PLANS FOR SPRING

· Remove The Devil (aka Snowberry bush)
· Make a flowerbed against the Tuja hedge (which isn’t ideal but… where else can I have a flowerbed? Need to think about that one)
· Fix the raspberries from spreading too much
· Tidy up the gooseberry
· Building bathouses
· Building birdhouses, especially one for owls so please keep your fingers crossed.
· Build a compost
· Sow rhubarb
·Build a bird bath

Wee!! Soon it’s sowtime!

I have to get organize (ha, what a joke!) and see what I need, not buy too much since I don’t have that much room. I want spring and I want it now!! I really do need to sit down and draw a plan on how to make room for all the plants, even if half of all the seeds I have will grow it’s going to be tough.

(I had been stupid and put my poppy seeds in a plastic container, bad idea… mold. Thank god I have more than I can sow.)

First one out to be sown is my Wolfs Bane. Supposed to be soon in January. If he doesn’t grow I will buy a plant! (I have no idea where to plant it…)

I should have put gift certificate at the seed companies on my wishlist, stupid me…

Project

The Backyard is a horrible mess due to no planning what so ever and the horrible evil Snowberry bush (sound so cute but it’s really not). I found this adorable green tunnel, it’s in The Poison Garden at Alnwick Gardens (so want to go there) but I don’t have space or use for a tunnel but then it hit me. Why not make a little house/hut of it? A round little secret place just for me covered with ivy? I was thinking of having it in the Backyard and I hope that I’ll get some help in the spring to get rid of the Snowberry, build a compost box (well, actually three, or at least two), replant the raspberries and the gooseberries, make some space for my rhubarb and basically tidy the place up.

If this hut/house thing happens, it will be called, Kojan.

Picture found here.

Picture found here.

Just some random picture that I found and liked

Herbs surrounded by boxwood, photo by Debra Brash found picture here.

More boxwood, picture found here.

Soon it’s December

Which means, catalog time! It’s time to start looking for seeds! Even though I have loads of them at home already but… I might have missed a few good ones?

Wishlist (so far)
Sunflowers
Cornpoppy
English Marigold
Dahlia
Mallow
Cosmos/Mexican aster

Winter is the time for dreaming and planning

I want a “real” greenhouse; I keep telling myself that my dad is pretty crafty and should be able to build one which should make it cheaper, still pretty darn expensive and perhaps not the first priority.

Picture from Sweden Green House

Picture from Rexton

Turning off the radiator

Today I put my precious Amazon lilies (which I have named, I tend to do that with my potted plants, only two of the three lilies are named, Roberto Carlos, he’s the oldest and then Santiago Solari who’s a few years younger. If you know football you might see a pattern :p) and two pelargonium which I’m trying to store for the winter. The Amazon lilies need a cold period to bloom.

I turned down the radiator to one in my bedroom, it’s already pretty chili in my room and now I guess it will be cold. I should get a thermometer so I can see just how cold it gets. But if the pelargonim will live until spring and my lilies will bloom I’m okay with wearing hat and scarf indoors.

I bought a new orchid the other day

I used to be really good with orchids but something happened but what I don’t know. All of a sudden my babies started to die. After doing some research it looks as if they died because of water still left in the pot and that might be the cause. I think I started water them differently. In the beginning I was always watering them over the sink where I would make sure there were no water left in the pot but then I got lazy and just water them a little standing on the windowsill. So, due to this I bought a new orchid and I’ll do better with the watering and see if it will do the trick.

Tucking the little ones in for winter

By the Tea Corner
1 pampas grass (not really hardy here so keep your fingers crossed)
1 tall-verbena (not really hardy here so keep your fingers crossed)
3 feather grass
1 Molinia arundinacea
2 Physostegia virginia
1 Creeping baby’s breath
1 Verbena rigida (not really hardy here so keep your fingers crossed)
1 Perovskia

Let's hope they all survive the winter...

Just because

Pretty pink mallow, on my seed list for January. They did well and next season I’ll put them a little here and there in the flowerbeds, where ever there’s room. Sow direct, my kind of flowers.

Brought in some of the dahlias today

My dahlias doesn’t want to produce any seeds, at least not the once on the terrace I still have hope for the one by the greenhouse. Tucking them in for the winter now. A little baby feel off, he'll be big in no time.

I thought that the poppies would be gone by now

But no, they keep blooming and there are plenty of buds. Pretty sure that they are regular corn poppies and they bloom from July – august but not in my garden apparently, which I’m fine with. I’m my garden things usually bloom late.

