In Search of Satisfication

I have spent about €100 on plants this year. That's much more than I would usually spend. So I got all these beautiful healthy plants that were already in flower or just about to come in to flower. Instant colour and effect. So I put them in the ground, after spending a lot of time preparing the soil and then....deflation! It was utterly unsatisfying. It was too easy.

What I am excited about is the cornflowers and chamomile seeds I've planted along the edges, the lupins that won't flower until next year, the sunflowers I raised from seed that are slowly coming along and the wildflower seed bombs I have scattered.

I planted many flower seeds that didn't germinate but a few stragglers are hanging in there and I am ecstatic that this Dianthus that I sowed at the end of April has survived it's failed companions. Its tiny and weak looking but the joy it is giving me is immense! What's even more exciting is that I cannot remember what variety of Dianthus it is. I have Sweet William but I have a vague memory of another packet of a white variety that I may have planted. No idea! I won't get flowers until next year but I have lots of patience.

Similarly the Echinacea pow wow wild berry seeds I've planted are starting to germinate. I bought a pack of ten seeds for €5, which is expensive (although it is a perennial plant) and then a few days later I saw that Lidl had them as plants for about €4 each I think. I was momentarily annoyed but then I remembered that ready made plants were not filling any void for me and reminded myself that if I get even two plants from my seeds, I'll have saved money and earned satisfaction:

Other flower seeds I have planted that have successfully germinated include the following (some mentioned above):

Other plants in my nursery include courgette and squash as photographed below. I've far more flowers than vegetables this year as I am deliberating where to position the edibles, taking the septic tank into consideration:

That's it for today!

I'm Making A Flower Border

As I write a gardening blog you might think that I am an adept gardener but sadly it is not true. I can manage little spots of beauty in the garden but I can never seem to accomplish that wave of flowers or vegetables that I see in other gardens. I probably sow too many annual seeds without concentrating on perennials, and now that we have moved house, any perennials I had have been left behind. Except for my raspberry bushes which I moved. My big regret is not bringing my two pear trees but digging them up was at the bottom of a very long list of things to do, and it never got done. Happily, a friend bought us two apple trees as a house warming gift and they are now in the ground near my raspberries.


So in an effort to bulk up the garden in the floral sense I have spent a lot of money on a mix of plants, mainly perennial, and am slowly digging up a strip of grass on the left hand side of the front garden, running alongside a low wall which happily has the lovely structural shrub Cotoneaster horizontalis growing over it, which gives me a lovely backdrop fulls of bees.

A close up of the shrub:

The plants I have added so far are a tall white Delphinium, Salvia ember wish, Lavender, Sweet William, Calceolaria (yellow slipper flower,) scented stock, Lupin, Geranium, Dianthus kahori and silver star, Linaria  fairy bouquet and Verbascum. All but the lupin, which I grew from seed, were bought. Some were purchased in the frameyard in Fota gardens at a much better price and better heritage than a garden centre. I've also planted some wildflower seed bombs which I received from a friend working with the national pollinator plan in her city council. There's definitely germination happening and I am very interested to see how they develop.

The rest of the bed is still grass, which I have banned my other half from mowing and it is turning into the most wonderful wild patch so I am loathe to turn it completely into a flower bed:

Right now I am thinking of ways to put an attractive border between the "formal" (in the loosest sense of the word) side and the wild side that isn't too structural and blends nicely. I am also going to make a "managed for wildlife" sign to put in the long grass for the craic and to make it look like I am doing something important.

I actually interrupted the composition of this post for a few hours by browsing the National Biodiversity Data Centre which is full of interesting documents to read. And then I went looking for courses I could do and down the rabbit hole that is the internet.....but I came back finally. Now what was I saying?