Category Archives: seeds

Is it four o’clock yet?

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Earlier this year in March, we germinated some Marvel of Peru (AKA the Four O’clock Plant) seeds that we purchased from Real Seeds as it sounded like a strange plant. As it said on Wikipedia, “The flowers usually open from late afternoon or at dusk (namely between 4 and 8 o’clock), giving rise to one of its common names. The flowers then produce a strong, sweet fragrance throughout the night, then close in the morning.” Well, we had to have some of that!

We started off a few seedlings, gave a few away and kept a couple for ourselves. The above picture is one from our good gardening friend Adrienne who said “The flowers are getting better and better. Must love the heat!” It looks brilliant.

Here’s the couple we have kept (above). There’s a small one to the left of what we think is a larger version of the plant (with no flowers as yet) in the reused food bin. The small version has started to flower and hopefully will bring us more! Fingers crossed that it is a Marvel Of Peru in the bin.

We’ve read that the plant is invasive in hotter climates but thankfully not in the UK as the annual frosts kill it. We may bring in the one in the food bin over winter as it seems a great plant! Interesting stuff about the plant here.

Returning to the north

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Great to hear from Debby H in north London yesterday, she’s just back from a break away and sent us pictures from her back garden. She said what with the heatwave “Thanks to our indoor and outdoor watering systems, our plants seem mostly ok” and that’s good to hear! Sadly, “The cosmos isn’t doing so well yet, but there’s still hope for later this summer. It’s the same with ours too, none of the seeds took or if they did, the slugs took them right in front of our noses. Her Zephyranthes Robusta are having another flush of flowers (above). More on the vibrant Argentine rain lily here.

“The big daisies seem very happy” (above) in the tidy bed above. They do seem healthy and so does the lawn, not like ours at Weeds HQ!

The phomium tenax flowers are now mostly turning into seed (above).

And finally, “The dwarf sunflowers are now in full bloom” and look how great they look! Cheers Debby for sending us the updates and do send us more!

Around the garden while watering

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It’s going to be silly hot today (around 32 degrees C), so we did a bit of watering this morning before it goes too mad. The first (above) is from our Marvel of Peru (AKA Four o’clock plant) that we grew from seed and the first flowers are just forming. It’s a bit of a different kind of plant as in the flowers usually open from 4pm attracting all sorts of moths and pollinators. Supposedly the flowers have a great smell too! More on that here.

A new arrival to the Weeds garden (above) that we saw when we went to the Chelsea flower show. It’s a Lychnis flos-cuculi “Petit Henri” and giving us some clusters of great small white flowers and it’s a perennial too! More here.

We’re even getting some progress on the tomatoes (above) at the moment. Nothing ripening yet and still small, but there is fruit!

And meanwhile down the pond our Echeveria is kicking out some great plastic looking flowers! We do love this gardening lark!

We’ve also been checking out an interesting Jamaican gardening blog called Hopey’s Garden. It’s an interesting read if you want to try different type of vegetables and stuff. The article above is very interesting and has some nice tips contained on there so do give it a look over.

Pop don’t go the teasel

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The teasel is a very odd plant but we love the way the flower grows, very strange white mini flowers are now coming from the head. Odd but very interesting! We just hope they don’t take over the garden.

 

It’s just turned up in the garden

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There’s a tall old plant at the back of the bed that seems to have shot out of nowhere. We did a Plant.id on it and it turns out to be Fullers Teasel. It’s a plant that initially stuck out to us on a walk on the wildside (the river path from Sydenham to Catford) but not so sure we want it in that part of the garden.

We’ve just read up on it and it says it not that good for the plant to move it about, as it has a bit of a large taproot so perhaps we’ll leave it be. It’s good for the birds and bees anyway and the flower don’t look that bad. We are sure we either bought a plant last year or took some seed heads off a plant. Who knows, we just have to check on it that it don’t take over the garden.

Belfast sinks and taking cuttings

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We’ve a couple of weeks off work so we’re trying to get some jobs done around the garden, weather permitting. The first job was done on Monday, which was getting rid of a load of roots of a climber that had taken over a large Belfast sink. Once they were taken out and transferred by a B&Q quid bucket to the wild area at the bottom of the garden, the massive sink was moved by hand using some bits of wood, a garden fork and spade.

