There’s a tiny border at the very front of the front garden that’s a four foot thin strip. It’s where the young clematis that I’ve got an insurance policy on has been planted and where the left-over lily bulbs from last year ended up.
Earlier this year, I threw on some wildflower seed from a seed packet. At least in the UK, wildflower meadows, planting and gardening in general is being pushed hard and is slowly becoming fashionable (probably through brain-washing), so I thought I would have a small trial patch to see what all the fuss is about.
There was a pause of a about two or three months between sowing and anything exciting happening. It may have been because of the appalling weather but it did take a very long time for the seeds to germinate and get started. We spotted Spurge in the mix, it’s a small, leafy, innocent looking plant with unusual flowers but if you let it grow for the first year, you’ll be bulldozing them out of your whole garden by the third – it’s incredibly invasive – so out it came. There were also a couple of other unpleasant weedy-looking plants that I didn’t like the look of so out those went too.
Overall, I’m not really won over by the results apart from two plants that have combined very well. The first is the cornflower, which is an arresting ice-blue.
Close-by but on the complete opposite end of the colour scale is the fiery-orange california poppy.
These two together actually aren’t as gaudy as I had first feared (although this is probably more to do with my ageing sense of taste). I think having these two intermingling on the drive will look really good.
I’ll be sure to collect the seeds from both of these plants and sow them into the drive next year. The plan is that they will eventually germinate and grow and self-seed themselves in subsequent years.
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