Thanks to Penny Golightly, here’s news of a great little plant mart in Lee next Saturday May 17th from 2-4 p.m. outside 2-6 Micheldever Road, Lee SE12 8LX and the event is a fundraiser to get money to plant more trees in the area. There’ll be a wide range of plants for sale at a good price as well as lots of other stuff (cakes, books and CDs, cream teas and 2 botanical watercolour workshops at 2.30 and 3pm). Looks great! Cheers Penny!
Thanks very much to Adrienne N for sending us some pictures of a great looking bleeding heart plant (above). It’s one we’ve seen before but never known too much about. What’s interesting is that she has tried growing the plant multiple times in the soil outdoors, but it always dies after one season and has had more luck growing it in a pot. The flowers themselves are great (close up below).
After a little bit of research on the web, we found out the bleeding heart belongs to the poppy family which is odd as it looks a bit fuchsia-like if anything. It’s native to east Asia (including China, Korea, Siberia, and Japan) and is quite hardy too. The plant tolerates drought and is fire resistant. Now that is mad!
One thing we also did read about the plant is “All parts cause stomach-ache if ingested, the foliage may aggravate skin allergies. Wear gloves and other protective equipment when handling.” More info about the perennial here. We just remembered that there was a picture of a bleeding heart in Mike & Julia’s garden a short while ago here. Thanks for the picture Adrienne as it’s one lovely flower!
A big thanks to Debby H who sent us some pictures of how things are getting on gardening wise in north London. First are the cosmos (above) which are looking healthy. Those inner toilet tubes seem to be working well as plant pots by the way.
And above are the tomato seedlings which are sown in an interesting way as we usually sow one to a pot, but this method seems great. The tomatoes as well as the cosmos are ready to be repotted, and Debby has given us a great idea for further sowings.
Above is the azalea in her garden is looking great. As she wrote “I just found that the azalea is a type of rhododendron.” We didn’t know that.
And Debby has just got back from a break in Suffolk. “By the coast near to Dunwich the whole area was covered in the most amazing yellow flowering gorse bushes” “It went on for miles. I have never seen it looking quite so spectacular.” Brilliant stuff Debby, cheers for the update and we look forward to more pictures this year.
Thanks to Kit, G0JPS in Bristol for letting us know he did a bit of garden clearance yesterday (Easter Sunday) which included “removing a huge tangle of cleavers (if the name isn’t familiar, you’d know what they are straight away when you see the picture of them) and the sad deceased remnants of a fuchsia bush.”
“Found this nice little sectioned off bit (above) under the wreckage; so gave it a good hoeing, sowed it with foxglove seeds, and rehomed a small thyme plant rescued from a supermarket car park. And pinched your idea of sticks and things to keep the cats off.” Brilliant Kit, we love your choice of metal sticks and wood that will keep the cats and probably the foxes off too we reckon.
He added “Thinking that it’s a bit of a blank slate now, the words Tabula Rasa popped into my mind so here’s a couple of tune suggestions:”
They are two excellent tunes that we’d never heard before. The first is Tabla Rasta who were from Crete with Mystic Dub and Brother Dan from Sweden with Bay Leaf and Thyme Dub. Excellent musical recommendations Kit, do keep them coming!
Thanks to Mike & Julia for these great pictures (it’s Mike taking the photographs this time) from a Tulip Festival in Warwick the weekend just gone. We know there’s many festivals dedicated to the Tulipa genus in places like Holland (even though their origins are native to central Asia, as they thrive in extreme hot summers and harsh, cold winters) but we’ve never thought they’d be one in Warwick. By the looks of these varieties, looks like it was a good day. Cheers for the photos Mike!
And we knew there was a variety called John Peel, we’d never thought they’d be one called Rasta Parrot, but there is!
We’ve spoken to a few gardening friends of late who have tables, windowsills and even parts of rooms filled with seed trays and seedlings galore now waiting for the chance of frost to pass so they be planted outside. We reckon another few weeks and these lot we have indoors (above) can go out. There’s even some flowers forming on one of the geranium cuttings we took.
We’ve even got a tomato plant with a truss of flowers with another forming and a nearly three foot, giant sunflower on the windowsill (above). It’ll be like the day of the triffids if May don’t come soon, it really will. For everybody in the same boat, hang in there, it won’t be long!
Cheers to Gerry Hectic for sending us a pic of his cosmos seedlings which are starting to germinate outside under some glass (above).
Above are some seeds he intends to sow very soon. We don’t really know about the treasure flower but there’s a bit of info here on them and they look quite smart as well. And Gerry requested something on Treasure Isle, so here’s a classic and couple of related dubs.
We’ve had an update from Debby H on her cosmos and some good advice. The seedlings are now starting to get their first “true” leaves, which are fern-like as you can see in the picture above. She said when they have 3 or 4 pairs of the true leaves, pinch out the next pair of leaves to make sure the plant grows bushy and not “leggy”. Good tip as we didn’t think of that, even though we use the same technique with sweet peas encouraging them to bush out more.
Also Debby’s germination method of using the cardboard insides of toilet rolls seems to be a sure fire method what with the plant’s long roots. She did say which is also important, “I think the cosmos will be ready to pot-on soon, but not ready to go outside yet. We learnt last year that these plants are very susceptible to slugs when they are tiny.” Good stuff Debby!
It’s been a lovely day here in south London today and it looks like the temperature will drop again a little from tomorrow. Looking at the weather forecast for the next week it could be anything from 6-10 degrees C overnight so hopefully no frosts.
We’re taking no chances here as don’t want to lose any plants overnight even though they have been hardened off over the last few weeks. We’ve put three tomato plants out and some sweet peas but we’re still covering them at night with some improvised protection from bubble wrap, jam jars and the terrarium we found years ago that is now a bit cracked at the side and missing its glass top and now has some polythene on the top. Who cares what the frost protection looks like as long as it’s doing its job! More sunny weather please.
And we started a day with a great tune and we end it on another one. It’s by Jah Version out of Lisbon, Portugal with Friendship (Vocal Dub). Turn it up.
It’s like this every year, you’re waiting for spring to happen and then next thing you’ve got a load of plants to harden off (above). We’ve got some giant sunflowers that are over a foot high now and tomatoes, sweet peas and some chillies we were given over the weekend alongside the geranium cuttings from Honor Oak Park station. It’s only just turned April too!
Also, in the bed down the bottom we started lots of seeds off. The rocket can be seen taking off underneath small branches used to keep the cats and foxes off. The seeds were only put in the other day, or it seemed like it! Hope all goes well on the sowing front your side and the nice weather keeps on keeping on. Keep checking those last frosts dates and do remember nature plays by its own rules sometimes.
