Wednesday, May 10, 2006

just a minute in the garden

what a difference a couple of days have made, this chesnut sapling is just bursting with growing energy!
I am pleased this asparagus kale is now flowering after the winter, I'd like to save seed from it to plant again, its a nice mild kale. today I planted out broccolli, cabbage, calabrese and cauliflower. there were spares of these so I have potted them on, either to use as emergency replacements or to give away. I was intending to pot on the tomatoes but the day seems to have run out!
a difficult to photograph purchase from Saturdays show, a dodecatheon 'shooting star'. I like the way the petals recurve. it was sitting on the bench in the greenhouse and has now been planted out, which may make it easier to photograph and I do like to amuse the neighbors by lying flat out on the grass to be artisitc. . . another Saturday purchase Primula Auricula 'Matilda Baker', she'll probably live in the greenhouse.

8 comments:

Wildside Musing said...

"and I do like to amuse the neighbors by lying flat out on the grass to be artisitc. . ."

You amuse me too, by just thinking of you doing that! Anything for art's sake! And the results are speaking for themselves... Good job, Claire!

grannyfiddler said...

i've just received a blackberry seedling from a neighbor. her excuse was that it's for Mother's Day, but she just likes to gift people. i'd mentioned that i thought i'd bring back a blackberry plant from a holiday planned in British Columbia late in the summer, and see if it would survive the winter in my greenhouse. (they're not winter hardy in Alberta) so, when she saw it in a nursery, she thought of me and brought it home. your greenhouse dwelling primula made me think of it.

clairesgarden said...

Wildside, its difficult to explain how open the garden is: three sides being a road , a road and a car park: I tell people this and stil they arrive and say oh, its really open! when the hedge is grown up it may have more privacy , I could describe it as being a island bed in a car park?
Grannyfiddler, is it a prickley kind of blackberry? we call them brambles. my friend Echo, who has an organic market garden has all her raspberry canes in a poly tunnel and I think she might do the same for the currants sometime soon.

Lisa said...

How pretty. We have wild shooting stars here in the Pacific NW of USA. I remember picking handfuls of them as a small child. (Before we knew that picking wildflowers was a no-no!). They are so beautiful and distinctive.

grannyfiddler said...

it's a thornless blackberry, but the ones in British Columbia would qualify as brambles. i've seen them reach up 30 feet into the cedar trees there! and i still have thin white scars from the gouges they left in my arms when we first became aquanited, several years ago.

my strawberries are in a poly tunnel this year. they're blooming already, when the leaves of the trees are only beginning to leaf out. i must boast - that was one of my better ideas. (forgive the boasting, please... i do tend to have more bad ideas than good ones)

clairesgarden said...

Lisa, its funny how your wildflowers end up as rarities in gardens here, trilliums cost a fortune!
Grannyfiddler, brambles a can be vicious, nice jelly though! good idea having the strawbs inside, a head start is good.

Kerri said...

I'm catching up on your posts this morning...my computer is behaving quite well lately! Love all your pictures...wonderful bird shots!! The shooting star reminds me of a cylamen, and when I looked it up the book said they're both of the primulaceae family. It's beautiful! You certainly have some unusual plants. Had a chuckle over Paddy the horse :) I hope your pulled muscle gets better very soon. Ouch! Your fault indeed! Sounds like the chiro has a great bedside manner (not). It's no fun to have these injuries. I feel for you! I'm loving being able to get out in the garden! We have veges coming too. Yours are early! Lucky you to have a greenhouse.

clairesgarden said...

Kerri, I like the greenhouse, I have a couple more pots of carrots in there and then hopefully some will be grown outside,