i don't know why i find it so surprising that i 'hibernate' over winter and come back out to play in the spring. i eat stodgy food and i stay at home. i don't garden, i don't blog, in fact i don't do anything much. then spring arrives and my eating habits change. i enjoy meeting up with friends. i yearn to be outside. makes you wonder how we ever managed to outgrow our caves, since really we still follow the basic, instinctual ways that are imprinted in our deepest, unreachable selves. awesome.
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this spring i'm celebrating more than usual. booyaa and i now have a garden. hurray! so we're following the seasons both on the lottie and in our 'leisure' garden. this weekend we planted out some leftover bulbs that we'd abandoned in the lottie shed. they may or may not turn into flowers, but we figured it was worth giving them a chance. we also sowed some veg seeds, but two trays of flower seeds went in, too. and as soon as we have space in the propagator, i've got another 5 packets to go.
i believe booyaa has put images on flickr. will link later.
i ordered a ton, well, that might be an exaggeration, of plug plants and shrubs for the leisure (pleasure?) garden. we've got a large bamboo (Fargesia nitida) en route (booyaa has wanted one for, like, evah, so it was only fair. i can already see him standing quite still to listen to the rustling.) i chose a scented, evergreen clematis to scramble up the unattractive fencing and mum will be bringing some cuttings from her periwinkle which i hope will soften the hard edges we currently have. we had a committee meeting (i give booyaa options, pros and cons. he mentally flips a coin. we move on.) and decided we'll keep as much as possible in pots so that we can easily take them with us when we move again in about two years' time. so i've chosen lots of fairly tall flowers for instant impact, plus a few round shrubs to continue the softening theme. i've got some verbenas to put at the back of a skinny border i'm creating. that will also host a purple heuchera and some alchemilla mollis. if i like them as much i expect, they will probably be dug up before we leave and replaced with a sprinkling of flower seeds. then i'll use some of the seeds i'm sowing to fill the middle (there's another verbena, more nicotiana, can't remember what else) and i've got some ground hugging plants to edge the border. i've chosen a palette of predominantly white with some blue and purple here and there.
the rest of the pots will go in three styles. i'm using large windowbox troughs with trailing lobelia and laurentia in a line to cover some old paving. then we'll have two matching tall containers with both trailing and upright scented flowers to have near the french windows, so we get delicious wafts of perfume through spring and summer. and we got an offer of a white potted hydrangea for £1 so i grabbed that. love hydrangeas. even though they're big and blowsy, i think they can work in a contemporary space, especially if they're kept neat and tidy. so that will stay in a pot, too.
i took a pile of gardening books out of the library for container and urban gardening. one of the ideas we both like was of a bamboo trough (large bamboo pipe split lengthways) filled with houseleeks and alpines, and set right up against the garden step. we both like the idea of that. not sure we'll find bamboo of the right size, but a piece of old plastic drainpipe would work, so if we can get some, we'll do that, too.
so we're on full steam ahead garden project. blimey.
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into this...
the heuchera border
verbena covering up the fence
nicotiana by the french windows
what did we do to get from there to here?
we pressure washed the flagstones on the patio (thanks dad).
we reseeded the patchy lawn, over and over, with a mix of shady and fast growing seed.
we created a narrow border with a little curve at each end along the back fence.
we filled the patio with big pots with a bamboo, mock orange, clematis, honeysuckle, laurentia-lobelia mix, piles of nicotiana and lavender.
we bought plenty of herbs and they're awaiting a big pot to make an all-in-one herb garden.
we moved the greenhouse from the allotment into the garden so we could better look after seedlings in Spring and tomatoes in Summer.
we started off a container of mixed lettuces and salad leaves, to pick fresh salad daily.
we scrounged a handpush lawnmower and mowed and mowed and mowed.
we've also got some ornamental bits and bobs, like solar lighting, stainless steel spheres, tealight holders and so on, and some patio furniture.
we probably spent far too much money, but most of it will come with us when we move.
we wanted a modern space - it's a very modern flat - without being able to dig up the whole garden and turn it into a sleek, slate-clad sunken seating affair. we had to work with what we had. that's one of the reasons for so many pots. black is a statement. we created a restricted colour border to keep things modern and urban (i hope!) a low cloud of purple heucheras and bright green alchemilla mollis forms the backdrop, with white laurentia and white cosmos contrasting off the heucheras, then very tall spikes of purple alliums shooting up in between. there are a few that are struggling in their first year; blue agapanthus for more tall spikes, pale blue laurentia and campanula to create a continuous river of blue along the very front of the border are not looking at all happy.
what have we got? a butterfly sanctuary. a person sanctuary. somewhere to be outside, in a quiet, relaxing space, in the middle of a busy town. a place to snooze in the sun, grow food, entertain friends, dine outdoors. something to be proud of, a hobby, an achievement.]]>