It helps a little in these awful times to focus on things we can influence. Yesterday I hauled up the last half dozen leeks from a rather frosty garden for a pot of leek and tattie soup - and the slicing thereof didn’t half make my eyes water! This was in preparation for a visit from Pat, alias Miss, our former art tutor, to whom I’d promised some plants. We’d a pleasant lunch together: the soup and some home-baked (just warm) rolls, plus the muffins Pat had brought with her. She also brought some fuchsia cuttings which I’m instructed to nurture, and ten nice little primulas. She went off with a dollop of iris sibirica, a few cornus cuttings and some penstemons that we’d brought on over the winter in the sitooterie.
The primulas are planted in a tub by the front door, and I’m nurturing the fuchsias as instructed. Some years ago, Pat gave me a little layering of a sedum from her garden, and it has flourished, much to our delight and that of the local bees. Today I’ve dug up a layering and planted it at the top of the garden. All we need now is a beehive or two. Unfortunately, our local beekeeper is also a leading light of UKIP, hence unlikely to feature on our Christmas card list.
There’s a lot on the garden agenda at the moment: spuds ready to plant, onion seedlings and sets to plant out, nicotianas to prick out and tagetes, rudbeckias and echinaceas to sow. It’ll soon be time to hack down the penstemons: they respond very well to the treatment. The roses are pruned and sprouting nicely, and most of the shrubs we put in past spring are coming along well. The peony we planted last year sulked, but they are notoriously snotty about being moved. Good to see some red shoots thereof coming up today.
Well, let’s hope we get to see the fruits of our labours before Putin vaporises us all.
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