welsh hills again

Another day of just a little time for connecting with the garden.  I decided to use it for a bit of plant buying and fifteen minutes weeding in the cutting garden. These are mainly plants for the side garden which is a traditional English (or in this case Welsh) cottage garden, appropriate as it sits alongside a seventeenth century Welsh farmhouse.  I bought three more foxgloves.  Out in the field I let the native foxgloves self seed and there are lots of them up by the shepherd's hut.  In the side garden I prefer the white or pale ones.  I also bought some violas and three more hollyhocks.  Violas really like a bit more moisture than our soil offers but I do have some viola labradorica which has settled in very happily.  These have larger flowers so are likely to be a little fussier but the soil here has been mulched this year so you never know. And three more hollyhocks, one black and two pink.  Hollyhocks ought to be happy up here b...

I once got talking to a friend about houseworky things.  We were both speakers at a conference in San Diego before you get too stereotypical an idea.  She was saying how much she hated emptying the dishwasher and doing the ironing and I was quite surprised because, while I am not a great housewife, those are two of the jobs that I don't much mind.  Then I read in a blog the other day about the writer's dislike of potting on and pricking out and thought "Oh, I quite like that" so it got me musing about what I do and don't like doing in the garden. Things I like: I love sowing seeds, preferably in the greenhouse in spring when it is cold outside but warm enough to take my jacket off inside out of the wind .  My resolution this year is to label everything, not just the first few trays I sow, but everything, all the time.  Chances of success? Low. I like cutting things back, not the large scale pruning which needs pruning saws and loppers, but the tidying up sor...