Large Rhododendrons, Salad Crops and Chelsea Flower Show
You know when you visit the garden of a stately home or pass a large garden and think; wow I wish I had one of those in my garden. Well that is the way I was when I saw large specimens of rhododendron. When we moved to this garden luckily there was such a thing and 20 years later it is still getting bigger. Last year the flowers were a bit sparse but that could be because the previous summer had been really hot and dry. Last summer, if we can call it that, was cold and wet, perhaps suiting this rhododendron much better. It really brightens up the north facing side of the house.
This weekend was a greenhouse weekend. Incredibly the outside temperature was 10 degrees Celsius cooler than the previous weekend. The tomatoes had really surged ahead in the hot spell and they are now in their final home in the greenhouse border.
The dahlias, petunias and alyssum grown from seed are racing away and it is time to start hardening them off. I do not have a cold frame and so I will begin to give them little spells outside during the day.
Last year I grew salad leaves and they proved a great success. This included spinach picked as young leaves. This year I am experimenting with more and this weekend sowed Greek Cress, Mizuna Waido, Purslane and Rocket.
Chelsea Flower Show starts this week so I guess I will be getting quite a bit of television hours in. yes I would like to visit again but it is so expensive now by the time travel fares are added into the equation. Luckily the television coverage is very exhaustive and in truth you get to see more of the gardens on television than you do when you are there fighting for permission.
It will be interesting to see what wins best in show this year; will plants or formal designs be the order of the day?
I have just found your site. I have a haven where I am visited daily by dozens of birds. Cupboard love - I feed them on seed every day but also scatter handfuls of raisins and currants. Did you know blackbirds love cheese and that a mouse can carry off a whole jaffa cake? I have some balding blackbirds. I have watched them carrying beakfulls of raisins for their young for weeks and I am spellbound. I am sitting with my laptop under the car port working away. Robby Robin was sitting on the top of the screen a minute ago and Tilly Trotter (Song Thrush) is sitting on the back of a chair as I scribble this. I am blessed. They tweet at me for food and the table and chairs provide a never ending source of work in cleaning up their - er, debris! I cannot imagine my garden without my wonderful feathered company as I sit here typing out boring training manuals! What a lovely site you have.
Eileen
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Thank you for your kind comments Eileen.
We know it is only cupboard love but what pleasure we get in return.
The blackbirds look so funny dancing back and to across the lawn trying to mark out their territory. I am sure they don't find it so funny!
All sorts of dried fruit have gone out there and it all goes although I have to say any candied peel is last to disappear.
We eat an apple and throw out the core and that doesn't last long.
Cheese goes out and the blackbirds get some but if the magpies and crows see it it is soon broken up into chunks and carried away. The robins mop up the crumbs.
As for the debris, we have to cover the seat, garden chairs and table. You would think it would be easy to clean of but.....
The garden would seem a barren place without our feathered friends.
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