised myself.

First sproutings

I've got spring in my step.

And spring in my propagator - or perhaps it should be classed as late summer, as the payload at this particular point is my nascent crop of dahlias. (Very exciting as its the first time I've overwintered them successfully).  I've been staring at the knobbly tubers for the past week and a half, not quite being able to believe that they've made it through - but hallelujah, small green bumps have appeared, and some have even sprouted leaves.

What's more, this morning I've had a consultation with a bride-to-be who wants to put their blooms to use for her August wedding.  So now I'll be glaring at them daily, willing them to put on a good show and to defeat the attentions of slugs.  That's a very long period of watchfulness ahead of me….

Craspedia is growing in my attic room and snap dragons are hatching on my windowsills and it feels good to be sowing again.  In the greenhouse, muscari are being very well behaved in their teacup homes, sweet pea shoots are poking forth and my pots of dwarf tulips look like they might put in an appearance in time for my first wedding, in April.

Things are getting busier on all fronts:  in the Tuckshop Garden, the other gardens I tend and in terms of flower orders - all of which accounts for my blogging absence over the past couple of weeks. This week saw me providing flowers for a Green Brum meal at Birmingham's Council House - a rather grand venue, but I reckon the Cornish narcissi did themselves proud in their recycled vases and weren't overawed by the event. It was lovely to get a message from the organiser saying how happy she was with the flowers - hope I've managed to increase the fan base for British grown blooms in the process.

So I'll leave you with this taste of spring and get back to pricking out seedlings in the greenhouse between showers.

Wordless Wednesday - Refreshing.

The Ruthless Gardener wanders

Decided I'd take you on a quick tour of the garden and made a little video to show you the borders as they are at the moment. 

In my previous incarnation in trade publishing, I used to be known as 'slasher' for my curt editorial tendencies, and listening to my commentary, I can see that this trait has now translated itself to the garden. I didn't realise how many plants are on a yellow card until I heard my multiple pronouncements of imminent death.  It's always good to keep plants on their toes though - once they stop performing or become pests, get them out!  It also gives you room for more new ones....

So, if you are sitting comfortably, then we'll begin. (Don't know why this especially boring shot shows in the preview, but I'm learning all this video mularkey as I go along)

T-shirts and taters

Stop press - was gardening in a short sleeved t-shirt today - can't remember the last time I did that - even if it did end up on the radiator after getting soaked in a downpour.  Fantastic to be out without various layers of swaddling and hats.

Had a multi-site day of digging today - a trip to the allotment to get spuds in, and ground elder attacks and weeding at home. So at the plot I now have a row and a half of Charlotte potatoes, and a row and a half of Rooster main crops in situ, along with a dressing of muck.  Can't wait to see what that does for them.  Forgot to take the raspberry canes which my dad recently donated,  so there is a useful reason to get back down there later in the week.  Checked on my peas, but no signs of life there yet - even under the tunnel cloche.

In the garden at home, things are looking a bit more cheerful as there are actually green things growing in the borders where I have planted my strong seedlings.  Makes such a difference.  A few circuits of the gardener's prowl also reveal that brunnera, astrantia, peonies, veronica and various other perennials are starting to sprout too.  There are even tiny buds on the spirea.   Lurking down at soil level, cowslip buds and grape hyacinth flowers are forming, so am praying for warmth and a growth spurt in time for next weekend's flower stall. Clematis 'Markham's Pink' has big fat buds waiting to pop, and that makes a surprisingly good cut flower, so it would be brilliant if that comes out in the next few days.

This time last year, all these boys were out - none at this stage yet, but buds are finally showing on the cowslips and pink clematis at least.

Primulas are looking cheery, a few daffs are now out, and honesty is threatening to develop its flower spikes.  Allium and tulips are looking leafy and strong too. Come on you lot, get a shift on!

Any of my neighbours peering into my garden would have spotted me doing various jigs of delight today.  The first one prompted by me finally managing to up-end and remove the rambling rose stump after letting the winter frosts do their work (in combination with my loppers, fork and jumping up and down with my not insignificant weight on the stump for half and hour or so).  The second was when I finally got round to chopping down a straggly, half dead viburnum which I've been meaning to tackle for months.  Light can now get into the border beneath it, and it opens up a whole load of planting space, hence jig number 2.

Off to do all the neglected household chores now - if the weather keeps improving, the house is going to get a whole lot dustier and dirtier....

Wordless Wednesday - Pinning my hopes on Magnolia...

Egg posies

Thinking about my first stall in April and decided that this was a nice way to use small flowers from the garden for easter arrangements. Just got to find ways to make everything stay put for ease of transportation, and then these could work!

Primulas, viburnum tinus, pittosporum and lungwort.

Spring teacups

Spalding bulbs sent me some freebies in December and I planted them in the greenhouse, given that they'd arrived at the tail end of the planting season. Here I rehome them into more salubrious surroundings, ready to go for spring.

A small nip of snowdrops

Finally my snowdrops are starting to come out. Love them in these tiny glasses - I'll have to look out for more of these venerable curvy sherry sippers as they are perfect for posies.  Plan to do lots of these on my stall with other small flowers. Makes me feel all spring-y.

