The yard

Very leafy, I need to pot some small flowering plants on but not while my arm is shaking and sore. I’ll try and use some pain killers to stop it hurting so much. Hubby has dumped a big bag of compost in the way and I need to get it moved so I can get further up the yard. Some of these plants survived the winter, they are very leafy, to be honest I could move them into the main garden but I don’t have the energy and there are some dodgy steps as you walk round the back. I must get hubby to get some sand and cement to replace some loose bricks.

Potting bench

“We should be sitting on this!”

“But I need a table to pot on”

“Yes, but you have one”

“But it’s got my trains on”

“Well can you move them?”

“No, I’m making a layout, I got some ‘n’ gauge stock” “I want to build it up”.

Sigh, “OK but the plants can go in the garden, the bench needs varnish or something to protect it”.

I didn’t mention to hubby that the last bench was treated in the same way, the wood rotted and the bench collapsed. I bought new wooden slats, but ‘someone’ (hubby), nailed them on to something else….

Green back yard

I have been potting on little plug plants again today. Fushias, lobelia, French marigolds, antirrhinum, trailing geranium and other plants. The garden at the side of the house is full of trees but the back yard is my domain. It is already full of Welsh poppies, a few small strawberry plants, small tomato plants, raspberries and other random plants. It’s getting quite like a jungle! I’m now waiting for a few hanging baskets I’ve ordered. I love my annual riot of colour!

Amaryllis

It’s great how these bulbs become dormant after flowering, eventually the old leaves die down… Then they spring back into life when you water them about this time of year. Little and often is my way of doing it. Water but don’t drench. The bulbs swell, then suddenly a couple of leaves sprout, growing rapidly with a flower spike. I have kept one bulb for ten years. Each time it grows bigger. But don’t be eager to put it in a larger pot. It takes a few years, it likes being crammed in a pot. I only move them into the next size up pot. My oldest has grown a secondary bulb that also flowers….