Thursdays favourite plant

Its a miserable wet day, and I have no excuse to avoid housework, thankfully the last two days have been gloriously sunny and I've managed to get a lot done (including taking lots of cuttings, more about that later). My little ray of sunshine today is the beautiful

Tulip Ballerina



This is probably my favourite of all tulips, dainty lily shaped flowers that open up wide in the full spring sunshine. I always plant tulips on November the 5Th, 3 times the depth of the size with a handful of grit at the bottom of the planting hole.

Other favourite tulips include negrita the gorgeous little species tulip tarda and the beautiful spring green I have a thing for green flowered plants and dark almost black plants, however I'm so over queen of the night don't get me wrong there are truly beautiful but after growing them for the last few years I pulled them all out last year. I found the colour to oppressive for spring, they looked almost matt black and cold amongst my purples and oranges. So for the moment I'm sticking with bright spring colours, definitely important on a day like this.

Jess x

P.S I'll be back later with quail stories

Thursdays favourite plant

Hooray its back.

Is it Thursday today? this weeks been a bit of a blur!

Anyway may I present.....

Iris reticulata



My most favourite of the early spring bulbs. Easy as pie to grow just pop the bulbs in twice as deep as their size in the autumn, wherever you'd like a splash of gorgeous colour. I always put a few in small terracotta pots too. They look lovely in window boxes as well.
The colour of these little sweeties is lovely, there are many different varieties with different depths of blue, including a pale washed out blue and mustardy yellow, which frankly I'm not found of (I think you need bright colours after a long dull winter) and a gorgeous purple one whose cultivar name is I think 'Pauline' (but don't quote me on that. If you have heavy clay soils add a handful of grit to the hole before placing the bulb in to give it a bit of drainage (good idea for any bulbs).

In other news I've said goodbye to another cockerel today. I saw a wanted ad in the local feed store for a Maran cockerel, rang it up and a lovely chap from further up the valley came and collected him for his flock of maran hens this morning. And he paid me for him. So that leaves his slightly smaller brother (who I may keep to set up a breeding trio with, not sure yet) Boris and Ivan (the two chaps in my sidebar) and fancy looking but bad tempered bantam. That will leave me with Sawyer my gorgeous gentlemanly Welsummer, Big gentle ben the light sussex and holly my partridge silkie. There is also the two silkie babies, snuffkin and little my, I tried dowsing them with my wedding ring and a bit of garden twine last night and got a different result for each, but time will tell.

Right Sidneys appeared in the middle of the field wanting some dinner and he doesn't like to be kept waiting.

jess x

Thursdays favourite plant

Acidanthera (abyssinnan gladiolus or peacock flower)

These are so gorgeous.

I planted 20 of these bulbs and only 1 has flowered but I think its because I planted them too early and didn't put them in a sunny enough spot. According to this article they are best planted in may or june and lifted in the autumn like dahlias. I think next year I'll plant them in pots and sink them into the ground (which makes them easier to lift out). Even though I only have one bloom that's ok as it's stunning. Added bonus is that its highly fragrant, smelling a bit like a gardenia.

I love bulbs, absolutely love them. I've had 3 bulb catalogues through the post this last week and I'm compiling a long wish list. Ohhh I can smell the scent of paperwhite Narcissus's and hyacinths now. Also those damn chickens have decided to dig up the huge drifts of daffs in their half of the garden, so I'm going to have to replant and fence a section of with chicken wire.
I'm getting really anxious for the middle of September (I know, I know wishing the summer away) so I can begin the major re-arrange of everything and dust of my bulb planter. But until then I have bulb shopping lists to make, lists and plans to draw up, design books to pour over and chicken babies to play with.

Thursdays favourite plant

Lilies

What could be more beautiful than a lily?








I have no idea what the first two are called as I bought the bulbs last autumn and forgot to label them but the third one is an Asiatic lily called black pearl. I have a thing for dark plants (that I'll take about at a later date) and a thing for pirates so that one really appealed to me. Black pearl hasn't really got any fragrance worth talking about but the other two smell heavenly. I grow lilies in pots on my courtyard, my kitchen door opens out to them and the smell drifts into the house (I can smell them right now mmmmmm). I'm still waiting on a couple more plants to flower a huge white one and a delicate pink one.

Lilies are really easy to grow they just need good drainage and if you plant them in autumn some frost protection. They should come back year after year and you can propagate more by carefully digging up the bulbs and replanting all the little baby bulbs you'll find around the edge of the mother bulb. You might have to wait a few years for the babies to fatten up enough to flower but they will be worth the wait.
Also watch out for the evil lily beetle that will eat the leaves and prevent flowering.

Thursdays favourite plant

Dahlia

In the past I've never been to fussy about having dahlias but the last 2 years I've fallen head over heels for them. Now I must admit last years efforts were a bit rubbish. I didn't stake them, they got slug and earwig damage and the tubers/plants I picked weren't as good looking as the pictures on the packets. But that's one of the things I love most about gardening, there is always something to learn.
So this year I bought 1 tuber Black Narcissi (and a stack of lilies).

So I've learnt that if you plant them in march in a container of compost somewhere warm like a greenhouse or shed they will come up quicker and stronger, and you can take stem cutting to increase you stock (I didn't get round to that).
Plant them out when the frost are safely behind you, and don't forget to stake them with some twigs or canes. I managed to keep the slugs away but as you can see an earwig has had a little nibble. I remember my grandad (who used to grow them on the edge of his allotment) using a plant pot stuffed with straw stuck up on a cane to catch the earwigs. They'd hide in there during the day and could be easily dispatched with.

The next thing is what to do during the winter. You can either wait for the frosts to blacken off the stems. Then dig them up hang the rootstock upside down to let any moisture drain away, then store them somewhere frost free and warm (spare room, shed, kitchen cupboard!!!) in a pot of damp sand or old compost, till next spring. Or you can leave them in the ground but give them a really thick mulch to protect the from frost. If you live in the south I'd say leaving them in the ground would be fine but if you live further up north I'd dig them up.

Next year I'll grow a lot more for cut flowers and plant them around the edges of my veg patch (if I have room).

70s suntan lotion

Check out this funky looking thing. Its called Hymenocallis harrisiana (peruvian daffodil). I bought it in my bulb buying frenzy in February on a whim. I actually thought I killed it until I saw some green poking through the compost last month, then I forgot all about it and found it when tiding up he pots on the courtyard with a tiny flower bud on it. I was told it smells like 70s style suntan lotion (coco-nutty), and it seriously does.