These are some fuchsia cuttings that I'm going to try and grow as a fan shape and as standards after reading an article in garden news recently. Seems to be a simple enough affair, but as usual time will tell. Over the weekend spent most of my time trying to organise more space in my heated greenhouse, transferred some plants to the cold greenhouse as they were ready for 5'' pots, so hopefully the climate change won't be too much for them. As the weather was good this weekend did some grass cutting and general tidying around the garden. For some strange reason just can't seem to get round to starting off my veg seeds, but no more excuses, this is going to be the week it begins.

2008 MORE FLOWERS

2008 FLOWERS

This is one of the cuttings I took from a fuchsia 'Dollar Princess' in February. read a interesting article in last weeks Garden News about growing fuchsia fans and fuschia standards. Going to give it a try and will keep you updated.



Bought this crysant in one of the DIY stores in an almost but dead state. Wasn't hard to revive it and I now have 3 well rooted cutting to boot. I don't think crysants are too popular in this country as garden flowers but in the UK many different varieties are easily available as cuttings. Must have a closer look at this next year as I think they are fabulous.

Haven't been getting as much done around the garden for the past 2 weekends as I should have. Between one thing and another, time has been limited. Have sown directly into a border the following seeds, not a great border as the wind is rampant there and I'm still waiting for some griselenia hedging to fill out which I planted there around 18 months ago. So we'll wait and see what happens there.

SOW DIRECT DATE 21/03/09
FLOWER VARIETY
CANDYTUFT FAIRY MIX
LAVATERA MONT BLANC
NEMOPHELA BABY BLUE EYES
NIGELLA LOVE IN A MIST
SUNFLOWER DWARF YELLOW SPRAY

The heated greenhouse is a bit of a challenge at the moment, morning and evening temperatures still low, but during the day temperatures inside are soaring to 35 degrees even with ventilation. Don't need to have bubble wrap for daytime but certainly do for night time. I suppose my biggest problem is that I leave for work around 7 in the morning when it's still quite cool and don't get home til around 6.30. Having said that the seedlings are doing very well.

In total I have about 300 seedlings pricked out now with a tray of antirrhinums and some delphiniums to prick out from the first lot of sowings.

Went on another seed sowing frenzy today and sowed the following

SOW DATE 22/3/09
FLOWER VARIETY
BLACK EYED SUSAN SALMON SHADES
GAZANIA KISS ROSE F1
GAZANIA KISS GOLD F1
GAZANIA KISS WHITE FI
GAZANIA KISS BRONZE F1
MARIGOLD DURANGO BOLERO F1
MARIGOLD PATULA DURANGO BEE F1
MARIGOLD DURANGO RED
MORNING GLORY CARNEVALE DI VENEZIA
MORNING GLORY HEAVENLY BLUE
PETUNIA SALMON VELVET FI
ZINNIA ELEGANS SWIZZLE SCARLET AND YELLOW
ZINNIA ELEGANS SWIZZLE CHERRY AND IVORY

All the seeds sown today were sown in trays as normal but for the 'Zinnia' as they don't like root disturbance, I sowed them in toilet roll cores cut in half, put them into the seed trays and covered the seed tray as usual with glass to speed up germination, hopefully this will work and I'll be able to plant them out without root disturbance.

Did a little bit of flower picking today, don't have a whole pile of tulips or hyacinths, must do more for next year.

Signs of growth with pear, apple and plum trees also some raspberries I planted a couple of months ago coming on nicely

This was one of the tulips before I cut it for the vase above, amazing how quickly they close when out of direct sunlight

A hydrangea which literally was only twigs, 2 weeks ago and now has sprung into action

Wall flowers (I think) nearly there now, should add some nice colour well before the bedding plants are put in at the beginning of June.

Got those spuds planted, Arron Pilot, put some British Queens on the bench for chitting, Did a little bit of tidying up around the garden and some more pricking out of seedlings.

Happy St Patricks day everyone , haven't done much since my last post, had great intentions but between work last week, a meeting re allotments on Saturday afternoon, then the rugby match on Saturday eve, and then the celebrations that night, left me in no fit state to do much on Sunday. So it was a total disaster. Started again this morning by pricking out more seedlings, tidying up the greenhouse, going to do a bit of planning for my next round of seed sowing for the coming week end, and going to plant a few spuds today.

The garden

Didn't do much work today, added some spent compost from my seed trays to one of the borders, had a quick look in the cold greenhouse, everything fine there. Had a quick look around the garden, things appear grand. Watered and fed some other plants, that was as much as could be done.

Green house work

Spent the morning pricking out another 80 or so seedlings. Have about 150 now in total. Last year I used liquid copper fungicide which was watered in at the initial stage of watering the compost. This year I'm just misting the seedlings when there pricked out to pots. Seems to be working fine with only 5 out of 150 going down.

One side of my 6'x6' green house is now full and I still have another 150 or so seedlings to be pricked out over the coming week. God but I'd love to have a huge green house. I also watered the seed trays and newly potted up seedlings and also the seedlings that have been potted up for a month with a little feed to keep them going.

So, half the greenhouse is taken up with half of the first sowings, going to sow as much again around Paddy's day so it's going to be very tight in there in another couple of weeks.

Colour in the garden

A few flowers brightening things up, plenty of daffodils some hyacinths, pansy's and viola's. Tulips will be here soon. Can't wait for the annuals to start flowering.

Snow

Well we've had different types of weather since my last post. This photo was taken near Charlville Co Cork early last Wednesday morning, It snowed for much of the early morning and everywhere was covered in a white blanket, luckily enough it wasn't cold enough to freeze the snow so driving conditions weren't too bad. We have had rain, wind and some good sunshine as well this week, hopefully the appearance of snow which is something I haven't seen down this end of the country for years is a good omen for what's to come for the rest of the year.

Weekend work

Saturday is my day off from work and gardening, in fact everything, so got nothing done. Reconed I deserved a second feebie as well today seeing as how I got so much during the week and needed a good old rest as I'm back to work tomorrow. Did however start working out how many plants for each area of the veg garden and will finish that off over the coming week and a few other jobs to be done during the evenings this week. Will keep you posted