Violet's Garden Diary

Have finally cleaned the propagator and modules, and warmed up some compost, and Annabelle helped to sow the first batch of seed for next year. They were (6 cells each):

• Aquilegia McKana hybrids – haven’t seen last year’s lot flower, but hope that more will always be welcome somewhere
• Aquilegia own seed from the Yellow Star. Interestingly, the seeds were much larger than the commercial McKana’s in the packet
• Lovage, from own seed
• Honestly, the last remnants of the Island seed

All gone in under the lid with the heat on, will see what happens

The snow did come, a whole half an inch along roof edges, before being promptly washed away by the rain. Managed to get out for long enough to plant out the mixed anemone blanda, some round the edge of the hosta pot (new suggestion from the Garden article, apparently they work well in terms of seasons), and the last few round the cherry. The cherry hadn’t been tied in properly, naughty me…

The seed-raised dahlias have mostly been frosted back, but I was quite surprised to find the ones that were crammed into a pot had pretty decent tubers (I just wanted the pot back), so I’ve kept them in the garage, just to see what happens.

The small salad leaves on the window sill are pretty pathetic by now – we have had some eating out of them, but they are so leggy and pale, I am just not impressed.

Bulbs:

• Crocus Grand Yellow in the triangle lawn, to come before the grape hyacinths. Annabelle helped to back fill the holes. Haven’t manages to get of aconites yet.
• Fritillaria uva-vulpis – in pot, just to see what happens, and couldn’t quite work out where to put it.
• Chionodoxa luciliae Snow Glories (purpley in the picture, but we’ll see what they are like to real) – pot as well, the rockery wasn’t quite in a fit state to dig. Did find the first cyclamen in it though – very beautiful indeed, but a bit too close to the Jacob’s ladder, and so hard to see.
• Narcissi Hawera – half of these had gone mouldy (quite late for them, so fair enough), so they went in a pot as well. Brought in the Paper Whites from last year, just in time – snow promised tomorrow.

Put the small anemones to soak, for planting tomorrow.

Stuck some more of the mysterious succulent babies into a small pot – the last one got given away, so I was back to a single plant. Must get round to identifying it one of these days.

The first of the amaryllis has shot the spike up. The sweedes are ready to harvest. Flower-wise the bright red kaffir liles are still going, the odd marigold, and the Dawn Viburnum has finally done its thing properly, with plenty of little florets on the bare branches, although I wouldn’t say that end of November is quite spring, but they are most welcome anyway.

We also tidied up the strawberry plants, the remontant one next to house is still flowering, silly thing, and Annabelle so liked the red frost-touched leaves on the other one that she made herself a little arrangement out of them.

Harry helped to take down the bean-den, and dug up a whole load of carrots, mostly from the tomato bed. They were a reasonably good size, but about half had significant carrot-fly damage, and a couple were badly split. Still tasted pretty good though.