Six on Saturday 12-04-2019

As The Propagator says this week: "Time for Six on Saturday – Six things, in the garden, on a Saturday. Could be anything, a flower, a plan, a bug, seedlings, vegetables, a job completed, anything at all. Join in!"  

For my first of Six, I am asking advice regarding the cultivation of perennials from seed.  In this case a Thalictrum.  Started in the Autumn of 2017 from fresh seed, and good germination and growing on in 2018, I have placed two patches of three plants.  I  was really happy to have grown Thalictrum delavayi from seed, and must have had over 25 good plants.  The nice thing about growing perrenials from seed is that there are usually plenty to share.  This spring growth has emerged with two or three leaves, and the plants in the last couple of weeks sent up what a small taller shoot that looks as if it will be a flower shoot.  The points  I would like help with are:  Is this standard?  Should I leave this spike or remove it to help bulk up the plants?  Any further advice on ensuring some good plants in future years would be very helpful.

A little pot of dainty but triumphant Narcissi hawera flowering late in the season when all other daffs in the garden are over.  Planted from new bulbs last September.

The third item this week is a view of Saxifraga 'Aureopunctata'.  I've had this plant for years and years, moving a small clump each time we have moved house.  The flower spike  holds well too in a vase.  It sulked after the move, but this spring it is looking healthy.

Last week Anna asked what I had growing in my shade border.  This question prompted me to check my plant list...which is still being worked on.  Plants have yet to be added...and I am growing ashamed to just how long the list is and I have such a small garden!!  

Several of the plants are in the wrong place, but have been performing fairly well.  My fourth item this week definitely is happier now it is on the shadier side of the garden.  I had nearly lost it last year as I had planted it in the first corner of the garden to be cleared: the sunny side.  I had brought it on the removal van in a long trough filled with bits and pieces from the old garden.  In part shade it is making up and putting on some quality leaves.  Another favourite of mine: Saxifrage stolonifera looks rich as if from the floor of a tropical forest yet it survived the very cold winter several years ago.  Even in deepest winter the pretty evergreen leaves with the little plants growing on the end of the red stolons is enough to make you want to venture out to take a peep.

Saxifraga stolonifera

 

Saxifraga stolonifera flower closeup

The front garden is ready for a complete revamp...on one side of the drive a huge clump of Spanish Bluebells quite out of control.  I thought I had dug up loads and disposed of them....but they are up non the less.  Today on a cycle ride I see that the banks are showing both the native and this bolder stronger bluebell...

The last of my six this week are my two Pelargonium ardens.  Despite having been kept very dry and also in a coolish but bright conservatory, they did not go 'dormant'.  I have just taken out the growing point in the hope of encouraging branching.  They went completely dormant during last summer but sprung back into leaf a few weeks later.  Katherine the Tea Break Gardener who showed this plant last week may have suggestions of how to encourage it to flower this season. 

Just joined the HPS and off to my first meeting this morning as a 'Member'...hope they are all just as friendly....for sure!

In a Vase on Monday - Blue and White

For today's vase I have chosen the perfectly white Pulmonaria Sissinghurst.  To 'bulk out the arrangement I really had to hunt around.  There was a little patch of wild forget-me-nots in the yet to be mown front lawn.  Then across the other side of the drive the patch of 'wild' bluebell was just starting to open.  

The little blue vase is standing on a really old napkin.  This is part of a set of four with a small tablecloth which is dark blue with white lines.  This is a set which is probably now in the region of 35 years old.  Oxfam used to 'commission' beautiful cotton wares and other handicrafts made around the world which they sold through their special Christmas catalogues.    I can just imagine someone working hard at a loom, and for this reason, cannot bring myself to ditch them.  It has probably been washed over 2000 times.  The table cloth has faded but is still beautiful, even though it is frail.  The napkins were used to wrap packed lunches on workdays.

The white of the pulmonaria is a clear white....

This is the Spanish Bluebell: Hyacinthoides hispanica, which has not scent at all, not at all like Hyacinthoides non-scripta which is the true British bluebell.  These are just coming into bloom, and soon the woodland floors will don their springtime haze of sweet smelling nodding heads.

Cathy who hosts this weekly meme, has similarly chosen garden grown 'wild plants' for her theme this week, and for a peep, do go and see what she and other contributors have picked.

