South Downs Walk - Lambs!

The South Downs and sheep, a winning combination

The weather in the UK has recently been glorious producing hot, sunny, perfect summers days.  Only its not summer, its April.  I have been loving it but the narcissi don't know whats hit them.  They exploded all at once, fried in the sun and then frizzled to a crisp.  I have to remind myself to go outside and enjoy them or they will just be gone.

A pair of woolly cuties in the woods

While it is tempting to use the window of sun to crack on with the endless jobs in the garden on my to-do list, it is also important to enjoy it, so while on Saturday I worked like a dog in the garden, on Sunday I took to the hills.

Two lambs going for a little stroll, makes it look like one has brown socks on

The South Downs run alongside the South East coast of England, a chalky ridge of hills rising up to meet the sea.  My grandparents lived in these downs when I was a child, so I returned here to enjoy the views, and the lambs!

You can't have spring without lambs; joyous little bundles of wool.  One of the fields we walked through were full of them.  I love that you can get quite close to them before they look at you and think "mummy", turning tail and promptly returning to the side of a nearby unbothered sheep.  I believe mummy gets pretty bothered if you do go too near mind you.

Mummy! Feed me

I love a good lamb, especially with mint sauce! No I jest, I am a vegetarian so I feel no guilt seeing them bounce around.  I think they are just so full of innocent joy, and can't help but bring a smile on even the most saddest of days.  But then thats the charm of babies in general I guess. This one was a particularly mouthy individual, bleating away to nobody in particular.

This one was so noisy! You can see his little mouth open bleating away, I don't know if he had lost his mum 

Another highlight was hearing a woodpecker going nuts in the trees, hammering away. Unfortunately I couldn't see him but he certainly made his presence known!

My man and a sheep having a bit of a stare-off

And then there was the view of the sea; beautiful.  I love it up here, its just so peaceful.  Its also very near one of the top suicide spots in the world, so maybe not glorious for everyone, but on this particular Sunday it was perfect.  We just had such a lovely day out; lunch at a pub and then a poodle through the fields to the sea, so English but so nice.

The South Downs looking out to sea, beautiful!

My Week in Sowing 8 - Calendula, carrots, zinnia

I have so many little pots of green tendrils sprouting all over the joint that I am rapidly losing my grasp on order and descending into chaos.  I am at the point now where some pots don't look like they are going to germinate, but I am loathe to discard them as last year I did this and two cucumbers popped up in random places.  So I have pots growing, pots not growing, second batches, lists of things to sow more of, and seeds I haven't even got to yet.  Some seedlings will definitely need potting on soon and I am rapidly running out of both regular and seed compost. I really don't know what I will do if I run out of seed compost as I don't want to buy another full bag for just a few pots. Seeds are having to bunk in together to make the most of the space.  This was another busy week of sowing, including some new stuff I have never grown before.

Calendula - Sunset Buff and Sherbet Fizz. I have never grown Calendula before, but being rather daisy-esque in form these should be right up my street.  The packets were keen for the seeds to be sown where the plants are to grow and as they only wanted sowing now and I plan to grow them in pots, I have direct sown into plastic containers.  I am replacing fuchsias for calendula.  I made my usual mixture of fresh compost and old soil from emptied pots mixed with regular garden soil.  I find this dries out less fast than just compost on its own.  Calendula seeds are really interestingly shaped, like little gnarled horns or tusks, all small and curly.  While the seeds for sunset buff were mainly brown, sherbet fizz ranged from red to green.  I buried ten seeds in each pot, a quarter inch beneath the soil.  These will just sit on my patio to germinate.

Zinnia - Red Spider.  I am becoming increasingly fond of zinnias.  While they require a whole little pot to themselves, they do at least come through nice and fast.  The ones I sowed last week are already making an appearance, so the production line is pretty speedy, freeing up space for the next batch.  I have never grown this variety of zinnia before but it looked a bit different with less petals so I thought, why not!

One of last year's zinnia flowers, not the one I sowed this week

Carrot - Paris Market Atlas. This is last year's carrot variety, I have sown two because everybody likes a little variation in their carrot supply.  These are gloriously small and round and are aimed at kids, but being a big one myself these rather appeal.  I have not got the soil for carrots so these are sown in a little mixture I created myself - compost, garden soil and several trowel-fulls of sand to open up the mixture and give the free draining quality the carrots enjoy so much. I plan to sow several more pots to ensure a good stock, now that I have endless empty pots to fill.

