Tag Archives: Cornflower

My Patch – A Garden update: June 2019

Posted on by

June 3rd – The borage has started to form buds 🙂 

I wanted to plant some plants in the garden this evening but first I had to make the decision to pull up the Forget-me-not!  It was taking up a huge amount of space and the majority of flowers had gone over.  I am sure it spilled lots of seeds so I’m sure I will have lots more next year.  

I managed to plant out 18 common fleabane, 6 lady’s bedstraw, 6 red campion, 10 oxeye daisy and into a pot, 4 marigolds. 

June 4th – The cat has decided to use one of the garden pots as a toilet! I have discovered that last year the scarlet pimpernel had self-seeded and is growing again this year 🙂 I planted out another 2 teasel, 2 perennial flax and 3 birds-foot-trefoil, put 8 field marigold and 3 borage in pots and tidied up the tomato area!

June 5th – planted out some of the herbs; mint, thyme and marjoram in a trough container and also potted on the cucumber.   Its the first cucumber I have tried to grow so we will see how it goes! 

June 6th – Planted out 5 cornflowers, 1 marigold, 1 common fleabane, 1 red campion, 6 oxeye daisies, 1 rudbeckia, 2 love-in-a-mist, 4 birds-foot-trefoil, 1 teasel and 2 perennial flax! I moved a sow thistle to the field. One of the poppies has started to flower 🙂

June 7th – I noticed today that the hazel has started to develop this years fruit

June 10th – It has been raining heavily all day.  What I had forgotten is some of the trays on the racking don’t have holes in the bottom.  I had put the plants out to get acclimatised and… well…. bless them they went for a swim today!  I had to go out in my waterproofs and rescue them.  Thankfully there were not too many but I had to find any empty pots or trays I could to put them in, they have been moved to the glasshouse to dry out!

June 11th – I put out the stakes for the sunflowers I would have done it sooner but it has been raining on and off for nearly a week.  I have had to put the tomatoes back in the greenhouse as they are too wet and looking a little unwell.  There are however 5 baby tomatoes starting to appear.

June 14th – I thought it best to start to feed the tomatoes seeing more fruit is appearing.

June 17th – The red campion in the pot has started to go to seed, the lavender and scarlet pimpernel are starting to flower and the cornflowers and roses are starting to show their first buds 🙂 

I had to remove a few nettles that had crept into the garden to put in the sunflowers.  I checked them over before removing them and put them over the fence in the field so any creatures I may not have spotted could safely escape.  I planted out 7 sunflowers, 6 rudbeckia, 6 field marigold, 2 bird’s-foot-trefoil, 2 love-in-a-mist, 6 oxeye daisy, 6 red campion, 1 lady’s bedstraw and 4 borage in a pot!

June 18th – Tonight I only managed to plant 6 rudbeckia and 4 marigold’s in pots.

June 19th – The cat has trashed the rudbeckia!  I have dug them back out but I don’t know if they will survive.

The Penstemon I bought earlier in the year has started to come into bud, the cornflower and marigold have started to flower and I found a black medick in the raised bed. I like it when wildflowers start to fill the bed without me having to plant them.  

I decided the best way to try and deter the cat was to put some hawthorn in the pot!  I just hope it makes him think twice!

I planted into pots, 4 borage and 10 zinnia.  I staked the tomatoes and tidied the left side of the garden as it was just untidy; it was starting to annoy me.

June 20th – The borage has started to flower 

I planted out 6 cornflowers, 6 lady’s bedstraw, 6 common fleabane, 6 red campion, 4 love-in-a-mist, 2 perennial flax, 3 oxeye daisy and 9 bird’s-foot-trefoil.

June 23rd – The cat has pooed in the pots AGAIN, but not just one pot THREE!!! he’s now killed three of my zinnia!  I’ve stupidly planted more as I guess he will probably dig them up again 🙁 

June 24th – deadheaded roses and removed some of the weeds from the front garden. It looks better than it did – honest! – it still needs more work.

June 26th – I planted the buddleja into the front garden.  I had to dig though the gravel and cut the weed suppressing membrane and then dig a hole to put it in! hopefully it will be happy there and won’t mind too much that it is surrounded by gravel. 

The love-in-a-mist, marigolds, sunflower, and poppy are all flowering, or starting to.

June 27th – The jasmine has been producing lots of growth so today it needed to be supported.  I couldn’t tie it up so some canes have been weaved into the top of the metal support to make it a little wider so it is all held up (I forgot to take a photo!)

June 30th – the sweet pea has started to flower 🙂

My Patch – A Garden update: June & July

Posted on by

When I last wrote about the garden on May 27th it was still looking rather unloved, as you can see over the summer it has been developing rather well 🙂 

I was concerned that I would only have a sparse covering of wildflowers this year, I was partially right.  Now I planted half of the garden a few weeks before the other half and with a different brand of seeds, so, there are a lot of variables to take into account.  The part I planted first really took hold and is full of greenery with some flowers in bloom.  The other half, well, its more soil than it is greenery!  Some ‘things’ have grown under the roses but I’m fairly sure they have naturally occurred and are not what I sowed.  I have left them as at least its vegetation protecting the soil from the intense heat – I am yet to investigate what they actually are, mainly because they are all leaf!

As plants have been flowering I have been taking photos and doing my best to identify them, so far I think I have: Red Dead-nettle, Great Willowherb, Love-in-a-mist, Corncockle, Cornflower and Hollyhock.

and lots that I still don’t know what they are!

The stinging nettles haven’t come through the fence as much as I thought they would, so have not been too much of a problem, but the ivy is starting to come in again and bind weed has been untangled from a sunflower!  The Velvet Queen sunflowers are doing really well and are still flowering.  

The sunflower seeds that I sowed back at the beginning of June have grown into strong plants and have been planted out into the garden, I actually had more than I expected and a few are in pots.  The birds have also been helping to grow sunflowers and I had two spring up that are doing really well, other smaller ones have been eaten by the slugs and snails.  To help with this issue I ‘collected’ the snails that I could find and took them on vacation; out into the field! 

What I have noticed about the garden is the section by the pond is in a lot more shaded than I initially thought it would be, this could be part of the reason why there is very little growth occurring there.  Next year I either need to sow plants earlier or I need to make sure that only shade loving plants are put there.  I’m not sure what route to take yet, I want to see what they do during what’s left of the Summer/Autumn. 

I have also relocated all of the pots to one location in the garden, it makes them easier to water and also adds more greenery to the borderless sections.  I have a few plans for developing it further next year to add more flowering plants and already have a very small lavender that is destined for one of the currently empty pots! 

One of the things I like about working in the garden is the sense of achieving something. If it’s 10 mins looking after the tomatoes or 15 putting supports in for some of the flowers you can see what you have done. After a long day at work feeling like you have been wading through mud it’s nice to have a sense of achievement at the end of the day.