New Plants
By dwyllis
4 comments
Have been so inspired by all the beautiful gardens on this site, that I went online last night & ordered some new plants. Officially spring here in NZ next week (21st sept), & we have had some beautiful warm days. However, this week has reverted back to winter! Wet & chilly! No chance to get out into the garden & work on a new border bed David dug out for me a few days ago. This particular border-bed is in on one side of the house & is L-shaped, started from a grotty old pergola attached to the house, which will look good after some rubbing down & new paint, & travelling along the fenceline, with two lovey corners en route. In amongst the tangle of ivy & long grass, I have discovered a rose right next to the pergola, much to my joy! It looks like a climber … a very neglected climber & not too old by the look of it. Not sure what it is or what colour, but an exciting find on this virtually barren landscape. Will feed it some rose fertilizer & give it a very light pruning of the very straggly bits, & will see how it goes. Apart from that, there is nothing else … just ivy everywhere … up the walls of the house & all over the concrete floor of the pergola. I have hacked back the very tenancious ivy from off the house & will cut the pergola floor free of it soon, but will retain some ivy around the rose & the side of the pergola. I intend to put in a climber to go along the fence, starting in the first corner, & have placed a statue of a little girl, which was another of my garden treasures which accompanied me from England a number of years ago. She has weathered up beautifully over those years & I think she is going to look great in that corner. That area gets the morning sun, but shade in afternoon, so I have ordered plants which should be happy in semi-shade conditions …Liriope muscari Purple & Rehmannia elata (chinese foxglove) … Aquilegia Tower Pink … & Penstemon Flamingo .. 2 of each plant & that should go a long way to filling that new border bed, along with a couple of hosta when I find what I want. In the other corner, David has set down a concrete base for our very heavy Phoenix Italia fountain, & I will surround the base of that with ferns & Astilbe … but first we have to find two very strong men to help David move it from where the removal men plonked it down! Such an exciting time ahead of us! All we now need is the weather to behave itself for a few days. Will pick up our new birdbath this afternoon, if my car arrives back from the garage in time …. big & glazed blue, so should put some colour into the garden, whilst we wait for our new plants to grow.
14 Sep, 2011
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Comments
Very interesting blog dwyllis, you have been working hard, its great to discover climbers already growing, the prune will have done it good and it will be lovely to see it thrive and especially when it flowers and you discover the colour.
My daughter moved house last October and apart from a quick tidy up she left things alone until they flowered just so she could see what was growing in her new garden, every time something new popped up she would give a WOW of excitement, lol...
Good luck with your plans and enjoy your new garden...
15 Sep, 2011
To Lincslass .... my only worry is the rose will turn out to be bright orange! Not that I have anything against orange roses, but I have planned that corner to be pinks, lilacs, whites & greens .... the greens coming from various ferns I plan to put in the other corner around the base of the big fountain, once we get it in place. Still .... a nice bright splash of orange might look ok ..... maybe. I won't be pulling it out, whatever colour it turns out to be. I will just work around it. lol
15 Sep, 2011
To Dianebulley .... raising my own plants from seed is something I have thought about, but I tried doing that about 15 years ago, when I was living in West Wycombe in Buckinghamshire. I got them to around 4" high, but they were dreadfully spindly & none survived. I think I will be trying again & see if I have some successes this time, as very costly otherwise, & probably not half as satisfying. Cuttings is another way to go, but unbelievably I forgot to take cuttings of anything from my previous home. The hydrangeas & fuchsias were lovely, & I meant to take cuttings, but in the nightmare of packing up & moving I never got around to it. (I was still furiously painting walls in the house we were moving into to, & we were heading off to the States to visit with my sons & their families just a week after moving out of one house & into the other, so I very hectic time.
15 Sep, 2011
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I grew perennial plants from seed this year Dwyllis. Its a better option. Sowing some seed into small containers
of Seed Sowing Compost and pricking out into 2" pots of J.I.No.3. I stood the pots in solid trays, and just keep
1" of water in the base, in the greenhouse.
This produced 40 Aquilegias, 20 Gallardias, 10 Michaelmas Daisies (Asters), and 10 Echinaceas.
The seed from Thompson & Morgan cost me £10 and I have a lot left for another batch next year. You could get the seed from them airmail in about a week.
Other varieties could be grown in the same way, giving you a garden full of flowers in 2013.
Happy Spring in New Zealand !
15 Sep, 2011