Violet's Garden Diary

Sowed 4 root-trainers each of dahlia, rudbeckia, gazania and zinnia. Also bought a cactus dahlia labelled R.Zoe at the plant sale a few days ago.

Planted out the maincrop peas, in two little towers.

Sowed courgette, watermelon, and cucumbers (both).

Things in pots are getting rather dry. But it is the most beautiful time.

Found (and squashed) the first scarlet lily beetle of the season.

Everything apart from the morning glory sprouted very quickly, but I am not too bothered as they have managed to seed themselves, so I don’t really need a pot-raised one. Have had to plant out the nemesia a few days ago, as they were bursting out of the pots and starting to flower, but it is a bit too chilly for them at night still, so should have started them a bit later. Artichokes and kohlrabi seem ready to go out, and the peas.

The new purple mustard from Sarah Raven’s is not nearly as hot and interesting as the one we had last year.

The parsley that was brought inside in early spring for quicker growth did grow quickly, but got aphids just as quickly, making it pretty unusable, and setting it back a lot. The ones outside are now pretty lush. The bay tree is flowering So is the rosemary, but that’s not nearly so exciting somehow.

The ceanothus is in full bloom, but there is barely a bee to be seen, which is pretty horrific.

New raspberry canes are mostly sprouting, or at least have promising-looking buds.

Thinking of scrapping the sickly big camellia, and putting in a small trellis arbour seat, for better contemplative viewpoint. And what a great opportunity for extra climbers! Can’t think where I’d squeese in the penstemon that would have to move though.

As the main-crop peas (Hurst Green Shaft) had sprouted within a couple of days in their root-trainers (in the heated propagator), can now move onto the next batch. Tomato Sungold in pot for later splitting, Black Krym and Purple Russian in 2 root-trainers each. Also marigolds, dill, and morning glory.

Filled the paving gaps with sand, until the sand ran out.

Started ripping up the rockery, in preparation for the stream re-build – the second pond man was a little more honest about the amount of disruption to the rockery that would be necessary. The helianthemum had spread far too much anyway, and was out of scale with the rest of it, but what to do with it once I got it out was the tricky question. Managed to stick into a pot for the time being, but it might not work. Also moved the Alliums that were coming through from underneath it (unifolium) which were also too high for the little rockery, and stick out like a sore thumb. Put them into the very front of the border, they might think it’s not warm and sunny enough, but it was the best I could do. Potted up a whole load of Sempervivum montanum, which is the rather large purple-tipped houseleek, as they were getting swamped, and on the north side, not happy bunnies at all. Hope to give them a better home when all the hoo-haa is finished, there should be more room on the sunny side.

Planted out two tiny pots of Stipa tenuissima, one in the back border, one out the front.

Lots of the seeds have come up already (everything apart from Lysimachia and Iceland poppies, and they were both expected to fuss). There were signs of broad beans finally coming through, and the potato shoots are showing. The front path is looking absolutely lovely, as the anemones are now sufficiently established that the rabbits can’t eat ALL of them.

Pruned the Viburnum for shape. Repotted the Tashkent mint; the new pot turned out to be not that much wider than the top of the last one. Planted out Annabelle’s school broad bean. None of the direct sown beans or peas have come up so far, despite being under fleece. I suppose two weeks is not too long, yet. Have terrible suspicion that the thing I have been cosseting as the only salpiglossis that came up, is not a salpiglossis at all, but a plain and spiky weed.