Planting positivity

Taken by J

Taken by J.

I may be having a blip and not be able to get outside or indeed downstairs at the moment but that doesn't stop the garden and allotment being a real source of strength and positivity and I'm so very grateful for it. Today I've peeked out of the window and watched the blackbird eating the cotoneaster berries from the hedge, looked down on the beds that J managed to do a bit of work on yesterday and spotted the scabious still in bloom and the strawberry and flowering currant leaves taking on their Autumn tints of red and yellow. He's also been busy sowing broad beans and onions in modules in the hope that the mice and voles might leave them alone if they are rooted when we put them in ground. Tonight we ordered our seed potatoes for next year's harvest courtesy of the Transition Loughborough Potato Day online system and J has spent some time pricking out and potting on the cuttings and biennial sowings I made at the end of the summer so we can look forward to pansies, violas, sweet rocket, verbena and penstemons next year - mind you we're already running out of window ledges!

Next stop part 2 of the brilliant Northern Lights adaptation. Happy Sunday all.

Visiting with the houseplants

Had a wander around the house on Sunday realising that over the years, without really intending to, I've become a houseplant keeper. For years and years I said I didn't really do houseplants - I always said I couldn't keep them alive - but if that's the case then where have all these appeared from?

In the Living Room

This purple orchid is on it's fourth re-flowering in the year or so since I was given it by a friend, I'm holding out hope it's white-flowered neighbour might try again soon






The weeping fig came in the same pack as Bob about 25 years ago, and despite years of neglect now thrives on the windowsill.

This peace lily was part of another gift a couple of years ago and seems to just keep growing - mind you it has only flowered once.

In the kitchen

A bit of a mixture on the kitchen table at the moment - a baby Bob and a selection of succulents waiting for their forever homes, a scented geranium ready to be overwintered, our last Aloe Vera and a pot of sage cuttings waiting to be potted up. The dark red chrysanthemum was given to as a gift last Christmas and turned out to be four little plants in one pot - we split them and they've spent the summer outside. I brought this one in at the weekend to see what would happen and look how beautiful it is.

And then there's the white flowered orchid that was given to us a few years ago by J's cousins and the little seemingly ever-lasting cyclamen that was given to me the first Christmas I came to Stratford by a new colleague and has flowered every winter since, it's a gorgeous scarlet colour and brightens the darkest days beautifully. 

And then there's upstairs residents...

You've met Bob before and he certainly seems to have recovered from the pruning and propagating at the beginning of the year. All bar the last one of those babies has been re-homed.

And after a year in their new homes the succulents are looking great and it's their babies we'll be re-homing next. 

And dotted on windowsills all round the house....


there's the super-hot skinny chillis that have come in for the winter and the violas that are getting ready to move out and the lupin, sweet rocket, geraniums, verbena, penstemons and pinks that will all need to be potted on and over-wintered indoors until the Spring now.

And it seems that not only do we have a house full of plant-shaped memories and family and friends and kindnesses but lots of potential kindnesses to return.

Six-on-Saturday 19th October 2019

Morning Blog-land today is my October link-up with The Propagator's Six on Saturday meme. Please check out The Propagator's post here for instructions on how to join in and take a look at his blog for links to lots of wonderful gardens from all around the world, they really bring a spark of joy to a weekend.  My previous posts can be found by clicking on the #SixOnSaturday label and if you are on Twitter, enter the #SixOnSaturday hashtag in the search bar and you'll see even more beautiful images from around the world.

All these photos were taken in our little back garden yesterday morning before it got too wet and I had to head off to chemo. It then hammered down with rain for most of the afternoon and evening so I'm very glad I got a head start on the pictures. No real rhyme nor reason to the photos this month - although "work to do"would probably sum up the collection!

1. Mint Corner - the recent rains have done wonders for all the potted mints lurking by the kitchen door. Nearly time to cut them again and freeze for using over the winter, well all except the apple mint as whilst, pretty, isn't a flavour I particularly like.

2. Achillea "Cerise Queen". These two were runts of the litter that I couldn't quite bear to compost and I'm so glad I didn't as they are now nice strong plants that will fit in the borders next year and fill the late summer garden (and vases) with their dark pink blooms.

