I met a friend for coffee in the Beth Chatto Gardens tea room, and with remarkable self control managed not to buy any plants. The tea room occupies a rather fine modern high ceilinged building with glass walls, and if you choose the right end you can have a view straight down the gravel garden. If you choose the other end you look into a polytunnel, which is less scenic, though full of individual treasures. Then I went and bought a tray of 15 polyanthus in B&Q, to go in pots by the front door. They are very slightly frilly, a mixture of pale pink and pale yellow, which will be delightful unless I discover that they darken to bright pink or anything like that as they age. I peered closely at all the trays before choosing the palest looking one. They were potted up this afternoon, so I have not actually finished the day with a net increase in pots needing planting out.
I spent the rest of the day sowing seeds in the greenhouse. In past years I've done that a month ago, in the second week of February, but this February the weather was atrocious and I had a cold. Last year I didn't sow any at all, because I had so much clearing up to do from the winter's damage (and that of the previous winter) that something in the timetable had to give. I even ordered a few packets from Chiltern Seeds before coming to this conclusion, so they stayed in the box of seeds along with all the ones that come free with gardening magazines.
Raising your own plants from seed is enormous fun, and you can save a significant amount of money when even small herbaceous plants sell for £3.50 or more, and most shrubs don't leave any change from a tenner. I like propagating, and think it's a key part of gardening, to the extent of holding that people who don't raise any of their own plants aren't really gardeners so much as plant based exterior decorators. I suppose I make an exemption for those with tiny gardens and absolutely no space for even a cold frame. However, it is time consuming. Before the sowing comes the scrubbing of the pots, and labels, and the rummaging in the shed to find the plastic propagating cases, which also need washing. Then there's a day or two of sowing, and possibly the special trip to the garden centre because you find you've run out of Cheshunt Compound. B&Q sell pots and labels at this time of year, but if you want fungicide suitable for seedlings (that's what Cheshunt Compound is) you will have to go to a proper garden centre. Then there's the pricking out, which takes much, much longer than the sowing did, and the potting on, and the finding enough space to stand all the pots, as one 9cm pot of seedlings multiplies to become three or four trays of young plants.
The next thing I must remember to do is renew the shading paint on the greenhouse, before we get a hot day and the pots of seeds cook. If they get too hot they dry out in a trice, and seedlings are soft little things, that won't withstand overheating like the overwintering pots of pelargoniums, that will take it all in their stride and maybe even believe they are back in South Africa.
My losses over the years have come partly from some pots drying out, and partly from others going mouldy, despite the Cheshunt Compound. Sometimes it starts on the seeds themselves, and I can see that they must have brought their own fungus infection with them on their seed coats. It's all rather rough and ready, and if I had more space, and automatic vents, I would probably do better, but I generally end up with enough usable plants to make the exercise worthwhile. Almost the hardest part of the grow your own from seed project is co-ordinating the plants and the site. Plants rapidly go downhill if not moved on into larger pots when they need it, or else planted in the ground, but finding the space to stand large numbers of 2L pots and the time to pot the plants on is tricky, so my home raised stock tends to stay in 9cm or at best 1L. The garden for most of its history has been a project evolving out of a field, and sowing seeds in February or March it is difficult to visualise which areas will be cleared, weeded and ready to receive the new young plants by September, or the following spring. Over the years I've ended up more times than I'd like with young plants that look good and vigorous, ready to be planted out, and nowhere to put them, because the area I had in mind is still knee deep in nettles or rye grass. Sometimes I manage to use half a batch of plants, and the difference within days between those that are still stuck in their pots and those that have been given the freedom of the open ground is remarkable.
Addendum Half way through typing this the Strulch arrived. I ordered it on Tuesday, and hadn't heard further from them since they acknowledged my order, so I wasn't expecting it this afternoon. It's just as well somebody was in. My instructions on how to find us, and request to send as small a lorry as possible, never made it through to the delivery company, but fortunately it was a fairly small lorry, and the driver got it round the turning circle without a problem, and knew how to find us, because he'd delivered the last load of Strulch. It is excellent stuff, and I will return to the subject soon, and put in a link, only not now because I am going out with my dad and my niece for a curry.
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