Rain, rain...

...where are you?

No sign of rain at all.

Gardens could do with a bit of rain.   This evening there is moisture but you could hardly call it rain.   We need a really wet Welsh soak...preferably overnight and the sun coming up tomorrow...

As it is I am having to water the garden.   This seems ridiculous here in wet Wales.  At this time of year.   Where are the April showers?

This week I made a bit more progress in the garden.  It does tend to be one step forward and two back with Seren aided and abetted with children.   They all think they are being tremendously helpful.  Take the digging...

Jonah and Seren made wonderful progress with digging, but in the process very nearly dug up some precious plants.  As it was I had to replant some gladiola bulbs ...and you should have seen how dirty both child and puppy were....also, so very happy!

Craters or open cast mining
in the veg patch.  Luckily no veg
planted here yet.

Yes, you can see the craters.  The fence is a very new addition and hopefully the children and Seren will find it difficult to enter this patch now.   I put this little fence up this afternoon...maybe tomorrow I will have an opportunity to dig and prepare beds.  If you click on the photos they enlarge - you will see how dry it is.

I dream of it looking something like this in a couple of months....

I DID say DREAM!

Well, aim high ...I has to get better than it looks right now and I love the way this one above has been done by a clever gardener.

Potatoes are planted.   I still have loads left over I think I'll try to get a few more into somewhere - ground - more bags - somewhere - this coming week.

3 different varieties of potatoes planted

I need to work on The Mound - just out of the frame to the right.   I dug up loads of self-seeded Marguerites yesterday that were growing over the bottom slopes choking out the few strawberries I planted there in the autumn.   The Marguerites found a home in Geraldine's garden.   As did some Vinca (Periwinkle).   I stole a few Vinca roots from the roadside near Maudlam Church a few years ago, the first spring I was here...they have multiplied beyond belief so some of them went to live in Geraldine's garden too.   There are still hundreds of shoots, I shall have to thin out or they will completely choke out other things growing.  This is a plant that will do well regardless of conditions...pretty much - read the link, it is interesting.

You may remember I told you last week I had ordered some wire fencing in the wrong size?   said I would make it into plant props rather than return it.   Indeed it wasn't worth the cost of returning it.   I'm glad I didn't because it made no less than 8 new plant props...thank you D for snipping it to correct lengths.

Small wire hoop fence plant prop.
Will be just the job to support Lupin as it grows.

This has been the cheapest, and probably most cost effective way, I have found of making plant props...one 10 metre roll of 48 cm high wire border edge fence at £10...made 8 decent props.    One stupid mistake turned into a very worthwhile success.   I am feeling smug!  The prop won't be seen at all as plant grows.

Geraldine and I were shopping in Wilkos early in the week.   They are cheapest for much of the garden stuff.  On the plant stand there was a lone melon plant...Geraldine bought it on condition that I grow it in the greenhouse.   They like it very warm and moist.   Also, they like lots to eat.   So we will see if we get any melons this year.  I laced the compost with a huge helping of manure.

Melon experiment.
Doug says they don't like to go below 15C - EVER.
Hmm...we'll have to see if the poo keeps its feet warm enough.

The plants that have over-wintered in the greenhouse are all coming along well.   The fuchsias are big already.  I must re compost the hanging baskets and sort them out in the next week or two.  My Giant Pacific Delphinium seeds have germinated, so have the sweetpeas.   There just are not enough hours in the day at this time of year.   I have so many jobs on my 'to do' list...never mind the things that suddenly catch my eye or attention that take half an hour here or there quite unscheduled into the timetable.

Last year I had one or two apples on my tree - I don't know why.  I have two theories one is I didn't protect the tree against insects that can damage it as well as I should in the winter of 2013/14  - this syear I made sure the tree was well protected with a sticky band.  Or, and a more likely theory in my opinion, I did far more judicious pruning of the tree this last winter.  This spring the tree is absolutely loaded with blossom.   I'll be propping the branches and thinning out the weaker fruits if all this develops.

Apple blossom

Similarly the berry bushes, the black and red currant are dripping with berries.  I pruned those too.  As I did the grape vines which are looking much more tidy and controlled now.  Hopefully in due season they will produce grapes.  Its too early to tell yet!  The wind shelter we put around the one by the kitchen door has paid off as that vine is looking so much more healthy and is shooting away up the wires to the pergola.   Today I did an experimental prune of the climbing roses to train them up the wall rather than letting them have their own wild way hither and thither.   I'm not sure I have got it right but I do know they are so vigorous that they will forgive the odd rather severe snip.

Snowdrift Clematis

Unfortunately Seren has done her bit for pruning too and I rather fear she has killed my lovely passiflora, she bit it almost to the ground.

Geraldine and Dave have a wonderful scented clematis it is called Snowdrift.   I'd love to get one of them for the pergola.  The Virginia creeper is making headway up it at last but a clematis at this time of year would be very lovely.  The bluebells are

Bluebells and an unknown plant, front left,
Can anyone tell me what it is?

gradually colonising the borders under the pergola.   Juliet, I think of you every time I look at them.

Giant Poppy

We have had so much sunshine that the big poppies have started to bloom.   The peonies are in full bud too.  Did you know that once established peony plants can live for a hundred years?  The ones I have are from my Mum's garden in Darlington.   I moved a root or two to Dorset and then again when I moved here.  They aren't supposed to move well...or so I was told years ago.
I think these ones have disproved that theory.

The Rowan tree has unfurled its leaves - it is beginning to look more like a tree and less like a growing stick this year.   In fact, it looks to me as if it will have the signature Rowan berries on it this year too.   The Rowan was once traditionally grown at the entrance to Welsh gardens to ward off evil spirits entering.   Nice to have my own guardian tree!  Next to the Rowan is a bush that I think is supposed to be a lilac.   maybe that will flower this year and reveal its identity.  Both the Rowan and the supposedly Lilac came from Dorset those 3 and a half years ago - Andrew planted them so I am not sure of their identity.   Let me rephrase that.  Andrew, I don't doubt your word but you said you thought they were a Rowan and a Lilac....

The Hostas are doing well and no sign of slug damage so far.   I hope the nematodes are doing their job and I have to say where I have applied it...so far so good.   I shall order more for the veg garden too.  The Dicentra is in bloom now too...I love the little bleeding hearts.

Dicentra, or Bleeding Heart

Aquilegia are all over the garden, they self-seed freely and pop up all over the place as a nice surprise.  The little daffodils I planted in the autumn, the ones with multiheads and the little pale star shaped ones, are so beautifully scented that they perfume the garden in the evening wonderfully and I only have a few of them.   I must get more next autumn.  They give off a delicate lemony smell.

I have been feasting on early rhubarb for a few weeks now too.  It's lovely if you roast it with a sprinkle of sugar and then add to a little pot of Greek Yoghurt.  So good to be able to eat what you grow.  No pesticides, no travel miles, and tastes wonderful.

I think that is all the garden news this week...apart from pulling up a lavender plant and relocating it to a patch where I had lost one.  It is an experiment.   I dug it out from under the Cistus which was smothering it.   I'll see if it lives or dies...it would have died under the Cistus anyway.   That Cistus is getting huge.   I have cut it back a bit.   That's another experiment.   I do a lot of experimenting,  Some works, surprising a lot works and some doesn't.

"One of the truest of gardening sayings is that you have to be cruel to be kind. If things are left to go overgrow, they look out of shape, scale and control."
- Brian Davis