Tulips & Daffodils & Wood Chips

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We’re nearly half way through April already! In my last blog, I referred to some tulips that I’d potted last autumn, in addition to the ones in the pix of yellow tulips included in that blog. Well, it turns out I potted two dozen tulips, following advice from Alan Titchmarsh (when he did Gardeners’ World). He said to pack them in layers so that you end up with a really full display of flowers. And this is what has happened. In fact, it looks as if I mixed orange and yellow tulips together so the display is very colourful!

They are now in full flower just as the yellow ones in the other pot are starting to fade, which means we’ve got continuous tulips for weeks.

Meanwhile, the late flowering miniature ‘Hawera’ daffodil is in bloom. This is a really charming variety, which does well in pots. The foliage closely resembles that of chives, while the pale yellow flowers modestly look down, rather like hellebores, rather than outward as is usual with daffodils. Since discovering them, I always do a couple of pots of Hawera and they give us a lot of enjoyment.

Down at the bottom of the garden, in my mini green house, I have six dozen Cosmos seedlings and once they’ve developed adult leaves, I’ll repot them into self-destructing pots to let them grow on until planting some out and giving some away. Last year the white cosmos I grew were a great success and I hope for a repeat performance. From what I can see, they’re easy to propagate, so are ideal for anyone who wants to try raising annuals from seed for the first time.

Meanwhile, I’ve mulched all the potted hostas with coffee grounds. This seems to be a very effective and ecological way of discouraging slugs and snails, which don’t like creeping on coffee grounds (I suppose the texture is like that of sand) and a thick layer also acts as a good mulch — something we look like needing this year.

Talking of which, I also managed to get some buckets of wood chips from the verge, up the road. Last summer a lot of road side saplings were trimmed, the wood was reduced to chips and piles of the stuff were left on the verge. Recently early on a Sunday morning I drove up and found a parking space (it’s a busy road) and managed to fill half a dozen buckets, most of which I put to use on the bed at the bottom of the garden, where I’ve planted out a lot of aquilegia which I raised from seed last summer, the potted out seedlings having survived the hard frosts of winter (so they must be good for anything).

I think that I just might sneak out tomorrow morning to get some more wood chips while the heaps are still there for the taking!

• 14 Apr, 2012
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