Garden Centre

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Still stuck indoors

And today’s weather suggests I should be building an ark, rather than a planter, but that’s what I’m doing. The reason? I ordered Romneya seeds.

Now Romneya is a bit of a love/hate plant. I, personally, cannot get enough of it. I first saw it in a Cambridge College garden, nodding gently slightly above my head, and giving off an intoxicating aroma of honeyed lemons in the late afternoon sun. It’s known to grow up to two metres tall, depending on climate, and has, as well as these astonishing saucer sized flowers, large grey leaves. It was not introduced to cultivation until 1875 and it first flowered in the Botanic Gardens at Glasnevin, in Dublin, which is one of my favourite places, and so it seems fitting that this plant should enter my garden.

So what’s the problem?

Romneya can spread widely by suckering, a habit which is described on one American site as ‘In sandy soils they can grow under your house and come out the other side, under driveways, or consume your entire yard.’ Hmm. Now my soil is not sandy, but I have had invasive plants before, notably Chinese Lanterns and I have no desire to go there again. On the other hand though, I do want this lovely big flowers in my garden. So the compromise is to build a nice big (very deep) wooden planter, with feet, paint it blue to really show off the colour of those flowers and that foliage and hold it in reserve against the day that my Romneya seeds turn into seedlings.

Romneya by scott.zona

Labels: container plants, growing plants from seed, romneya, seeds

The All Seasons Gardener at 2:20 AM 0 Comments

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Friday, January 11, 2008

Rain, rain, go away ...

One of those New Year’s resolutions it’s almost impossible not to keep is ‘Don’t start to turn over the garden soil until you are able to take a fist full of soil, squeeze it and it crumbles easily when it hits the ground’. Who’s so thrilled by rain that they want to be out their digging in it?

There’s plenty to do - during damp days you can always prune or just pull your wellies on and pull up some weeds.

Use planks to protect your soil, especially your lawn in extremely wet and waterlogged weather, or it will compact to the point that it becomes lifeless and bad for your plants' roots, but with some protection of this kind you can always use the time when the soil is drying out to prune your dormant trees – and cut down any lovely bright dogwoods that have been adding a winter glow.

My seeds arrived today and once again, as I look at the packets I’ve ordered and all the seeds left over from last year I realise I’m going to need a bigger garden!

Labels: digging over, seeds, winter pruning

The All Seasons Gardener at 4:03 AM 1 Comments

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