New Forest April Holiday and Pembrokeshire Greenhouses

Dear Gardeners,

I’m afraid I have been an April Fool. We went on a much needed holiday to the New Forest the day after the Easter Bank holiday. My first holiday since the cancer and heart failure, the weather down in Hampshire wasn’t the best, but the break was.

I’d planned the timings of all the greenhouse chores so all seedlings were transplanted, all recently sown seeds were in propagators, and all plug plants were establishing nicely. Mum and my best friend were asked to just check on things and give a good watering to them midweek and especially if the weather turned nice.

Best laid plans and all that! Mum had her sister home from Scotland, and also was on babysitting duties for both of my brothers’ children, as it was half term. In-between she was helping my youngest brother with his new business venture, so she wasn’t home much. My best friend unfortunately has a memory like a sieve at the moment and at least owned up to totally forgetting my plants, even though she walks her dog past my house at least once a day. When mum eventually had time to check on my greenhouse (the day before we came home,) the poor plants had all dried up.

My favourite quotes from mum are-

“Were they like that when you put them in the greenhouse?”

Nope. I don’t believe they were crispy.

“We had a really bad frost one morning. My shed roof was white!”

No one else remembers this.

And my all time favourite:

“Do you think I should have come down earlier in the week?”

Erm let me think about that…

I went through a myriad of emotions, but couldn’t really hold anyone responsible, as I did say to mum, that Rachel will check on the greenhouses and vice versa.

So confession time, how bad was the damage?

In The Office.

• Expensive to buy in plug format, but grown from seed Himalayan Blue poppies all dead except two I had left in the tray in the kitchen.
• Cape Gooseberries all dead except three left in the kitchen.
• Trial Strawberry Blonde Marigolds. One seedling left after the whole packet germinated. As T&M gave me these seeds, I was mortified that I had killed their plants, so I ordered another packet from their website. I still have to trial them.
• Trial Sunflower Shock-o-late seedlings all dead. Luckily I had only sown half the packet so I had some left over, which I have re-sown
• Sunflower Velvet Queen same as above.
• Lewisia, Basil Lemonade, Mint, Grasses, Foxgloves, Forget-me-nots, Hollyhocks, French Marigolds, Buddleja and Hyssop all dead.
• Rainbow Beetroots – stressed. I rehydrated them little by little watering every few hours for the first two days.
• Sweet Peppers. Hugely hardy and responded well to a good drink.
• Just Bee flower mix, stressed, but stable.
• Lettuce Mix. Difficult to say, some had died completely, some had thrived.
• Dad’s spider plant – looking green again, with a little new growth.
• A few stray beetroot seeds had germinated, along with radish, borage, chillies and a different variety of sweet pepper.
• The trial Sweetpeas Turquoise Lagoon, were in pretty good shape as I had left a lid over the blue bread basket they were in, conserving the water in the soil by reducing evaporation.
• Lavenders and Christmas cacti thriving.

In Ty Mawr,

No,damage whatsoever, in fact plenty of growth on everything.

It’s taken me up until the end of the month to clear the staging, between 35°c temperatures under the glass and torrential rain showers, gardening has been difficult. Once sorted the disaster out, I then decided to book another holiday in the New Forest, because that’s just the way I roll!

I told Mark that I wouldn’t buy any more seeds as I had enough, but as I had to replace the trial marigolds, it seemed silly to pay postage for just one packet of seeds, so I went onto the Special Offers page and looked at the 99p range. I set myself a budget, and for once actually stuck to it.

The Office.

Even though I haven’t sown all of my seeds I bought last week, I have started with six Glory Lily seeds. At around 16p each these beauties grow into six foot climbers. The tubers are not hardy so will need to be stored like a dahlia. It takes a few years to flower, so I really hope I get these right. Another new seed I picked was herb Golden Feverfew. I would like to add this perennial pretty yellow mound forming leafy plant to the grassy knoll area. Its daisy-like flowers should soften the structure of the other strappy grass fronds. I am trying achieve a low maintenance area without the use of gravel, concrete or man-made products. I next sowed African Marigolds Spinning Wheels, followed by Garden Pea Alderman. I love this vegetable it’s sweet, abundant and easy to grow. Again, a new seed I chose for 99p was a Potentilla named Monarchs Velvet, this too, is a perennial, I am hoping it will fit in with the black and blue grasses in the knoll. If not, then maybe I will grow it in clumps near the wildlife borders.

As the basil had died and I didn’t have the lemonade type left, I decided to grow both Rubin and Sweet Genovese instead.

Then I sowed Rudbekia Green King, and although I haven’t grown this variety I have had success with Rudbekias. Finally, I sowed some free seeds from Gardeners’ World Zinnia Orange King and repotted some of the aubergines from my completely unscientific seed trial. Oh and I’ve also re-sown the both types of sunflower mentioned above, as well as the Strawberry Blonde Marigolds, plus the Mint and Hyssop.

 

 

The Office border has turned into a mess. The money tree has re sprouted, but thanks to the extra space the aloes have almost carpeted the soil. Fighting for survival are two houseplants, some violas, a rogue cornflower, and an unexplained poppy and foxglove. Mark and I have come to the decision that we are going to try and remove some aloes to the grassy knoll. I have no idea if they will live, but I have to do something.

 

The same day these arrived I potted up some rosemary cuttings, I had left to root in water before going away.

 

Ty Mawr.

The first job was for Mark to earth up the potato sacks, feed them, and move them to their final growing positions outside. Then he planted up the stored Dahlias. Once he had done that, we realised that growing Cornflowers under glass was probably not my best idea. They loved the conditions too much, so on the hottest day of April he evicted them to the garden, where they are now flowering. Mark also transplanted eight tomatoes to their final growing places. Part of my trial plants and some of last year’s yellow stuffers. He then transplanted some of my beetroot. Another of my unscientific experiments – I am seeing if they grow better under glass or out in the fresh air. Also growing happily in the borders are Turnip, Garlic and English Marigolds.

In Rhett’s House (aka) The Cold-frame, I have the Coleus Canninia, they survived the unintentional drought and to prevent them going sappy were moved there as soon as we were back. Keeping them company are some marigolds, some larkspur, Bee Mix plants, a random geranium I found in the back of The Office, a Malva and something that I can’t identify as the label has disappeared. It looks like a primula. Plus several Borage plugs. You’d think that would have been enough wouldn’t you – but no, in my infinite wisdom after doing a happy dance that not only my chillies designed to do well hanging baskets had germinated, but also the super hot ones in the fire bucket Andrew (younger brother) had given me had germinated too, I remembered that Richard (youngest brother) had given me a funky veg kit. So I had a go at that too.

The funky veg kit comes with cardboard type pots, soil disks that expand in water five packets of seeds and five labels. Lucky me had six packets. Although I’ve only chosen to grow three due to the fact that the greenhouse will be a bit full shortly. For now I’m trying Purple Brussels Sprouts, Purple Carrots and Yellow Courgettes. The instructions were simple. Place disks in water and leave to expand until they are seven times bigger. Squeeze out the excess water, put most of the soil in the pots, add the seeds, then cover with leftover soil. Label, leave on a kitchen windowsill.

 

 

I’ll let you know how it goes!

Until next month.

Happy Gardening,

Love Amanda xx