Full of promise.

We scatter bits of scented soap to keep the deer off - it works!

What would you like to grow that you can't?

I'd like to grow gypsophila, pinks, and all the other 'English' pretties that like limy soil and drier and sunnier conditions than we have here. I am gradually finding plants which have similar characteristics but which suit our conditions. A lot of annuals fit the bill, but they are more work than perennials.

Question 9 from Marie at http://66squarefeet.blogspot.com  What do you feed your garden?

I don't feed it much. I'm wary of growing things too soft. Having said that we have a pile of well rotted farmyard manure still on the drive, very gradually diminishing in size, as it gets spread all over the borders. That will be the first real feed in 10 years other than a handful of Growmore when we first plant something new. We use home made compost from our two bins on the cutting patch which is very gravelly, and the soil there is now lovely to work.

This is where this beautiful tulip grew....

Plants make me happy! I've known this since I was about four.
For the plant which makes me happiest erigeron karvinskianus, the Mexican daisy, must be a contender.

I first bought it from Wendy Lauderdale who had a wonderful garden in Wiltshire, and who wrote a book called The Garden at Ashtree Cottage about her quintessentially English garden.

We visited her garden one quiet hot day, got talking, stayed for coffee and ended up spending the best part of the day there. Describing this modest little daisy she said 'It sprinkles about'. And it does. Delightfully. Here it is sprinkling down our front steps. The colours of the flowers change from white to pink to brownish pink as the plant matures so you have all these different shades together at any one time (this doesn't really show in my photograph).

I don't have ideal conditions for it - it prefers dry and limey, and we are wet and acidic, but it survives most winters under the eaves of the house in gravel. It's very easy to keep going from seed and cuttings.

Happiness rating 10 out of 10..

...do you have any 10 out of 10's?

 Another question from http://66squarefeet.blogspot.com -

What plant has most disappointed you?

The blue poppy is one - the plant doesn't disappoint - it is fabulous. But my attempts to grow it disappoint. in theory I have the right conditions, but....I've given up now. I go along and enjoy seeing it growing wonderfully in my neighbour's garden.

....think about tomorrow's nice question What plant made you happiest?

Two twigs, one piece of wire.
Crude, but cute..

    Does anyone know how you stop the catkins from falling off?

More Garden Question time: What size is your garden?

About 120 ft x 40ft with the house in the middle.

I once had one and a quarter acres, but except for one hardy geranium and a tiny dianthus which grew by the door, sheep ate everything I ever tried to grow there, including daffodils.

At first I found this quite upsetting, but I was more than compensated by discovering the wild flowers which grew on the moor surrounding the cottage. I remember finding a sundew in a peaty ditch, and being astonished that it was insectiverous!

The cries of many owls woke me at 4 am and I opened the bedroom window and let in the sounds and the chill air, then tucked back into my warm bed.

Early morning dew on daffodil Thalia in the new banner above, watching jays and a pair of red squirrels; what can beat breakfast in the garden on a beautiful spring morning?

Where do you garden now, and where did you garden as you were growing up? is today's question.

I garden now in a very small village in the mild temperate climate of the west coast of Scotland. I grew up without a garden, which may be why I love it so much...

I've gardened in different parts of Scotland, in Yorkshire and Oxfordshire in England, and in Cyprus. In city, town and country, on open moorland and by the sea - lots of gardens, lots of work, lots of fun.

And you?

Oops! I meant to post my blog last night....but I fell asleep. I felt a little tired about nine o'clock and thought I'd just lie down for half an hour - I woke ten and a half hours later!!

Back in November last year (12,13 and 26th) I began asking some questions I had found on a blog I still read by New Yorker Marie at http://66squarefeet.blogspot.com  As the gardening season begins here again in earnest I thought a little dig around our gardening roots might be enjoyable.

Marie's first three questions were:

When did you start to garden?

Who and what inspired you to garden?

What was the first plant you grew?

The next question is How often do you garden?

My own answer is at every opportunity. I am a bit more of a fairweather gardener than I used to be I must admit, but most days I do something, even if it is in the greenhouse, or just sitting planning.

I've just taken delivery of ten white bark birch, Betula jacqumontii, for the front garden so that is taking quite a bit of planning - placing them, standing back, looking from different angles, trying to remember their ultimate height and spread....As they grow and dominate the small front garden many other things will have to change too, and in my mind I can already see drifts of snowdrops, white spring anemones and white daffodils, and large swathes of white hardy geraniums - simple and easy to maintain underplanting, and I can envisage a yellow gate in the front fence.

As you can tell a lot of my gardening is in my head!

What about you?

As I'm sure you know, a bout of illness gets you back to basics like nothing else
Sleep. Eat. Move.
I'm sleeping for Britain - no problem there.
In the last few days I've begun enjoying food again. Greatly exciting (for me!)
I force myself to move, then quickly fall back asleep....
A sorry tale of woe!
I am moving, albeit very very slowly in the right direction, helped by yesterday's lovely sunshine, and today's magnificent flowers.






...promise to try to find something more interesting to write about tomorrow!...

Do you know that if your seedlings get etiolated - all thin and spindly and feak and weeble as mine have because I've been ill in bed and neglected them, its OK to bury them up to their necks when you prick them out into new compost and bigger containers. The thing is not to damage the stem....

It's Spring.

It's official! Yesterday was the Vernal Equinox with day and night of equal length. As from now the days get longer - oh bliss! I am so ready for Spring - maybe some of the vitality will rub off on me?

I've been quite unwell with a nasty mysterious infection, and am at a very low ebb energy wise - 'feak and weeble' my daughter once called it. So today, the first real day of Spring is the beginning of my fight-back!

I am eating for health which will give me the energy to excercise, which will make me heathier still. This is the plan anyway....

Here is a recipe from Judith Wills that I like called the energy drink

Blend together 250ml unsweetened soya milk, 125 g fresh fruit, 1 small banana, 2 tblsps yoghurt, 1 tsp runny honey and 1 tsp wheatgerm oil.

Makes a nice breakfast....