SOS – 1/6/19

 The first day of winter!

This year is absolutely flying and still we haven’t had meaningful rain. The domestic water catchment is right down and the village’s streets and public areas are dusty and sad.

We’ve been away for 10 days and our big garden and the coastal surrounds look terrible. Worse is that the garden and lawns are covered in a fallen leaf mulch. The mulch would be good if I could get the soil deeply wet first of all. But it’s not to be.  We do what we can though – hand water and blood and bone fertiliser.

So what’s happening in the garden. Mostly stuff in pots, and because this is my first real year propagating in the little cold frame and in growing more than tulips in tubs, I’m unsure if what’s growing should be this advanced at this time of year (winter) or whether the continued mild to warm days through autumn have created their own force.

The Saffron crocus are well up.

My first ever effort at growing Anemones (white ones – mentioned in previous SoS’s). I suspect I might have to plant them out into the garden or bigger tubs. Should they be this advanced on the first day of winter?

In the cold frame, the white sweetpeas are well-grown and ready to plant out around the wire of the veggie garden.

Salvia cutting is going gangbusters in the cold frame.

Little Euphorbia Diamond Frost is growing really well in the cold frame.

My garlic has taken off (it’s called Tassie Red) but the bed needs weeding and mulching with some lucerne hay.

And finally, the perennial border that separates the orchard from the rest of the garden. The black fence is largely a windbreak for the garden. I love the big grey blot of Senecio Cineraria. I actually cut away the flowers in summer as yellow has no place in my garden, but the silver foliage? That’s a whole other thing. I love the way the drops of moisture pool in the leaf lobes.

If you want to see beautiful northern hemisphere gardens filled with colour, form and excitement, go to The Propagator and spend a lovely hour flipping through the pages. Better than any other garden mag!