Sweet Williams
By balcony
6 comments
Yesterday I spent most of my day getting rid of the 3 long white plastic troughs that I have had for nearly 21 years on the balcony. In the morning I started by looking for bags to put all the Sweet William plants from the 3 troughs in.Nowadays that we don’t have 100s of plastic bags lying around that has become more difficult. I thought there were several of these bags that you can have replaced once they are worn out. I only found 1! But what I did find – though I didn’t remember they were there – was 2 very big raffia bags! These were much more suited to what I had in mind, namely taking all the Sweet Williams out to take to my church & plant them there in the gardens.
Once I took the plants out & put them in the raffia bags I was still left with a great deal of compost! Having found a few plastic bags I filled them up with the compost with the idea of doing the same as the plants. i.e, take them & empty them in the church gardens. After I had done that it was a case of tidying up the balcony, sweeping, moving plant pots & containers around. By then it was lunch time & I didn’t have time to take the plants to the church.
As I had to pick our granddaughter up from school I couldn’t go till after 4pm. Eventually I got there & put the plants in the ground alongside the foot path to the main entrance. As I only had a trowel this was very hard work but I kept at it for over an hour & managed to put in all the plants which covered about 3/4 of the length of the path.
Several years ago I created a bed alongside said path & filled it with Daffodils, Tulips, Anemones, Alliums & Crocuses – all from the pots & troughs on the balcony. All except the Anemones have reflowered each year! :) Though I must admit they are getting poorer each year :( I added Geranium cuttings in early summer which at first seemed to be doing very well. But along came those weeks of very hot weather & no rain for months & the poor things didn’t make any further progress. When I started to water them it was too late to make much difference & so they barely clung to life but each cutting still managed to put out a flowerhead or two a month! :) I pulled them all up yesterday to make way for the Sweet Williams.
5 Oct, 2022
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Comments
I hope he congregation s your work Balc!
6 Oct, 2022
It sounds like a tiring but satisfying day's work, Balc. I love the old-fashioned cottage plants - the scent will be lovely when they walk up the path to church.
7 Oct, 2022
It certainly was a busy day! I had planned originally to put the Sweet Williams in a year ago but they were very small & so I put them in the troughs that I've now got rid off.
I've still got more plants but these won't have their roots disturbed because I dug them up some weeks ago & put them in 6" pots to put in very narrow bed alongside the path to the side entrance. At present it's full of Daffodils I planted a couple of years ago & which flowered very well in the spring of this year. Again they were bulbs from the balcony. In May I overplanted them with Pelargonium cutting which, unlike the Geranium cutting, have grown & flowered much better.
I will make another blog in a few weeks time after I have planted out the Sweet Williams in the pots.
7 Oct, 2022
I love Sweet Williams, unfortunately my new plants did not make it through the summer so I have to sow again
14 Oct, 2022
Shame about that, Lincs! 😪
16 Oct, 2022
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You were a busy chap Balcony, you did well to do all that in one day and also collect your grandaughter, I used to have that job and loved it even during the winter months, I enjoyed the open days when I got to visit their classrooms and see all their work... Its a shame the drought and the heat ruined your summer planting at the church, it happened to most of us, will look lovely next year though with the bulbs and Sweet Williams I hope the parishioners like it and appreciate it..
Do you know in all these years that I've known you, it never occurred to me about lack of space because of you living in a flat, I mean for your tools /compost, especially used, also where to dispose of the spent flowers, I take my compost bins and garden sheds for granted, I hope the church is close to where you live ...
6 Oct, 2022