As these snowdrops are in the border I've widened, I'll also keep an eye on when they finish flowering, because that's the time I'll need to hoick them forwards to the front of the border as they are traditionally moved 'in the green' rather than when they are dormant.  Watch over your snowdrops and seize this moment to split them into new clumps to start off small new colonies in shady corners which cry out for some late winter/early spring highlights.

Will make the most of this mild weather to go out and do some weeding while it lasts. Also need to turn over and feed the areas of garden which I have just denuded of turf.  Are things really swinging towards the growing season now? Sincerely hope so...

New blooms for New Year

They didn't quite make it in for Christmas, but my forced hyacinths decided to join the party for New Year. (Note to self - must make a note of when I start them off next year, so I can guesstimate how to adjust the timing to get them to flower for the start of the festive season).

Not bad for pound shop bulbs - a cheap present for myself.   Trying to forecast the colour was a bit like guessing delightful plastic content of a Christmas cracker. Their hyacinthy scent has replaced defunct piney wafts from my crispy tree in the living room, breathing a bit of floral life into 2013.  It's the first time I've forced hyacinths in water and have to confess that I have become quite taken with the aesthetic qualities of  their fleshy, slightly creepy, white roots in the glass vases.

 Look at that blue! What a great colour to bring in the year.

On which note, thought I'd better show you something amazing which I spotted outside my window this morning.

Happy New Year and a fruitful and floriferous 2013 to all!

Boing time

The garden is starting to come into its own now - am determined to keep it going this year.  In the last couple of years, it has been great in early summer and then peters out after July.  I love this time when all the greens are so bright - especially with lots of clashing tulips - a flower I once thought I would never have success with.

Anyhow - here are some of the latest snaps

Filling out nicely!

Short orange tulips are 'Princess Irene', tall orange lily-flowered ones are 'Ballerina' and mad pink ones are 'Dolls Minuet'.  Purple ones are 'Passionale'.

I love the look of this mustard and it's really tasty in salads too - 'Red Frills' - seeds prolifically so really easy to keep stocks up year after year from just a single plant.  Dead easy and so gorgeous...

Honesty seems to grow anywhere and makes a really good cottagey cut flower.

Here it is again, under the Japanese maple - what a colour combination!

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it colour scheme fascists!!!

Bursting buds!

I love this time of year - you go away for a week and come back to find your garden is 50% fuller than when you left. Boinging is occurring. The recent damp weather has done everything the power of good AND the water butts are all full again.

Since I went away, more tulips have come into bud, the pear tree has started to blossom (that was nearly 'plossom' - I quite like that typo), the guelder roses and actual roses are busting with new leaves and the clematis on the garage is hanging with fat nuggets waiting to open.  More fool the ones that do because I was reading a flower arranging book the other day which said that clematis make surprisingly good cut flowers.  Any flowers that were open this morning have been snipped and put into my latest bunch.

The greenhouse has had yet another reshuffle as more things that have germinated in indoor warmth are booted out to toughen up.  I just hope this -4 degrees which I heard rumoured in a recent weather forecast for the Midlands just doesn't materialise.  That's the only problem with early spring seed-sowing enthusiasm and an unheated greenhouse.  Still, the seedlings and plantlets in there at present are looking happy enough, if growing a little more slowly in the current shifting temperatures.

I'm getting very impatient with my most recent batch of dahlia tubers though - they are showing no eagerness to sprout nearly three weeks after being introduced to compost...  I'm going to start shouting at them soon to see if that works!

First bunch of the year

Big fat buds are appearing on the pear tree and I've had to clean out the cold frames to house the greenhouse overflow.  It must, therefore, be spring.

I've even managed to pick enough stuff for a vase of flowers, so hopefully it is the start of a prolific year of flowery marvellousness.

Must prune more of the red-stemmed dogwood used in the arrangement above, so it comes back with more bright red growth late in the year.  Love the lime green of its leaves at the moment. Very eye pokey!  Have planted lots more honesty seeds (the purple stuff) in the garden this week, so should get lots more to pick over the next few months - got quite a surprise to see that flowering this early - must be a self-sown seedling that has overwintered in the hedge bottom.  Also sowed pot marigolds, nigella and cerinthe so I should get a few vasefuls from that investment of five minutes labour.  I love this pink hellebore flower - a seedling from one of my mother-in-law's plants years ago, which is now firmly established in my own garden.

Nearly pruned the straggly bit off the amelanchier tonight, but had the bright idea of holding off for another few days.  If I trim it back when its blossom buds are a bit further on, I can enjoy it in the house rather than just putting it straight into the shredding pile.

This good weather has brought on a ruthless purge on all things which are not earning their keep in the flower border, or which need dividing to promote new vigourous growth.  Leggy lavenders have gone, sambucus nigra is about a third of the size it was this morning, things have a bit of breathing space around them, and plant labels marking out seed beds are now starting to appear in all the borders.

 A friend went home with a tray full of various hardy geraniums, lysimachia, knapweed and knautia as she's just in the process of digging out a new flower border and needs some inhabitants for the bare soil.  Just hope I haven't passed her any bits of ground elder with it.  I DID inspect all the rootballs carefully to see if there were any nuggets of the evil weed lurking within.  I see that stuff when I close my eyes at night at the moment!