April – it has been a busy month in the greenhouse.
Perennials have been divided. Sanguisorba officinalis ‘Red Buttons’ ( see below ) is a tough, wood like solid root ball to split up. However with my trusty “hori hori ” I was able to divide it up and make 12 new plants. They are all now potted up , and will be replanted as soon as the roots have filled their containers.
The offsets were made from the plant below (image from summer 2019 ) The deep burgundy against the orange of Crocosmia Lucifer is particularly striking. With its elegant and open structure, Sanguisorba provides a long term visual interest through the summer and autumn, it is definitely a plant to consider for a summer flower border. If you are looking for Sanguisorba and other gorgeous plant inspiration, why not check out the plants at http://www.wildegoosenursery.co.uk , where I am member of the nursery team.
My summer selection of seeds, are now growing away at an unprecedented rate. I must admit, it took a while for seeds to germinate this year, and at one point, I was really quite concerned about the lack of seedlings . Turns out, it wasn’t really warm enough in my greenhouse.
As you can see, hundreds of seedlings are all growing away very nicely. My vision of a pink and orange garden, is slowly gathering momentum
April has been quite a dry month. Honey bees were searching for water in the garden today, so I decided to make some watering stations. I would recommend we all do this to help the bees. Just make sure the container is shallow, and put in some gravel, old sticks , or in my case bits of old plant pots to enable them to drink in safety, rather than falling into the water.
I took some hard wood shrub cuttings in February, and put them in some spare florists foam , I really wasn’t expecting this. As I sliced up the foam, I could not believe how fast the Fuchsia and Roses had rooted. I had kept the blocks in the greenhouse over winter, and made sure they were soaked on a fortnightly basis. I still cannot believe they rooted so quickly.
Not all of the cuttings ( taken in Feb ) had rooted, so they are now in my propagation box , which is made from an old polystyrene box, lined with plastic, and filled with gravel , perlite and horticultural sand, and topped of with a lid. The box is a good insulator, so the growing medium is warm, and condensation from the plastic lid, helps to keep the growing medium damp. I check it out every few days, just to see, if I need to provide additional irrigation. If all goes to plan, within a few months I should have even more propagated plants.
April is almost at an end, I wonder what May will find me writing about ? Possibly Dahlias and Chrysanthemums .
Sally Wicks 