April in the garden…

 I like the idea of a monthly round-up type post to remind myself of what we’ve done in the garden, but have a suspicion that like so many of these things (on here, certainly!) this might end up being a one-off! Shall we see though?

Aquilegia- a clump transplanted from outside the flat.

It’s been the first month we’ve been able to make really solid progress outside since we’ve been in the house - partly due to the weather being too uncertain until this point. Obviously the big news here was our lovely new veg bed being dug out finally - a mammoth task which I have already blogged about. Since completing the work on that at the beginning of the month we’ve been making good progress with getting it planted and it now has a couple more herb plants (bronze fennel, and winter savoury) plus potatoes to add to the bits we put in that first weekend. Just space now for the Rainbow Chard once that’s ready to plant out, and then some companion planting (we’ve got calendula to go in around the place plus some sunflowers and other bee-friendly stuff) and I will probably use the very front for a row of Pak-Choi I think as well. The aim is that it will be a nice mix of practical and pretty. 

Patio rose in salvaged pot…

Good progress has also been made elsewhere with getting more herbs to add to our collection  - a second lot of basil and some coriander have been sown  and a rescued (supermarket) parsley plant plus a second sage - a purple one this time - have been obtained. I’m really keen to maximise the amount of herbs we can grow as I do use a lot in cooking - and would normally regularly buy things like parsley and coriander, so those are a particular focus. 

Pulmonaria - also from the flat.

I’m delighted with the way the few bits we brought with us from the flat have flourished - the aquilegia at the top is without question one of my favourite plants, not least because they self-seed so beautifully, they were all over the place at the flat just from my two original plants. The pulmonaria above has even more of a story to it - it was part of several clumps that were originally in Auntie D’s garden - she gave us some of it for the garden at the flat when we first moved in and it spread nicely until the building works in 2009 when the builders trampled it almost to nothing. We lavished it with love and attention and it sprang back to life, before being weedkillered by the council a couple of summers ago (no, we have no idea why they would weedkiller a clearly well  looked after bit of ground either, but there you go!) thankfully we spotted it fairly swiftly, and although a lot of it was clearly past saving there was one small area which we flooded with water repeatedly for days to try to flush the worst of the nasty stuff away…and it somehow battled back to life. I brought one big clump of it here with us, and split it into two, and both now look as happy as they have ever done and are flowering away cheerfully! 

Pretty “spinner” bought by a lovely pal! 

We’ve continued to do well on gaining more big pots too - our across the road neighbour has given us several that they weren’t using - those have been situated out the front so that we can all enjoy them. Then on one of our many tip visits across the last few weeks MrEH happened to notice a couple of smaller ceramic pots in a sort of sagey green colour. He managed to hoike them out of the big dumpster skip they were in, found them to be intact, and so brought them home to continue their lives - one now has a small but pretty patio rose in it (a budget supermarket bargain at £2.49) and the other ironically enough allowing for its colour has the original sage we bought in it. We’ll continue to keep our eyes open for any possibility of more pots, as we’ll always find somewhere for them to go! 

Ranunculus 

The front too is also doing well - my hydrangea has finally sprung into leaf, and all the gifted pots have now been planted up with another aquilegia, miniature pansies, some lovely bright cheerful Ranunculus, a Fuchsia, and another rose, all of which look to be doing well. I’ve done a liberal scattering of mixed flower seeds out there too and it appears that at least some of those will germinate and help to fill the space. 

All in all I’m pretty pleased with our efforts to date - the front now feels a lot more “us” than the entirely slate-and-slab covered area we started with, while still being practical and easy to look after. The longer term plan for that area will be to let it flourish into very much a cottage-garden type feel with some form of interest all year round, although that of course will take time. The back is well on its way to being the productive space we wanted - indeed it has already started contributing to meals with salad leaves, herbs and spinach. Our to-do list for May is written already - so off we go! 

Robyn