( I love that you can see the little red hairs on this one)

Today

Planted five ”Beauty of Livermere” that I sowed this spring(two or perhaps even three are in questionable condition) by the Inka dude the other day, just saying so I’ll remember it. Have be digging a little and pulling weeds, it’s nowhere near perfect. I would need some kind of stop, an edge of some sort of prevent the weeds from getting “back in”.

And, I want to replace the stone “wall” we have here with something stronger and better, something a bit more reliable. I want the stone wall to be instead of The Slope and perhaps a low fence on top of it… The Slope is a problem… tricky tricky…

Didn’t plan for it but…

My dog ran into my azalea so instead of just throwing the branch I saved it for cuttings. No idea if it will work. I kept them all inside for a few days because I forgot about them (and it was raining) but today I finally got them into a pot, all by the edge of the pot (people say that’s good for cuttings) and all of them I used some rotting hormone on. Have to remember to buy some more of that in the spring…. I should make a spring list.

Disappointing day…

Went to Plantagen to get some tulips bulbs and some garlic but no… Maybe it’s a little late? September is almost over. Have to go to Weibulls, they are the best store in my opinion. Plantagen is one of those places that go for quantity instead of quality. I ended up with two ferns for my window instead, one kind that I really like because I can totally abuse it and it still survives and the other one is a kind I haven’t tried before.

Shopping list for Weibulls
Tulip “Marilyn”
Parrot tulips red and white I think
Late and early red tulips
Yellow and purple tulips
Garlic (not sure if it’s because of the garlic I planted with the tulips last year but I like to believe I found a way to keep deer away)

I love poppies!

It’s very easy to become a collector of plants and I feel I’ll become an insane poppy collector (and maybe a dahlia one too) but I’m okay with that. According to Wikipedia there a 120-odd species of papaver (but according to my "bible" there's only about 50...)and I want them all! Trying to focus on the perennials first. So far…

Alpine Poppy (Papaver alpinum) (Seeds, sow spring 2009)
'Ladybird' (Papaver commutatum) (Annual)
Ice Poppy (Papaver croceum) (Seeds, sow spring 2009)
Oriental Poppy (Papaver orientale)
Corn Poppy (Papaver rhoeas) (Annual)
Opium Poppy (Papaver somniferum) (Annual)
Spanish Poppy (Papaver rupifragum) (Seeds, sow spring 2009)

Perennial poppies available at Rara Växter: Papaver amurense, Atlas Poppy (Papaver atlanticum), (Papaver lateritium flora plena), Japanese Poppy (Papaver miyabeanum), Hairy Poppy (?)(Papaver pilosum), Papaver spicatum

Annual poppies available at Rara Växter: Tulip Poppy (Papaver glaucum), Long Pricklyhead Poppy (Papaver argemone) and Long-headed Poppy (Papaver dubium) (which I have a huge crush on base on the picture… drool. Have to get that one for next season)

Perennial poppies available at Impecta: Rooted Poppy (Papaver radicatum)

Looks like I have to make a big fat order early next year…

Wish list for the garden

There is so much I want in the garden but there just that much room and a very tiny budget so I will have to dream.

A bigger and better greenhouse.
An herbal/kitchen garden, walled-in perhaps. (And maybe you can enter the greenhouse from inside the house and talk a stroll out into the walled-in herbal/kitchen garden?)
Water of some sort, a little pound with koi fish in it.
A garden maze (but that is NEVER going to fit so)

Today

Planted some poppies by the greenhouse, “Victoria Louise” and I still have a few pots left of her but not idea where to plant her so I will have to tuck her and all of her little friends in for winter and come up with something next season. I wonder how long it will take before they bloom… Maybe tiny little blossom next season? Let’s hope so. So that means that it was probably “Carneum” that I planted by the Tea Corner. (I’m very sloppy and I always lose track of what I plant where and so on.)

Took a few lavender cuttings and another yew, I used some rooting hormone on all of them. Even though I have several small plants of lavender everywhere and will most likely sow more next spring… why? Because I can I guess.

Annoy the neighbors

I don’t like the neighbors and I want to show that somehow but without getting arrested for urinated on their car or something silly like that. So this is what I should do, tasteless topiary. If anyone has tips on how to make people regret moving here let me know.

Yew cuttings

Got four yew cuttings from my little escapade. I scraped the stems a little before dipping them in some rooting hormone and them planted then in individual plastic pots. Now I have to wait until spring (or more) to see if they were a success.

My garden rooms

At first you just plant some bulbs and some perennials you don’t know the name of, then, slowly almost sneaking up on you, you start to name certain areas in the garden.

