garden withoutdoors

my handsome boys

I went to the garden centre yesterday and bought 3 weeds! ok, we can call them "wildflower"s. As soon as you call a plant a "wildflower" they are less expensive at the garden centre, in this case £2.99 each. Last year I got some good wildflowers there: milk thistle, viper's bugloss and sea holly, although only 2 of the 3 sea holly bloomed. I'm hoping the 3rd will bloom this year. These are Fox and Cubs which I've never grown before so was curious to try them.

I planted them today as I had room in the flower bed after some rearrangement

The milk thistles from last year did well and I was able to collect seed and grow more. Unfortunately the slugs devoured them all except this one:

Victor enjoying the sun

Victor in the pussy willow tree

Victor on top of my mini-greenhouse

Fitzy who visits every day. I have never heard him purr. He hardly lets me pet him or hold him. Behind him, on the other side of the wall can be seen some building work my neighbour has been doing. He has a new landscaped patio like something out of Monty Don's Big Dreams Small Spaces. My garden is more like Blue Peter compared to it!

time for the tulips to replace the crocus

muscari in the front, my 5 remaining auriculas behind

honesty with the pink flowers, green alkanet on the right, teasel top right

Bergenia is as tough as old boots. Sometimes I don't appreciate it but other times, such as today, I remember how great it is for early flowers and how it survives any conditions. This morning I saw the pink from the front path and thought it was rubbish that needed picking up, only to discover a bergenia had self-seeded there - and bloomed! What a nice change from the usual rubbish and cigarette ends I see there.

anemone and narcissus in the front garden - first year from new bulbs - always the best results (one of the combos from deJager)

this pic shows the orange cups of the Jetfire narcissus better than the pic above

3 hyacinths in this pot, 2 bloomed early and are now brown, 1 in full bloom, aren't plants annoying like that!

that tulip bud on the left above a few days later

the taller narcissus - also first year from new bulbs, think from bins at Camden Garden Centre, Polly Pocket to the left

the other cats in the back garden (Victor and Socks) with more blooming bulbs

narcissus Tete-a-tete blooming in the compost pile, I've removed them and planted them in the garden

close-up of those beautiful hyacinths

that bulb with buds bottom left was looking good but it is now rotten

these are previously forced hyacinths from previous years blooming in the garden

it's cold and windy but the crocus are making a spectacular show in the sun

A very dark purple hyacinth, Kronos?, Peter Stuyvesant? these are the replacements from J Parkers for the Sky Jacket hyacinths, but they aren't Sky Jacket either! I did force the other bulbs I received (that's how I knew their colour) but received these later so planted them outside.

the flower on the right looks more uniformly purple than the one on the left which has blue at the base of the florets but I'm not sure

muscari

large Dutch crocus

tete-a-tete daffodils and crocus

some of the indoor hyacinths got planted outdoors, think they were from a bulb bowl? will check

this is a better view of those fat fab hyacinth buds, Miss Saigon bottom left, other 2 Delft Blue

White Pearl hyacinths at their peak

the crocus are blooming like mad (end of February)

the early daffodils are in bloom as well, tete-a-tete I think, those hyacinths are spent after blooming indoors

I still have lots of bluebells in the front flowerbed, the hyacinths are blooming so the leaves that look similar to hyacinths but without flowers are bluebells and I'm going to work at removing them

these are the "Sky Jacket" hyacinths which J Parkers sent me when the original bulbs weren't Sky Jacket - neither are these!

spring bulbs outside

The pot of crocus (bottom right) are all the bulbs from the crocus vases and bulb pot (see gardenwithindoors) that did not bloom; I got tired of them on the windowsill so put them outside and planted them. Not sure if they will bloom but think they have as good a chance outside as inside. The hyacinths on the bottom shelf are prepared White Pearl but I ran out of room indoors for them. They are looking nice and fat and have big buds.

The pots on the left have muscari bulblets.

These were last year's crocus, blooming in a pot outside.

I love moss. I noticed this on the front garden wall yesterday.

my average self-seeded pot, clock-wise from the top cente: green alkanet, thyme, campanula, deadnettle, foxglove, forget-me-not - and - a bit of moss

even though the echium seedlings were doing well, they've been eaten so now they are NOT doing well

bergenia flowers

some unknown plants seen on a recent walk along the Regents Canal

It's cold today but the past week has been pretty warm for the time of year. I noticed a flower and buds on one of the blackberry plants. Much as I enjoy not being cold it is crazy weather and very confusing for plants.

the nasturtiums are still coming out with the odd flower, they've been a great success this year: easy growing from seed and lots of flowering over a long period of time and they are self-seeding

The easiest identification is a seedling like this where you can see the distinctive seed, in this case globe thistle.

nasturtium: another seedling straight from a distinctive seed and nasturtiums have distinctive leaves as well

This is a knautia melton pastels which I bought earlier this year in bloom, it has a new flush of  flowers late in the year. I love those pincushion flowers which the bees love so I bought a pack of seeds which are doing well as young plants so hope to have lots of flowers next spring/summer. I want some scabious as well (they're all the same sort of plant to me even if they are different scientifically) so will be sowing those seeds in the spring.

