Happy New Year 2017!
Year: 2016
Sowing sweet peas
In the past few years I have not had much success with sowing sweet peas in the ground in the Spring. As I had a good crop of white sweet peas this year I decided to try a new method this season. I am using the well-known “toilet paper roll”…
Garden quiz. New!
Nothing much to do in the garden these days. So the gardener put on his programmer hat and made a couple of quizzes for you to test your knowledge of plant names. Try it! Click the thumbnail image below to go to the Quizzes page.
More Spring bulbs…
Following on to the plantation of Chionodoxa last October, a number of varied Spring bulbs have been added to Papi Joe’s garden recently. Firstly we made 3 moss balls à la Kokedama and planted them with a selection of the following: Crocus chrysanthus ‘Blue Pearl’, Puschkinia scilloides var. libanotica and…
Food for birds … who can read!
Just bought this assortment of bird food to hang from my Malus ‘Evereste’ tree. Found out that it has a BEST BEFORE date… for birds who can read. Anyway, judging by those sparrows’ appetite, those balls will be finished long before the limit date.
Le Temps des Saxifrages ‘Sous un arbre perché’
Open day at the nursery ‘Sous un arbre perché‘. Lovely weather, lovely place, lovely gardeners. Could not resist buying 3 different varieties of Fortune saxifrage for shady parts of the garden.
October jobs
Extended the pergola’s horizontal treillis to better protect the Downy Japanese maple ‘Aconitifolium’ from the scorching summer sun. Last year we planted a fairly large number of tulips and narcissus. For a change this year I am experimenting with Chionodoxa forbesii – glory of the snow. I ordered 150 bulbs…
A visit to a garden in Autumn
This Sunday, between showers of rain we went to visit a garden open to the public only on a few days in the year, not too far from home, the Jardin ‘La Maison’. We were somewhat disappointed with the scarcity of plants in flower, but this was probably due to…
October 2016 colours
Still no rain to speak of since July this year. However, these herbaceous perennials provide a colourful show in the garden…
“Délices de plantes” plants fair at Cesson-Sévigné
This morning we went to visit the plants fair at Cesson-Sévigné, west of Rennes. The weather was nice and cool, and the fair was nicely sited in a park in the town center. We bought a few specimens of a very dark Heuchera ‘Purple Petticoats’, some ivy-leaved cyclamens and a…