In my garden I have The Front Yard, dull badly planned flower bed with two bleeding hearts (Dicentra spectabilis) taking up most space and they bloom pretty quickly and become very boring. This spring was great with lots of tulips (that the deer didn’t eat for some strange reason, was it because I planted garlic there?) sticking up from a sea of forget me not but then there wasn’t much going on. Must come up with something, perhaps move the bleeding hearts and plant roses instead.

(It was hard to find a picture of the front yard, that how bad it is. I had to reuse a picture, in the spring it’s pretty okay. Spring 2008)

By the two wooden pillars to the balcony there’s honeysuckle and the other pillar there’s a clematis. They are pretty mistreated and have nothing to climb on.

Then in the front yard there’s this The Slope where nothing but weeds wrong, horrible. I want to build a stone wall and then have a low fence on it and then a nice hedge.

(This is what the slope looks like when you’re standing on the road, so beautiful! Summer 2007)

Then there’s The Tea Corner, two climbing roses, ‘Flammentanz’ and a pretty boring flowerbed where I planted a nice lavender edge this year, let’s hope it will be nice next season (garden people say season and not year). Other than that there’s just a peony which I thought I had killed but apparently not, a ‘Sarah Bernhardt’ and some Miscanthus giganteum which is probably the most exciting thing in the Tea Corner.

(Most parts of the garden are pretty in the springtime. 2008)

The Backyard is where the greenhouse is and where the berries grow, raspberries (yellow and red), redcurrant, gooseberries (which no one eats) and a vine with horrible white grapes. It’s a complete mess back there and this nasty weed that I believe is sent from Satan, Snowberry Symphoricarpos albus. Not sure if I’ll ever get rid of all of it. Then there’s this big oak throwing acorns everywhere and you have to pick all of them up by hand because they will grow and then it’s not as easy to get rid of them.

(A funny looking opium poppy the white cross makes me think of the Danish flag. 2008)

Then there’s The Terrace which is made of wood so most pots there, a small patch of grass but it’s just roots and a thin layer of dusty soil, a large oak with a swing-ish rope that my grandpa made back in the day. This fall we planted a rose by the oak so let’s see how that goes. Got lots of lavender babies, they are easy to sow so I’ll plant some by the rose and see if they want to grow.

(A red Pelargonium against the blue house. 2007)

That's my garden rooms, The Front Yard, The Slope, The Tea Corner, The Backyard and The Terrace.

Current Obsession

Hedges, especially yew and boxwood. With the building project across the street a need a big hedge so I don’t have to look at it, yew sounds great.

Apparently it’s the oldest and biggest yew hedge in Britain, more here.

Yew hands! How more Edward Scissorhands can it get? I wonder if it’s hard to make… probably out of my league. Must get a book on topiary. More here.

Archways, I want this, this would be cute as a hedge on the back towards the neighbors. Picture found here.

I can do this for hours (and I have), just looking at garden pictures. I wonder how much space all my garden pictures use on the hard drive?

The Stolen Garden

I refer to my “garden” as The Stolen Garden because I “steal”, today I stole lavender seeds and yew cuttings. But it’s not really stealing because, the lavender for example the people that own it never take any seeds (or cuttings for that matter) and it’s not like I take ALL the seeds, plenty of seeds left.

And the yew “hedge” is a complete mess, growing out onto the street and is actually in the way if you want to see cars approaching so I don’t feel I’m doing anything wrong.

I have a limited budget so what’s a girl to do? (Sure I could knock on the door and ask for permission but where’s the thrill in that? This is the only excitement in my life.)

Other ways to get cheap plants, seeds, bulbs and whatnot is the net, garden people are always happy to give or trade.

(Tihi, here is where I steal my lavender, my favorite spot anyway)

Today

I started cleaning up, making the garden ready for winter. Got all the dahlias I grew some seed this spring and cutting all the leaves off and putting them in labeled paper bags, hopefully some of them will live through the winter. Some are really big and it’s not THAT cold during the nights yet so they can stay in their pots or flowerbed but the babies got bagged. My favorite is an Oxford baby with really dark foliage; I hope the flowers are just as nice. And I hope I'll have some seeds of my own to sew next spring. (If I get any seeds I'm willing to share)

The raspberries are absolutely everywhere, must find something to prevent them from spreading but so far no luck. A plastic rain barrel is the best thing so far but it was way too expensive, especially since I plan to cut it. Anyway, trimmed them and some of the lavender, planted cuttings in individual pots and dug them down under the rhododendron (which I hope to edge with boxwood, love edging).

And took a picture of the last poppies for the season, I think...

Some kind of Papaver rhoeas but which I don’t know, I do have to get all the seeds since I want only blue and pink in The Backyard. Red is best up close so The Front Yard and/or The Slope