Part of last year's paris market atlas crop.  Wouldn't feed the five thousand but a tasty morsel none the less

Sunflowers - Sunburst mixed.  Unlike the other variety I sowed, velvet queen, both my sunburst mixed seeds have been woefully disappointing.  One came up, and then thought better of it and died, while the other did not even bother doing that, and finally I have given up on him.  I sowed another two seeds in a single pot of seed compost (a little soil saving technique I am now employing) so hopefully these will have more oomph.  I need to do a post on my other sunflowers as they are going great guns and will need planting out soon!

My week in sowing 7 - Broad Beans, Cucumbers, Zinnia

With longer nights and warmer weather I really feel like some serious progress is being made against my long long list of things to do.  That being said I spent a good half hour wandering around the garden Saturday morning, feeling a bit overwhelmed and at a loss as to what to do first.  The weeds in my veg bed are breeding before my very eyes, and with my broad beans keen to go in soon, thats my task for the week ahead.  I am so behind with this post, normally I like to get it up every Wednesday but last week was more than faintly trying so Im only just catching up!

Broad Beans - Masterpiece Green Longpod.  I read somewhere that now is the last chance to sow broad beans, so panicked, rushed home and threw some more in.  Im not sure thats technically true anyway, but it does appear that planting them earlier makes them less susceptible to disease, and as I had a terrible case of rust last year, that would be no bad thing.  I have sown a batch of 15 beans of last year's variety.  As its the same packet I used last year, technically they are all out of date.  Hopefully they wont realise and I will get at least a few to add a little variety to my broad bean crop for the year.

My first batch of broad beans.  I love growing these, the seedlings always come up so lush and eager, if you know what I mean

Cucumbers - After a few weeks of letting my cucumber seeds get on with it I have decided I am only going to get one, maybe two, out of my first batch and its time to move on and get on with planting the second batch.  My louisa seedling quite literally gave up the ghost last week when I gave it a little prod, so I have sown two of that one, and one of my other four varieties.  I just don't understand why cucumbers appear to be so difficult to grow!  I do however have one seedling beauty which is just producing its first true leaf.  Im trying not to get too attached, it could still all end in tears.  The six new pots are lined up on my bedroom windowsill so I will be able to keep my beady eye on them!

My first proper cucumber seedling grown from seed! I don't know why this is so hard but I am so proud

Zinnia - Purple Prince.  Having decided my last zinnia sowings could not be spoilt by being germinated in their own individual bags and would have to slum it withe everything else on the garage windowsill, I was thrilled to find one pop up in every pot very quickly.  Then I waited for others to join them.  It would have been a very long wait.  In re-reading an old post it turns out I treated them to their own pots by only sowing one seed in each.  This is where having a blog comes in handy!  My first batch of a different variety are now out in my cold frame and and I am on to the next variety, Purple Prince.  I sowed four, one per pot, in seed compost, in the garage.

One of my new zinnia seedlings, comfy in a room all to itself

Cosmos - Double click rose bonbon. Five of my first batch popped up so fast I couldn't leave the bag on to wait for the rest.  Nothing else has come up so I have sown another batch.  These are such good do-ers in the summer so I want plenty of plants to keep my vases full.  I sowed about seven seeds on seed compost covered in vermiculite, in a bag, on my bedroom windowsill.

Sweet Peas - Yep been at it again.  I probably have enough already, but I look across at the neighbours excessive seven pots, feel a pang of jealousy and throw a few more in.  Im not even sure what I have sown this time, I just collected six seeds and bunged them in pots.  The lack of care is definitely because I don't really need them.  If they grow then great, but if not, oh well! These better not grow too fast as I have absolutely nothing to put them in until all the daffodils are over.

Lots of my previous sowings have popped up and moved on, but I think I will start talking about them separately in their own posts, or its all a bit much I think.

Spring flowers - Muscari and euphorbia

My favourite spring flower - muscari.  I just love them anywhere

It seems spring has finally sprung, at long long last.  I began to feel like I might never see the sun again and it hasn't even been that bad a winter.  With the spring comes one of my favourite little flowers.  It may be small, but boy is it perfectly formed.  Muscari, commonly referred to as grape hyacinths, are literally little bright blue bunches of grapes on a stems.  I love them in pots, I love them in sways, I will take a grape hyacinth if it popped out of anywhere.

