Six on Saturday 25 February 2023

This Saturday it is one of those perfect mornings with wall to wall sunshine. We have had rain, and now we have seasonal temperatures, it feel like Spring.  I'm joining in with Jim to sow six things from the garden.

1. Starting off with some 'tropical' colour, here is the Tropaeolum tricolor which has been sitting, or rather climbing up the structure I made for it.  Close up you can see the amusing blooms, which look to me like a little shoal of tropical fish. They are in the same family as Nasturtiums.  They are edible and used in high end cocktails and salads, so in the absence of tomatoes, they may catch on as the colourful addition to salads this week.  I have not yet seen any self germinators of the nasturtiums in the garden yet, still too cold I should think.

2. I am quite disappointed that almost none of my special daffodils have emerged.  I am beginning to think they won't.  I wonder whether they were attacked by the Narcissus fly?  The standard Tete a Tete are doing fine in this little clump though.

3. By the front door the white pansy is looking perfect this week.  Now I have uploaded the picture I can see that I had forgotten to deadhead the little spent daffs.  This is how the ready planted tub I bought at the market is looking like, and it has been great for many weeks now. That will be a quick job!

4. Planted up just at the beginning of the year, my first Cyclamen Society seed allocation are germinating. A few seedlings in around half the pots have germinated, so I am hoping they will all be up soon. The longer growing period they have this year, the more sizeable will be the little corm, which will help it through the first dormant season.

5. I would love to imagine my conservatory bed as being covered in early spring flowers, with lots of those delightful little yellow blooms.  I had visited a friend's garden,  a well established one which had carpets of choice cultivars of Eranthis, at the time when not one single one had come up in the garden.  A couple of days ago I had another look and found one  at the other of the bed from where it was originally planted three years ago.  Maybe a squirrel or other animal dug it up tasted it, and after a 'yuk' moment spat it out or buried it for later at the opposite end of the bed.  It is staying where it is..

6.  I posed last week's crocus and another new one just to see the differences clearly. The smaller crocus is Crocus Advance, That is what they were labelled as when I picked them up at the Potterton's Stall as corms last year. Advance is a mellow yellow compared to Crocus Goldilocks behind. The detail of the outer petal is as beautiful as that on some of the Tulips. I'm not convinced these are Crocus Advance but have contacted Pottertons to check that I had not wrongly labelled the corms.  Could it be Crocus Angustifolius?

 

Yes this is how the crocuses will look all fully open, and the bees are flying around.