Welcome to Spring
Spring is appearing, slowly but surely. I have a feeling things will suddenly burst into life once we have a long stretch of warm weather. In the meantime, the weather remains very cool and cloudy, but I’ve gotten lots of jobs done in the garden and greenhouse in preparation for the spring flower season.
Last week I began taking cuttings from a few of the dahlias I started at the end of February. Once the shoots reach about 3 inches long, I cut them from the tuber, taking a slice of tuber with each shoot, and put them in a pot of compost (I used seed-starting compost) and back onto bottom heat to promote rooting. I’ll keep the compost moist - but not too wet - so that the cuttings don’t rot. It shouldn’t be too long until they start to root and grow.
When the weather’s warm enough, the anemones open to show their beautiful faces. So far I have three red ones in my batch of purples - isn’t the colour so striking? These first stems are still fairly short (about 10 inches), but as the spring progresses, the anemones will produce taller and taller flowers, and I can’t wait to add them to bouquets.
Here are the four colours of Hyacinth I have, all now in bloom. The double dark blue one all the way on the left was the last to open - it’s called ‘Royal Navy’. I love the way these all add scent to the garden on a still day.
I’ve planted out some of my fall-sown hardy annuals. I started these Cornflowers and Sweet peas in pots and kept them outside in my cold frame all winter. They were exposed to wind and frost so they’ll survive any springtime frosts we may have. Even though it takes up extra space in my cold frame, I prefer to grow hardy annuals in pots over the winter - rather than out in my garden - to protect them from rain and slugs. I’ve found that, once planted in the ground in spring, these plants grow very quickly and it isn’t long until they flower. I pinch the main growing tips of some of my cornflowers to promote branching (so they make more flowers for me). This delays flowering time by a few weeks, so I leave some plants unpinched to flower earlier.
I sow my sweet peas in deep DIY paper pots in October and pop the entire thing - paper pot and all - into the ground at planting time in March. I’ve found that my sweet pea plants show much less transplant shock than when they’re grown in plastic pots. I did give these pants a little bit of wind protection in the garden to make extra sure they’re happy in their new home. By the way, there’s an Honesty plant in that sweet pea photo - it looked healthy and I couldn’t bear to pull it out!
Let’s go on a short wander to see what else is in bloom…
The violets in the grass have been doing well and are popping up (to my delight) in the front garden. I think that purple colour is so pretty. Our Magnolia tree has just started to bloom this week, making a big splash of pink. The yellow-and-orange daffodils by the wood store are now in flower along with the blue Muscari. And any time the sun shines, the Celandines open to carpet our garden in bright yellow.
It won’t be long now (hopefully) until I’m cutting tulips, daffodils and anemones for bouquets. The ‘Exotic Emperor’ tulips are going to be the first tulips to open (that’s them in the photos below). They’re some amazing-looking white flowers that I’m growing for the first time this year - I can’t wait to share a photo once they bloom! I think they’ll look really lovely with Narcissus ‘Replete’.