For this reason they are a firm fixture in this years spring pot.  But they are not the only grape hyacinths in our garden now.  The mother, I love the woman, but she just can't throw anything away.  So instead of chucking away last years spring pot bulbs she dug a trench under the hedge at the bottom of the garden and stuffed them all in there in the hope that we might get a second display.  A second display is exactly what we have got.  There are a few red tulips, a few mini daffodils, but far more importantly, my favourite type of muscari.

My favourite type, a little smaller and more delicate but with two colours

I just love these little guys with their contrasting little topknots.  I would say I prefer them to the ones I bought this year, Il have to keep this in mind for buying bulbs for next year.

What a daffodil! Peachy, frilly, big and blousy.  There is nothing not to love
about this specimen 

Another bulb I am thrilled to see again is this fabulous daffodil.  What a beauty, I love the contrast in colours and the interesting structure.  Its just a shame I have to duck down under a tree and virtually climb behind a bush to see it, but its so worth the effort.  Last year we had three bulbs of this beauty, but this year its been reduced to just one.  Clearly the mother didn't keep them right over the summer.

I love a good muscari on mass, they make such a pretty carpet of blue

Something I rather enjoy doing on a boring afternoon is wandering the streets of a neighbourhood looking at peoples gardens.  Odd but true.  I just like nosing at what other people do, Im not expecting to see anything groundbreaking but its all interesting.  One garden had a lovely swathe of grape hyacinths. While I am clearly besotted with this little flower I don't have the room to let these little guys do what they really should: create a little blue sea across a patch of green.  This one garden on my trip had really done this well.  Grape hyacinths should always be grown with friends.

Finally moving on from my favourite subject another joy were these euphorbia plants.  Towering high above my diminutive height in a great clumping bush, these vibrant lime green plants really struck the eye.   I really enjoy the structure of this plant with its little disks stuck out on tiny stalks.  Reminds me of a famous textile designer I had to study at uni. I personally wouldn't want one, but I enjoy it in other people's gardens.

Euphorbia is a funny plant really, its all so green! I really like the shape of what I imagine are the flowers though, little disks on stalks.  This garden looked great with these great lime green clouds

Lastly was this strange beast.  I will happily admit I have absolutely no idea what this plant is, I have never seen it before as far as I know.  I love round things so the perfectly cylindrical hanging fruits/seeds/things? appeal greatly.  It was a very tall plant but very striking one.

The Spring Bulb Pot - Crocus, Shogun tulips and Muscari

The crocus Sieberi Tricolour were a vision, so bright and vibrant

Spring is virtually sprung.  I can see it in huge fat buds in pots all over my garden poised for the opening, just waiting for a bit of sun and a little warmth to coax them out. However, one set of bulbs is leading the pack and providing the only visual display at the second.  The traditional spring pot, as ever, is doing us proud.

The scene from the top.  At this stage the pot has a very purple, yellow and white colour scheme, but this changed!

Last year the spring pot was one of the first things I featured on here, in a brief post that provided a snapshot of it at one moment in time.  It was a vision of pink and purple and white and was a triumph.  However what it doesn't show is that the spring pot is an ever changing beast, as the bulbs are chosen to progressively come up, rather than all burst through at once and then be gone.

My favourite Spring flower, the glorious little grape hyacinth, shame its purple

So in light of this, I have been photographing this pot of joy at different stages of its evolution.  Being that it is the beginning of April there hasn't been that many stages, but we have definitely had two.
The first involved a lovely show of crocus.  The crocus Sieberi Tricolour appeared in about the third week of February, when all the other crocus generally appear.  Crocus appear everywhere, like on verges by roadsides, so aren't particularly special.  These ones were a little different though as they each consisted of the three colours generally found in crocus, but all present in the same flower.  The centres were bright yellow with a ring of pure white surrounding it, with the petals quite dark purple around that.  Being that the polyanthus are still out and mirror some of the colours in the crocus, white and yellow, this made a rather nice show.