I'm having more success with the echium and monarda seedlings, maybe the ones I planted earlier, in the summer, were overwhelmed by the self-seeded oeonothera.

Narcissus Green Eyes. I could not resist this pack of bulbs yesterday, the colour is intriguing - blue shading - but possibly just in the pic, in the spring I'll see what they really look like.

The scent of mahonia at this sometime dark and dismal time of year is exquisite. Mahonia is unobtrusive and easily forgotten until you happen to walk past it and get that scent and you remember why it is so welcome in the garden.

Victor at the back door caught my attention as the sunset was so bright, it shows how surrounded by terraces of houses the sun is not consistent in my garden and they'll be times like this showing what it could be like

As things have quieted down in the garden I thought I would have another go with the echium and monarda seeds, esp as the seed company had given me replacement packets as I didn't have any germination with them the first time. The larger egg carton below has 11 germinated echium seeds (possibly not visible here) - hardly seedlings as they are so tiny but I can see green coming out of the seed. I only did the smaller carton at the top yesterday so awaiting germination of the monarda seeds.

I mistaken posted a pic of my "last" scabious flower the other day but now I have 2 more and some striking iris foetidissina seeds.

here's another view of the scabious flowers with a magnificent first-year foxglove (they're biennial so will bloom the following year), it's huge so looking forward to that next year - I love foxgloves!

I've moved a self-seeded centaurea montana (scraggly one to the left), as far as I've noticed I've not had any self-seeding before this year. I love them  so looking forward to more flowers next year. I've also moved the globe thistles so the centaureas should have more room.

I can now see the self-seeded anemone is Harmony Orchid from the plants I received for Mother's Day earlier this year.

violas still looking good

this purple viola self-seeded next to this Melton Pastel knautia (I haven't grown them from seed before so looking forward to seeing how they turn out but so far good germination and growth and little slug damage)

dead-heading the nasturtiums (Phoenix) really has worked to keep the flowers coming and I'm very impressed with another grown-from-seed success

Chinese lanterns

In trying to sort out some pots for tulip bulbs I thought I should do something about this pelargonium. It self-seeded from a plant I had a few years ago. This has been growing over a year, not sure exactly. That bare stem doesn't look very promising so I thought I'd cut it back and see if flowering can be encouraged.

pelargonium after pruning, there are also a couple of snapdragons in that pot, a foxglove and I think a scabious under the foxglove (just looked again, I think both of those (under the foxglove and near the edge of the top of the pot) are the early rosettes of horseweed), also the ubiquitous nigella seedlings

I don't remember where the calendula seeds came from, maybe a special offer, although not my favourite they've added some early autumn colour.

This is the last scabious of the summer.

I am loving the rosemary flowers.

status update on the cyclamen coum (large brown bulbs, one is visible in lower left pot): all have flowers and at least some leaves, one was covered with leaves but slugs ate every single leaf, one on the right has a mass of stems close together along with some self-seeded snapdragons and another self-seeded plant in the middle, liverwort, violas and an unknown plant in the pot on the left, self-seeded nigella in the pot at the top

This morning I noticed this pot by the front door had an abundant number of seedlings - more than I realised.

Some of the seedlings only have the basic 2 seed leaves. Some have the 3rd true leaf which shows definitively what kind of plant it is. That 3rd feathery leaf is distinctive of nigella. There is a distinctively leaved milk thistle at the bottom and another seedling of it to the right.

Until I uploaded this pic to my pc I didn't even notice the very small-leaved dark green seedling at the bottom to the right. In the middle it looks like deadnettle.

At first I thought it might be pellitory-of-the-wall. I picked some (below left with the red stem) from next door and placed it next to the unknown seedling and immediately I can see they are completely different.

I've been trying to organise more bulb forcing - but I'm doing it in the garden so this is one of those times when the garden outdoors meets the garden indoors (see further info and pics at my other site). Some of the pots I am leaving outside as the bulbs (eg narcissus and muscari) did better there than inside last year.

I always use fresh bulbs for forcing. They need that extra energy. I try to plant the spent bulbs in the garden but it can be difficult if the ground is frozen and I don't have room, especially with the long roots on the bulb which requires a lot of digging to make room for them.  These are some bulbs that were left in the syrup tins which I used as pots last year. Even though they are dried out some life is left in them - green shoots and green on the bulb. I am going to attempt to bring them back to life. It does show how bulbs want to grow, especially hyacinths.

there are green shoots on the hyacinth and muscari bulblets

the muscari bulbs have a lot of bulblets

I have planted all the bulblets in fresh compost

After a disappointing season last year I decided not to do the large Dutch crocus but I had some of the larger species crocus which will probably work in these vases so I'll give them a try. I find the crocus need the water in the vase right up to the bulb to spur it into action. They aren't as cooperative as hyacinths!

I just noticed these seedlings yesterday growing on the moss on a step from my patio to the rest of the garden. They are the same as the seedlings in the pot (previous blog entry below). Still no idea what they are.

the bees are still loving this corner of the garden, these late flowers are keeping them going: nasturtiums, violas, deadnettle, just about all I have left in bloom