Sunday 8 April 2012

here's one I made before the programme

Today we are going over to Northamptonshire for a family get-together, setting out at half past eight or as near as we can manage.  I'm sure I'm not going to have time to post anything before we go out, and probably won't feel inclined to post anything by the time we get back, so the draft of Sunday's post is being written on Saturday evening.  I try not to do that, but there you go.

It has been a bad year for daffodils in our garden, many clumps coming up blind, and those that flowered not lasting long.  We have debated whether the blindness is because the bulbs have been too dry for the past couple of years, or have got congested over time, or have been attacked by narcissus root fly or other pests, without coming to any conclusion.  I suppose if I were to dig some bulbs up I could check for disease, and even see if the clumps looked congested.  The drought hypothesis is untestable, since we can't run the last two years again but with more rain, and see how the daffodils turn out.  The ones in the car park at work look very nice and extremely prolific, so it doesn't seem to be a bad year for daffodils generally.  I put the short season down to the unseasonably hot weather.  We have got tickets for a garden that's opening next weekend in aid of the Art Fund, and one of the attractions was the daffodil collection, but I suspect they may be largely over.

By way of consolation, the tulips that I planted last year in the dahlia bed, after they had done their first flowering in pots, are making quite a good display.  Tulips tend not to last for many years in the ground, or at least not the tall ones.  Some of the species and low growing miniatures are more durable.  I buy new bulbs for the pots, since they are so much larger and fatter when they come from the bulb merchant, but it seems a shame to throw them away afterwards, unless they have fragmented to tiny bulblets, so for the past two years I've shoved them into any gaps in the dahlia bed, trying not to dig up the dahlias, and planting them as deep as I can manage.

The pasque flowers, Pulsatilla vulgaris, are having a great year in the long bed in the front garden.  Books talk about how it is a flower of chalk grassland, but it is very happy in an acid flowerbed, with pin-sharp drainage.  They seed themselves around mildly, and I thought that this year I should collect some seed and see if I can raise some seedlings in modules, as well as trusting to nature.  It is difficult not to smother the smaller seedlings with mulch in the flowerbed.

I have bought some violas for my sister in law, a pale yellow called 'Dawn', a mauve and creamy yellow called 'Rebecca', and a grey and veined yellow called 'Green Goddess'.  Giving other people plants is a tricky business, but she probably has enough chocolate at Easter already and doesn't drink.  Violas don't take up too much space, and are ephemeral enough that you aren't demanding your host finds a permanent slot in their garden for your gift, so they seem a fairly safe bet.  And they are so pretty.  Who could look at them and not love them?

Have a nice Easter.

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