A Shogun tulip struggling its way out, but a lovely burnt orange

The crocus of course, couldn't last forever.  There were a few weeks of just polyanthus, which is fine, but not terribly exciting.  Then suddenly last week a whole bunch of muscari popped up.  I didn't see them sneak above ground, so one day they weren't there, and the next day they were.  Muscari armeniacum are as always, cute as pie.  I love a good grape hyacinth.  I love the colour, I love the structure, hell I love the name.  However my pet peeve has re-emerged its ugly head.  I hate it when you buy a bulb according to the picture on the packet, and then the flower appears and its a completely different colour.  The packet said they would be light blue, and I thought wont that be nice, light blue muscari.  Have I got light blue muscari?  Have I ever.  They have flowered in exactly the same colour as muscari always are, a dark purpley blue.  Which is fine, but not what I thought I was getting.

I really chose the colours carefully for this pot this year, and have gone for something completely different to the purple and pink of last year.  This years is yellow, orange and blue.  I hoped this would not be a disaster, having taken creative control for the first time.  Well the muscari were joined a few days later by a lovely egg-yolk yellow tulip which contrasts brilliantly.  It couldn't look more spring like if it tried.  The shogun tulips are a wild variety apparently, and although they haven't opened properly yet, I already love them.  So at the moment its a lovely spring scene, but it is set to continue.  Il be back with an update when everything else pops up and it will look completely different.    

At this stage the whole feel of the pot has completely changed, there is a lot more height and a lot more greenery

My week in sowing 6 - Cosmos, cornflower, zinnia and echinops

This weeks 'my week in sowing' is actually last week's 'week in sowing'.  I planned to put this post up last Wednesday before I jetted off to Berlin for the weekend, but as is often the case the best-laid plans of mice and men, it all went a bit awry.  Very unexpectedly one of my friends suddenly died, and obviously blogging had to take a back seat.  But I got up to a lot last week and I would still like to share it, so here is the post in its original form:

So last Saturday I was not to be found in my garden as I had people to see and places to go, and clothes to be bought.  It was all very nice, but this weekend I was back in the garden attacking the long list of seeds still to be sown.  Taking a little break was no bad thing as the garage was rammed and it allowed a few things to come up sufficiently that I could transfer them into the coldframe.  Im starting to sow all the varieties that say 'from mid spring' which is really un-specific.  I would say we are now mid-spring, but then spring only technically started a couple of weeks ago so I might be really really early.  Who knows.

Double click rose bonbon cosmos in all its glory - great flowers and great foliage

Cosmos - Double click rose bonbon. This is not a fresh packet of seeds as I actually grew these last year.  The packet really sells these, saying they are the biggest, frilliest double cosmos around, or something along those lines.  It doesn't lie, I think these are well worth the effort and if I had more room I would definitely grow more cosmos.  The flowers are a delightful pink, good and frilly, but also the foliage is rather pleasant too, quite feathery and ferny.  The only thing is I do find the flowers to be a hotbed for earwigs.  That slight flaw aside these were firmly on my list for sowing this year.  Unfortunately they are quite fussy seeds and insist on being germinated in a polythene bag to keep a temperate of about 20 degrees.  Im not keen on this as I have a habit of cooking my seedlings for far too long and then having them wilt on me, but Im sure I can time it right this time.  I sowed nine seeds on the surface of seed compost and covered with vermiculite - like I said, fussy - and stuck them in a bag on the kitchen windowsill.

Stocks - Yes I have already sown two pots of stocks but having seen the likely number that are going to germinate I want more.  They are my favourite cut flowers after all, and a bunch is shockingly expensive to buy from the shops so I want to make sure im stocked all summer long.  Same method as before; pot, seed compost, chuck them on, you get the gist.

A lovely red zinnia, they tend to have really interesting middles with contrasting coloured circles like this one has

Zinnia - Queen Red Lime.  I am very excited about these.  I have several varieties of zinnia to sow this year, but these are the ones I am sowing first.  I think zinnias make a really good, reliable cut flower and they come in quite an exciting array of bright colours and structures.  They also cross-pollinate freely, so much so I believe it is virtually impossible to stop them.  I really want to collect seed and see what appears next year.  But before then we need to get these going.  Zinnias are beyond fussy and hate root disturbance so I have sown only four so far, one to a pot.  This annoys me greatly.  Talk about space hoggers, I don't have room for such high maintenance seedlings.  And yet they are so pretty I endulge them, spoilt little things.  These will at least germinate in the garage I hope, although I believe they would prefer a bag.

