Never write kind things about your pets on the internet, it is tempting fate. As I stood at my potting bench this morning, pricking out some rather leggy Cosmos seedlings, Our Ginger strolled into the greenhouse. I greeted him courteously, and he poked around the floor inspecting the pots of Geranium maderense, then vanished under the bench. Moments later I heard a spattering noise. I wondered for a moment whether it was excess liquid draining from the pelargoniums I'd just watered, then realised it was Our Ginger spraying the glass. He stalked out, leaving behind a strong smell of cat pee. It is not very nice, to walk into somebody's greenhouse where they are working, piss on the walls, and walk out again.
The Systems Administrator, on the other hand, is positively encouraged to scent mark the fence along the side of the wood, to discourage the foxes from coming into the garden. Human urine is also an excellent compost accelerant, and the SA finds it highly amusing to be one of the only men in Britain whose wife positively encourages him to pee in the garden. Though not when the lettuce farm workers are busy in the next door field, obviously.
My pots of seedlings had gone rather yellow. I was left wondering why that was, whether they had got sun scorch, or if the level of nutrients in the seed compost was so low that they'd run out of food. Seed compost is deliberately formulated to be low in nutrients, since they can inhibit germination in some cases, or be too fierce for the new little roots. I can't honestly remember which, but I know they don't contain much fertiliser. Perhaps in this case there isn't enough. Seedlings spoil if they are left sitting crowded together in their original pot for too long, but you ought to be able to get them to the first true leaf stage before needing to prick them out. But maybe it was not the compost that was to blame. It hasn't been that sunny, though, and they were slightly shaded by their plastic covers, which collect condensation and have gone slightly opaque with age.
I hope the Cosmos recover, and bush out. If they grow, I could help things along by pinching the tops out. It is one of those summer flowering annuals which goes on for an incredibly long time. There is a house in a nearby village that has a row of them along the front picket fence every year, and each year I swear that next year I must grow some. One of the ways of getting a really high-powered display from your borders all year, as they do at Great Dixter, is to raise useful late summer flowerers like Cosmos and drop them into the gaps in summer. That doesn't really work here. I don't have time, and when I've tried in a rushed and disorganised fashion, the soil is so poor and so full of roots that the fillers didn't stand a chance. Instead I thought I'd try the Cosmos in the tulip pots, once the tulips have finished. The timings should just about work.
I evicted a Salvia involucrata 'Bethellii' from the conservatory, to try its luck in the border. It is only borderline hardy, which is why I had it under glass, but it seems to hate life in a pot. I had one in the ground previously, but it was undermined by ants and died. A Salvia guaranitica in the same bed has come through a few winters now, and is gradually sending out underground shoots to make an expanding patch. That isn't the hardiest salvia either, and I'm hoping S. involucrata might do the same, if it can escape ant attack this time. It has largish flowers in a lovely warm shade of pink.
I wandered about looking for a spot where I might try the same experiment with a Clerodendron bungei, which also seems underwhelmed by life in a pot. Perhaps I need to fertilise it more, on the other hand its natural habit is to sucker, and plants that are adapted to a questing life do sometimes seem to resent the confines of a container. C. bungei has red flowers held in flat plates, in late summer, and needs well drained soil but one with a bit of moisture in it, in sun or partial shade. Most of the soil in our garden is either pure sand or solid clay, with not much in between. I found one spot that might just do, but mainly had to admit to myself that the back garden is getting pretty full. It still needs some more ground cover in places, for the look of it and to suppress the weeds, but otherwise it's getting towards the one in, one out stage. This happens eventually to the gardens of almost all keen plant lovers. It's not a bad problem to have, since when something dies you can console yourself that you can try something else in the space.
I am beginning to harbour murderous thoughts towards a conifer which is not so beautiful as it was. But the thought of having to get the roots out fills me with weariness, so in the short run I am feeding it and hoping it will acquire a new lease of life.
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