Nice day to to finish the month

A really beautiful day - warm, with warm wind to help too, but first off I'd like to say I'm glad Sally is on the mend.
On my arrival this morning, I found some blister packs containing some perennial plugs sitting on the bench of the potting shed, so my first job of the day was to pot these up into 3" pots. There were 18 x Campanula pyramidalus which when they grow up should look similar to this.....

Then there were 10 x Echinacea purpurea White Swan which should look like this...

There were also another 6 of the purple Echinacea purpurea. After potting these up they were all delivered down to the greenhouse which is beginning to fill up with perennials for the long borders, most of which are beginning to show signs of growth and will be ready to plant out in April. So at the moment the greenhouse staging looks like this......

The sweet peas sown a fortnight ago have started to germinate too.
After potting these up, I weeded the small bed adjacent to the old summerhouse which is being filled with various bulbs.......

And after this, I returned to weeding the long borders as per previous entries. There are a few plants in flower or close to it at the moment, including the Pulmonaria and Hellebores.......

Most of the perennials are now beginning to push up fresh seasons growth so things are progressing steadily, though I am itching for the daffies to bloom as they look really good in the borders and are a sure sign of better weather arriving.

Anyway here is this weeks photo from the potting shed......

Richard and Sally came down in the afternoon with a present for me - the 4 stroke Mantis Tiller  :-) 

so that will be assembled and given a test ride next week. We discussed the proposed siting of the Strawberry Bed and we look to have settled on the west facing border for at least the next two or three years, when, as well as cropping, we will be looking to increase our stock by cultivating the runners produced. And finally, myself and Sally had a discussion over a nice cuppa about what veg to grow this year, so without boring you with specific varieties, here, in no particular order, is what we have planned.

Potatoes, Onions, Carrots, Leeks, Salad Leaves, PSB, Sweetheart Cabbage, Savoy Cabbage, Brussel Sprouts, Kale, Cauliflower, Perpetual Spinach, Tomatoes, Parsnips, Beetroot, French Bean, Runner Bean, Spring Greens.

Thats it for this week, see ya next week.

Not a lot to report

The camera saga continues - batteries got fried in the charger so yet again no piccies this week, though to be honest, there's not a lot to see from today anyway. Things are (very) slowly beginning to break into new growth, but you have to look hard to see it. Spent almost the whole day hand weeding more of the borders, including thinning out the red hot pokers.
The perennials in the greenhouse are sending out new growth and the sweet pea seeds sown last week have started to put down roots - how do I know - cos half of them are pushing up through the layer of compost covering them!
Sally has been pretty poorly this last few days soI'd like to wish her a speedy recovery from her viral infection and that's about it - off to buy some new rechargeable batteries tomorrow !

Takin' it Easy

After putting my back out and being barely able to walk out the forest on Monday, thisTuesday at Scotsburn was a day for the lighter jobs.
So, when Sally appeared with the sweet pea seeds, I brought the compost - 2 x 25 litre John Innes Seed Sowing Compost and 1 x 120 litre Multi-Purpose - down to the garden and started sowing the sweet peas

These are all from Unwins and three of these varieties will be grown as cordons with a view to to exhibiting the blooms, with the remaining blend being grown up cane wigwams in the borders.

The varieties should look like the following photos;

Sweet Pea Daphne

Sweet Pea Royal Wedding

Sweet Pea Pink Pearl

And for the borders, Flowers Arrangers Blend of Sweet Peas

The seeds were all sown  in 3" pots, 3 seeds per pot of John Innes Seed Compost which worked out well as there were 21 of each of the show varieties and 54 of the Blend so every pot has 3 seeds.

All these plus another 30 sweet pea seeds (Fragrantissima from T&M) are now resident in the greenhouse.

After this was done, I got on my hands and knees for the rest of the day and started hand weeding the lower of the two long borders - removing ;ots of young willowherb and creeping buttercup and a few baby docks too. I also put up the first Sweet Pea wigwam after I had weeded past the area it is now situated.

Slly also intinmated that she would be ordering a new toy for the garden that day - a 4 stroke Mantis Deluxe Tiller, so I'm looking forward to that arriving - hopefully the ground will be slightly more workable by then than it is currently

That's about it for this week, all that's left is this week's view from the potting shed

A Lovely Crisp Day

Well, for a change it seems that we are having the best of the weather up here. Whilst our friends in England-shire are battling with snow, we have a heavy frost each morning followed by clear blue skies and sunshine. And to prove I'm not making this uop, here is the view from the potting shed this morning

So today was a non starter for doing more weeding or digging as the ground was frozen yet again, so I started the day by pruning back a climbing rose that is partially obscured by the Garrya tree by the summerhouse. Then I pruned all the pear trees along the wall of the fruit bed - this entailed not only pruning from ground level but then using my pole pruners and finally climbing a ladder up onto the top of the wall and inching my way along it, pruning as I went - I should add that the top of the wall is not flat - that would be too easy, no it has a slope of anywhere from 45 to 60 degrees and as the sun doesn't hit the sloped surface at this time of year, it was as slipery as a slippy snake from Slippy Town.
Anyway, job done!
Then I checked on the greenhouse -all the perennials bar two rudbeckia seem to be in fine health. I cleared away any rubbish and pulled out two perennial spinsch plants that had gone over - the chard still looks to be producing though.....

I then barrowd some FYM from the ther end of the garden and spread it on the larger of the greenhouse beds - this will be incorporated in due course....

Had a quick chat with Sally about growing sweet peas on the cordon system for this year and also about the forthcoming purchase of a 4 stroke Mantis - apparently there are two 4 stroke versions so the company are senfing up some bumph on the two versions available.
Then it was back to a general tidy up, clearing leaves and cutting back the various clumps of Hypericum.
The bulbs are increasing in number weekly and I'm looking forward to a good show starting next month.
I hope to get a rough plan done this week and will post it as soon as I get a chance.
That's about it for this week. After I left, I went to see another walled garden I am starting at on Friday coming, that is in the same or worse state than this garden was - see my other blog for pictures of this

to be posted over the weekend.