The sink is now in its new position and we’re using all the space to the maximum. It now contains three tomato plants (complete with canes found in the street), a couple of Defender marigolds and some freshly sowed free herb seeds (thanks to Penny Golightly for the marigolds and passing on the information of the free seeds from the Wildlife Trust as part of their 30 Days Wild initiative. By the way, the offer is still on here.)

And now after years of not doing so, we are finally getting to realise that taking cuttings isn’t that hard, all you have to do is keep your fingers crossed that they take. Here’s some cat mint (nepeta) that has now taken and even flowering.

 

This evening going to hit the sack early as we’re off to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show tomorrow, we’ve never been before and have no idea what to expect. We’ll be bringing you a report as soon as we can. We’ll be the ones walking around the site with the large framed rucksack on our backs.

Please don’t tell us “summer” has ended

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We’ve heard today in true British Bank Holiday style, that the current lovely weather we’re having is coming to an abrupt end this weekend. Typical! But to cheer us up here’s a couple of great photographs.

The first (above) is Rich in the Lake District’s back garden. Doesn’t it look great! As he said, “The bluebells are really high now”. That’s one chilled out view there Rich, we bet it’s a nice calm place to relax in!

And above is Debby H‘s garden in north London, more specifically the cosmos bed. Debby told us “I can’t believe the number of flowers that we have already on our cosmos plants. They’re only small, about 30 cm high. We planted them out about 3 weeks ago and most of the flowers have come since then. In previous years we haven’t had these many flowers till late summer.”

“I planted the seeds in mid-February, whereas I have done it in March previously. I kept half indoors on a windowsill, and the other half were moved to our plastic greenhouse. It doesn’t seem to have made any difference to how they are growing.” It’s always good to experiment and see what happens. Thanks for the report Debby, we scattered our cosmos seed all over the garden this year and not sure if any have come up or those damned slugs have had them. We will keep you all posted.

And thanks to the great blog from Penny Golightly here’s news of some free herbs seeds here. Cheers Penny!

It all seems to have started up north

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A big thanks to Debby H. for sharing an update from her north London garden! While we sowed ours directly outside this year and are still waiting for them to pop up, Debby’s cosmos are already starting to flower even though the plants are still small (see her photos above).

It’s great to see that her seed potatoes are finally breaking through. There’s some really healthy growth on them already.

Elsewhere in the garden, the rhododendron is also blooming beautifully.

As she mentioned “The bluebells are still lovely, although unfortunately not the native ones” (above).

The garden is looking great at this time of year as well, what’s it going to look like later this year? We can’t wait to find out, keeping sending us the updates Debby!

Work little and often (before the weather changes again)

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It wasn’t too bad here earlier this afternoon, so we tidied up the bed by the garage (above) and stuck in some seeds from the Kew Garden flower collection we were given as a xmas present. There’s some wonderful seeds in those selections.

Then at the back of the bed we stuck in the remaining seven seed potatoes of the “Jazz” variety. There’s still going to be some cold nights to come, so when they do sprout they’ll hopefully be protected by the jam jars. Hope there’s been some work in the garden where you are.

Damping off and fungus gnats please stay away

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Thanks to Debby H who got in touch again to let us know that the cosmos seeds she put in a few days ago are now germinating (above). We will now experiment and start ours off, if we can find space on the windowsills. Cheers Debby, do keep us updated.

We can’t help being a bit paranoid with our chilli seeds (Prairie Fire Mini Bush Chilli Pepper and Lemon Drop Hot Citrus Pepper) below, we sowed on January 10th (post here). If you remember a few years ago we started some off and then we lost most of them to the dreaded damping off.

So, this year we spent a bit more on seed compost and took the lid off the propagator as soon as the seeds germinated. We’ve now moved them to the kitchen windowsill and keep checking the compost so we’re not overwatering them but they don’t seem to have grown much since January 30th (here). Have we just got a case of DOP (damping off paranoia)?

The moneymaker tomato seeds have germinated, and we’ve taken the plastic freezer bag off them. As long as those black fungus gnats stay away we should be alright! We’re taking advice from Gardener’s World: “Control them by allowing soil to dry out between waterings, using yellow sticky traps, and placing sand on the soil surface.