With the days getting longer and occasionally warmer, Spring is advancing and I used the long Easter weekend to start bringing plants out of the cosy comfort of the greenhouses and out of winter hibernation. It’s time to start the growing season for 2015.
With the major part of the patio now scrubbed and cleaned to a bright sparkling finish, it was time to set up the patio pot plants for this year. I decided to shift things around a bit by moving the barbecue closer to the kitchen to make outdoor grilled meat more likely for dinner and the table and chairs were moved to an even sunnier spot. I part-surrounded this table and chairs with pot plants to try and get a more “enclosed” feel. I only paid a small amount of attention to pots that prefer shade and others that prefer to bake as the patio is very sunny – oppressively so at the height of summer – and there’s really not a great deal in the way of shade unless its supplied by other plants.
Patio finally scrubbed!
The theme of hostas, iris and roses remains the same, with those making up the majority, but there are also others plants such as Clematis, lavender, ferns and even a fig. Things are looking rather sparse at the moment as the hostas and ferns have yet to emerge, the fig is leafless, the roses are only just getting going and the Clematis is still a pile of dead sticks however, as things begin to grow it will all begin to knit together and look like a large, individually-potted herbaceous border.
Shiny new watering system being plumbed in.
I’ve had few casualties this winter, I think it was only the chillies from last year, which did not survive the cold. During particularly windy weather, we have been at risk of the walk-in plastic greenhouse taking off and ending up in someone else’s garden. It really did get a battering to the point where it threw pots and seed trays off the staging inside. Waking up in the morning to find seedlings and young plants in piles scattered on the floor was very discouraging. Fortunately, most have survived and have re-emerged from their winter shake-up.
Chilli plants don’t like Winter.
I’m trying to resurrect the trailing fuchsias that were in the front trugs last year. At the moment, they look like dead sticks. A couple have a few new green leaves but most look gone. Perhaps optimistically, I gave them a soak and have put them in the warm greenhouse in the hope that they may wake from the dead and start growing again. The Banksiae Lutea rose is sheltering in the warm greenhouse too. It likes it so much in there that it will be flowering heavily (for the small plant it is) this year. As these roses are tender when young, I’ll be keeping it within the protection of the greenhouse until around May, when I will plant it out next to the Wisteria at the front. The Strelitzia – which has been lounging around inside the house – will be joining the patio pot plants when the nights rise above 5°C.
Trying to bring trailing fuchsias back from the dead.
There’s still the rest of the patio to scrub and I have to set up the irrigation system for all these pots. I also have great plans for patio staging for the multitude of seed trays and little plants I have that will populate the garden. More on that in another post (and after I’ve done some shopping).
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