Zinnias are interesting at every stage of their blooming, this one has yet to fully unfurl

Cornflower - These are new to me, and are quite frankly the weirdest seeds I have ever encountered.  Each one is like a miniature paintbrush, only with the handle cut off.  Quite large, they consist of a bunch of hairs wrapped in a partly transparent sheath.  Its weird.  That apart Im hoping these will be good.  Sarah Raven doesn't scrimp on these, giving you 300 seeds in the packet so I chucked on 10 and covered with a little more seed compost and hopefully we are good to go.

Incredible - I don't really know what these are, I have certainly never seen these growing anywhere but I liked the photo I saw and thought why not.  The seeds were absolutely tiny so I just sprinkled on a whole bunch.

Echinops - I tried to grow these last year, I can't remember what happened but lets just say, I didn't get any flowers.  So lets try again shall we.  These will be lovely blue balls.  The seeds are quite large so I buried six or seven in seed compost and they are snug in another polythene bag.

And that's it for this week.  It seems like I achieved a lot, but I didn't sow many of each variety so I could sow quite a few.  I would have liked to turf out a few more fuchsias while I was out there but it was surprisingly cold and miserable, typical Easter weekend weather so to be honest, I couldn't wait to get back indoors.

Visiting Kew Gardens - peacocks, fish and a cheeky lizard

I went to Kew expecting weird and wonderful plants, and I got them.  What I wasn't expecting was the menagerie of livestock also hanging about there.  The first critter I came across was in the Palm House. I was wandering about when I came across a little girl peering through an iron grate in the floor, trying to take a picture.  I could see something green down there and naturally assumed it was a plant growing in the bowls of the greenhouse.  Instead, when I bent down for a peak I found this:

A lizard a metre or so beneath the floor of Kew, gently toasting on a pipe

This cheeky little lizard was happily warming itself on one of the heated pipes beneath the floor.  I presume he lives down there, eating insects and whatnot buzzing around the greenhouse.  Its probably a very nice life, but how he got in there I don't know.  He is either the official Palm House pet, or was snuck in by somebody trying to get rid of one.  Either was, its seems a nice life.

That's not the last of the Palm House's surprises.  The very last thing you would expect is also beneath the floor: an aquarium.  Between this and the lizard there is virtually more going on beneath the greenhouse than there is in it!  I believe the point of the aquarium is for the plants, I point lost on the mother who looked in one of the tanks and said "there's nothing in this one, what am I meant to be looking at?" The great big plant waving around, was my curt response.  There was some life about though, and the upside down jelly fish were one of my favourites.  These animals spend most of their times sitting on what is essentially their 'heads', gently pulsating with their tentacles floating in the water.  An odd sight, but if it works for them.

Sailors Eyeball Algae, bizarre but beautiful stuff

My favourite tank, and clearly others as well seeing as I had to elbow a space to see it, was the tank with the cucumber and sailors eyes.  Yes im still talking marine life.  How beautiful are these sailors eyeball algae?  They consist of one huge green cell, but they look and gleam like little glass balls.  They really were a sight, covering all the rock surfaces in the tank.  The other joy amongst the algae were the clown cucumbers.  Looking like they are wearing brightly coloured jumpsuits these creatures are poisonous, but have a fail safe method of getting rid of predators.  They give it a few of its internal organs in the hope it will go away.  It regrows them, but it still seems an odd plan.

The clown cucumber

In the Princess of Wales conservatory there are more fish.  I particularly liked these two fish because they were both dappled with gold.  Im not sure how that is possible for a live animal to be gold, but this gorgeous blue fish definitely is.  This piranha is less attractive, having one of the most miserable faces I have ever seen, but it was very glittery!

Miserable as sin at the front, glittery like a disco at the back.  This piranha has it all

This fish is just beautiful

The last animal treat on my visit was this guy.  Now I know male peacocks like to show off, but this one took the biscuit.  Originally it was hiding behind a bush but the moment I whipped my camera out he strolled out and stood right in front of me posing for all he was worth.  That bird has no shame. But I will give him his dues, he is a good looker.

He's a good looking bird this peacock, but one hell of a poser

I think he knew he was having his photograph taken, shame he didn't put his tail
out though

So that is it for my Kew posts, I had a great time in the gardens, and although I was there for the plants the animals were some of the highlights.  I know I normally blog about plants, but the odd animal thrown in here or there doesn't hurt, but back to plants from now on.