Six on Saturday: More Seasonal Tasks and Some Lessons

I took advantage of a shower-free day to re-mortar various bricks in place, especially in the dwarf rose beds under the clematis colonnade. I don’t know what I did when I laid the latter in the first place, but suspect the mix was drier than it could have been. Further dry days are needed to repaint the fence adjacent to the shrub border, thankfully only a 4ft high fence, but there is still a lot of it…

Removing excess allium seedlings is very much an ongoing task, but I was nevertheless astonished at the forest of foliage that emerged in one of the main borders, considering I had dug out ALL the contents last autumn and replanted only a handful of the bulbs that it contained (or so I thought). Elsewhere, it is easier to control the much smaller and grass-like seedlings, usually growing in very distinct clumps. There is clearly a very fine line between retaining seedheads for seasonal interest and preventing excessive self-seeding…

Having taken the decision to relocate the spring flowering Group 1 clematis from their posts on the colonnade to make pruning of the remaining Group 3 clematis easier, I was able to remove four of the six relatively easily, but will keep the other two in situ until they have finished flowering and then cut them back to allow for easier extrication. All six are in bud, and in need of a new home. One, C koreana ‘Amber’, I have never liked and will be on our plant sales table in June, but I shall find a spot somewhere in the garden for the others.

I have begun to harden off my sweet peas ready to plant out in a week or two, and hope to get their supports put in place tomorrow. in the working greenhouse there are now buds on the Winter Sunshine sweet peas which have put on a growth spurt as light levels and temperatures increase. A section of bubblewrap insulation fell off in the Coop earlier this week, reminding me that although it doesn’t make a huge difference to light levels it still does make an impact, and I shall be removing all the insulation in a week or so.

As I continue making space in the working greenhouse, this week I have planted out autumn sown antirrhinum and larkspur in the cutting beds, and delphinium around the borders, all having done particularly well from an autumn sowing.

Finally, on to the lessons. It is still too early to make a full assessment of the damage caused by the cold spells this winter, although frost damage has been evident on some shrubs. An alert this week from a friend who had bought a seed-sown agapanthus on one of our open days made me check mine, all grown from seed – and I found 3 pots of decomposed agapanthus roots. The moral? They are in pots, so always bring them inside over winter, just in case… Having nurtured them and brought them to flowering or close to flowering, I am really saddened by their loss.

Less sad, but more of a financial loss are the spray guns linked to four of the watering stations in the garden. The water was turned off over winter and, although the water butts are full, we turned the water back on this week in preparation for drier times ahead. All four spray guns are cracked and unrepairable; only the fifth one outside the back door survived intact, where bizarrely the water had not been turned off at all. As my friend’s husband, a sales rep for Hozelock, says ‘put them to bed in the shed’, a task we will dutifully do every winter in future, tucking them up with a 15 tog duvet and a hot water bottle, just to make sure…

No doubt other contributors to Jim’s  Six on Saturday meme will be working through their own lists of seasonal tasks, except for those who are having to wait a little longer for their gardens to wake up before making a start. Why not pop over to Jim’s blog and have a look?

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