Christmas and New Year were a lovely couple of weeks holiday full of family, friends, Christmas magic with the kids, a bit of over indulgence and a lot of rain!! Now the kids are back at school, the house is very bare with the decorations down and it is time to get back into the garden.
This time of year excites me. Running a flower business where you are growing largely annuals from seed and bulbs means that each year you start over again from scratch. I am full of optimism for the season ahead and excited about growing new flowers I haven’t tried before. I know there will be many challenges to come particularly with the weather! But just now is a time to dream of beautiful flowers and pour over the seed catalogues, getting very carried away as I put in my orders!
Back in the garden it is difficult to know where to start. Everywhere is just so saturated with water and it just keeps raining! For the time being until things dry up a little the flower patch will have to fend for itself.
The conservatory housing the seedlings and plants I am overwintering was a dryer place to start this week. Unfortunately quite a few seedlings were suffering from botrytis a fungus that attacks the plants. I don’t remember this being a problem last year and wonder if the milder conditions have been a cause. I removed all the affected seedlings. To help prevent further attacks I will make sure I ventilate the conservatory where possible, space plants out and water the seedlings from underneath rather than on top of the foliage. I will watch and see what happens over the next few weeks to see if there are any further attacks.
It was also time to pot on a few seedlings this week. When roots are starting to show at the base of the pot it’s time to get them into a larger one. Some stocks and nepta seedlings I had grown from seed particularly benefited from this as their roots were really showing.
I am as usual at this time of year getting itchy feet to sew some seeds and get the years planting underway. I know I will have to hold off a another month before I get really stuck into this but I thought I would start off with just a few sweet peas. Here they are soaking in water for 24 hours before sewing to aid germination.
Outside this week I have spotted the first signs of snowdrops and buds on the hellebores which I might expect to see at this time. However the garden is also somewhat confused by this unseasonably mild winter we have had so far. I am sure I can count the number of frosts we have had on one hand. As a result my bulbs I planted in the autumn are popping up everywhere. I am worried that bulbs that are already showing buds will not flower in the spring this year. I am hoping that the ones just showing leaves will be ok. Do you have any experience of bulbs coming up early in a mild winter and did yours flower in the spring?
With the constant heavy rain that we have had and the very saturated ground outside I am also concerned about my tulips. Last year I did not plant many as it was my first year and I was unsure whether customers would like them. They were a success and people liked being able to buy more unusual varieties you would not see elsewhere. So in the autumn I planted a lot more in terms of both numbers and variety. Could all this rain I wonder affect their flowering in the spring? Especially in one particular area where the flower beds are getting waterlogged due to poorer drainage.
The thing with being a flower farmer is you cannot do anything about the weather and you have to work with it. Last year I spent a lot of time getting quite stressed about the cold not bringing on the plants, the strong winds knocking over my flowers despite staking, the rain damaging the more delicate blooms, late frosts and snow damaging seedlings I had planted out. This year I am going to try not to worry too much about these things. I will prepare as best as I can and if there are tulips and daffodils to sell in the spring brilliant and if not I will try again next year!
This week has felt good to get back to all my gardening jobs and get back on top of things. Gardening is a continual process and not one you can leave too long, as I have found out with the loss of some seedlings. What I have found invaluable just now is being able to look back at my blog from last year. It has been able to tell me what the weather conditions were like, and when I started sewing sweet peas and other hardy annuals. When I started the blog last year it was to share with other interested people what I was doing in my garden and now I am seeing there is a benefit to myself as well! Starting the blog last year I would write a little each week. As time went on and I got busier with the flowers, house and children I found I had less and less time. My blog by then had decreased to just once a month. Now seeing how valuable it can be to myself and others I am going to make a New Years resolution and try and get back in the habit of writing something every week!
After all this rain we have had I woke up today to a garden covered in frost and it looked beautiful! what a difference to see a clear sky, feel the cold on your face as you walk the girls to school and not need a full clothes change by the time you get back as you are soaked through-the new waterproof trousers are on order! I hope this lovely frosty weather lasts to let the rivers go back down to their normal levels and reduce the risk of flooding and to let the garden experience a proper winter at last! I hope you are not having so much rain where you are and are getting a chance to get back in the garden after the holidays.
