sunflowers

orange tulips and pots for a balcony

I love parrot tulips. The flowers are amazing. I think these are Professor Rontgen but I also planted Orange Favourite so I'm not absolutely certain. I must try to label plants (and seeds better). Every year I have seedlings that I don't know what they are.

tulip Professor Rontgen

tulip Professor Rontgen

tulip Professor Rontgen

I decided not to buy many seeds (or plants) this year both to save money and because after having too many seeds in previous years I wanted a break from feeling pressured to plant them, and inevitably ending up with too many seedlings, so for the pots for my balcony I decided to plant them up with sunflowers I grew from last year's collected seed. I have no idea how these will work in pots on a balcony - certainly not a traditional choice - but I will give them a try. I also couldn't find the coleus seeds I wanted to plant in them and couldn't decide on an alternative - and the sunflower seeds were just there. I'm also using plastic pots which are lighter than clay as I don't want too much weight on the balcony. I put some styrofoam pieces in the bottom before filling with compost to reduce the weight further. Photos with them in situ to follow.

balcony pots with sunflowers

I also have a trough to plant up. I'm going to use some miscellaneous plants I have kicking around. Again, an untraditional choice but completely free. Photos to follow.

I'd never collected much seed before until the end of last summer when I collected seed from the sunflowers, snapdragons, hollyhocks, cerinthe and alliums. I was pleased to have seedlings from the first 4, including cerinthe below and sunflowers above. The snapdragons are tiny yet (photo to follow). The alliums I don't think will bloom in 1 year so no hurry with those.

cerinthe seedlings

New Garden

This is my second project to rejuvenate my neighbour's garden after some recent building work (the first one was started 3 years ago). Now more building work was done this year which once again ruined the garden. Again I am using seeds I already had on hand (both purchased and collected), plants propagated from my own and seedlings from self-seeding plants in my garden. I wish I'd known this was going to happen I could have grown more hollyhock seedlings.

30 July 2013

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