Sourdough rules OK

Yes Sourdough still continues to be a bread of choice.  However when I am busy, and have my creative efforts concentrated in other directions, I opt for easier solutions, such as using loaf tins.  I have gone back to using my Silverwood Baking tins.  I add between 650g and 700g dough, with one slice being perfect for a portion.

Another time saver is reducing or even cutting out 'messy' toppings which are apt to fall off and means saving on more Kitchen Floor washing than I have time for.  Here all the flax for Sourdough Flax Prairie Bread was ground and added with the flour.  Not quite as pretty a loaf, but wonderfully tasting nonetheless.

Last night, these two loaves came out of the oven more or less at bedtime, so they cooled off on the rack covered in linen.

This morning, this loaf was perfectly fresh and tasty for our boiled egg breakfast.

Six on Saturday - 6 April 2019

Continuing on the theme of picking six themes/items/ plants etc from the garden, which The Propagator leads, here is my contribution this week.  Isn't it soothing to know that other gardeners are working hard.  The propagator has raised at least three items this week which have been on my mind too...and there is far more when have a look at what other contributors will be posting.  
The first of this week's six is a Lunaria Annua Chedglow....Honest(l)y I think it is Chedglow.  Last week the leaves were the deepest purple, bu after several days this week of heavy dark skies, and more rainfall than we have had for months, falling in the space of just a few days.  With bright sunshine this morning, the plant may darken up over the next few days.  Three little seedlings, passed on from a friend at about this time last year, were carefully planted.  All except this one was eaten by slugs or snails.  Comments on whether this is Chedglow will of course be most welcome.

Close up the leaves do show some green with spots of purple, overall the camera is not showing quite how dark the plant is.

The second item is this little Pulmonaria...sure most of you will recognise 'Sissinghurst White'.  This again was a well loved plant from my last garden, given to me by Kaye.   I love Pulmonaria and had started to assemble a few varieties.  I was really happy when this appeared in the tub.

The third item is a shrub planted out in the garden last year.  It is Exochorda Macrantha The Bride.   This is a shrub I am constantly attracted to when it is growing in front gardens....  I would have liked to have had Exochorda giraldii var wilsonii, which I had left in my previous garden.  Its flowers are much larger and more prominent, but since it grows into a much larger shrub, perhaps I am better off with 'The Bride'.

The fourth item is my newly planted Dicentra Eximia.  I bought this plant only a couple of weeks ago at the HPS plant sale down at East Brook Manor.  The leaves are a little greyer than the strain I had in my previous garden, however I look forward to seeing it fill out in the shady border. I read that it is probably the most heat tolerant of the Dicentras, so it would be helpful to hear is anyone has grown this in sunnier locations in the UK.  When it bulks out, I shall try some in a sunnier position.

Two other favourite plants were bought.....

The fifth item(s) is tulips.  Here is a bright tub of Tulip Greigii Czaar Peter, which arrived as a little packet of bulbs from my neighbour last year.

Acting as an 'insurance' to the small plants dotted in the ground around the garden, here Tulipa Sprengeri Trotters Form is bulking up in several pots.

On the whole I have not been particularly successful over the years with tulips in the garden.  Perhaps I have not really tried.  Next Autumn I hope to get some different species planted up and will start a list if any suggestions are forthcoming.

Finally my sixth item is this little native cowslip. It came up where I tipped the remainder of pot of plants with garden soil, brought from my last garden.  I was delighted that seed had come with the soil, and that having been simply strew between plants rather than buried deeply, it has managed to get a toe hold.  Ever since the flowers have started to open, about two weeks ago, the local bumble bees have been making a bee line for it.  I first grew these from seed many years ago, and have just enjoyed the way they stake their little space in the garden.  They keep on flowering for a long time, and I shall be noting the length of the flowering season this year.

Rhubarb

I'm awaiting New Rhubarb Plants.......there will be a wait of a year of two before I have garden grown rhubarb, as they are special new cultivars with no 'Summer dormancy'..but they will arrive in small pots: Poulton's Red and Pouton's Pride.

In the meantime I 'picked' up some beautifully pink and long and tender stems from the Rocky Mountain Fruit and Veg Stall.....at the same time had a saunter round the Nursery, and bought a potted up Gooseberry Invicta from the Nursery, which is already sprouting, and has been planted in 'The Gooseberry Corner".

Rhubarb Gin

Rhubarb, Rye and Almond loaves...with more than a passing thanks to Dan Lepard having a type of template in His Rye Apple Cake in Short & Sweet, page 136.