3. Fabulous fuschia fairies - gifted to the hospice as tiny baby plants that a local nursery couldn't use, and offered to patients and volunteers for a donation earlier in the summer. I've no idea of the varieties but they have been flowering for weeks and show no sign of stopping yet.

4. Wallflowers and strawberry runners awaiting new homes on the outside shelves.
All ready for planting out when the rain eventually stops - new plants for free always raise a smile in this house!

5. Still a chance of a few more rose blooms - raised from cuttings from my late Gran's garden this beauty opens pink and fades to a beautiful peach and is proving to be very long flowering so well worth the effort.

6. And finally, weather permitting, the job for the weekend - start to sort out what needs bringing in, what needs re-potting and what needs cutting for use over the winter - herbs, welsh onions, chillis, strawberries and flowers all jostling for space on the mini patio.

Have a wonderful weekend all, and I'll "see" you next month. Tx

A little bit of potting on.....

Consultant appointment over and done with, we were home before 10 o'clock today. News is ok as these things go - concentrating on chemo for the liver and just monitoring for the head for now. Got to expect to be tired and not get annoyed when I can't do the things I think I should be doing... mmm ok well - will do my best on that one! Just having to remember all the strategies we used in the last round to manage the tiredness and the impatience. So back on Friday for second chemo it is then.

J has taken the rest of the week off work so we can potter together for a couple of days - wonderful. This meant that after a cup of tea, a slice of Mum's yummy apple cake and a rest we could move on some of the cuttings I took a few weeks ago and take some of the lovely scented-leaf geranium whilst he moved the heavy stuff and tidied up after me! So we now have 4 new penstemon plants rooted from water cuttings, 2 little fragaria moschata plants that have taken a long time to develop from seed sown in the spring but now look quite healthy and have taken 5 leaf cuttings of the scented geranium which we hopefully mean extra plants for the spring. Joy is definitely plant shaped today :)

lovely strong roots

four new plants - colour will be a surprise!

Need smelly vision to truly appreciate this lovely plant

Insurance cuttings now on the windowsill upstairs

September is the season for shuffling

After the pot-shuffling at the weekend this week has continued to be about tidying the garden and preparing new plants for the coming season. Tuesday was a spot of pot weeding, cutting back gone over shrubby plants and herbs and generally tidying up the patio pots. It was also an impromptu slug and snail hunt as every pot I moved or emptied seemed to be offering up a hiding place for the hungry little beasties. Yesterday we pinned down a dozen or so strawberry runners to replace our ageing plants - strawberries will last several years but according to the experts their productivity drops off after two or three so we always try and generate our own plants from existing stock. J then emptied the coffee sack planter that was threatening to spill all over the patio and retrieved 1.6 kilos of lovely clean potatoes ready for cooking over the weekend and then weeded some more of the pots before ducking indoors to avoid a passing shower.

Pinned down and ready to root

You can never have too many strawberries

Tidy lettuce pot - should get one more meal from these

Today is a bit more house-related as Mum arrives to stay for a few weeks which we are really looking forward to but I did pop outside briefly to take some photos of the flowers in the sunshine and was rewarded with a newly minted Red Admiral and what I think could be a Tawny Mining bee, but my ID skills aren't brilliant even with the aid of the excellent Field Guide book by Steven Falk.

Red Admiral and friend on Rudbeckia Marmalade

Bee on perennial wallflower

Of Boblets and Baby Succulents

Another Boblet bit the dust this week - or more accurately I had to admit defeat and throw the stick with two wrinkled leaves in to the compost bin. A bit sad but it prompted me to take a closer look at the other mini-Plants and write an update on our winter cuttings-taking exercise.

Back in February we decided that Bob the rubber plant had outgrown his space and needed to be cropped but, as usual, we couldn't resist the chance to try propagating him and getting a few free plants to share with friends and family. Of course this wasn't the first time this temptation had struck - remember all those little leaf cuttings of succulents back in October? Well, whilst Bob seems to have been a bit more miss than hit with only two really strong looking plants coming out of our adventures and 1 more that is looking ok - not bad from just 5 cuttings, the strike success with the succulent leaves has also been quite impressive even if a slow burn. We now seem to have mini plants coming out of our ears! Still it means I've got a dozen or so to take to the Hospice next week for sharing around and once they've all left home I can give Bob his second trimming...

Boblet #1

Boblets #2 and #3 plus arms of a few friends!

Echeverria minis

More echeverria minis