Chilly April

 

Crocus, up and blooming under the viburnum!

       I'm having a domestic engineering day, because it's only 5 degrees out and I don't want to have to bundle up in winter gear to get out and garden. And anyway the house needs work. I am planning an all-out assault on our bedroom - Spring cleaning, if you like. The duvet cover is in the laundry and I think the curtains are coming down for a wash. I may even replace them for the summer, I don't know. A freshen-up is in order (and there's a wide variety of curtain fabric on clearance at the shop).
       Spring is progressing, as is gardening - I have re-skinned the greenhouse, and, innovation for the year, I have a thermometer out there, which, yesterday when the sun was out, was reading 40 degrees C. I opened up the ends to cool things down, although the only plants out there at the moment are onion sets, sprouting. I must also get some potatoes chitting right away.
        I finished feeding and mulching half of the raspberries yesterday. I am using for mulch some bags of wood pellets which had spent the winter outdoors and absorbed a lot of water, returning to their original sawdust form. I hope the fertilizer I put underneath will prevent it from leaching all the nitrogen from the berries as it decomposes. I am planning to give them a high nitrogen feed once the leaves start to emerge. I put lots of newspapers under the sawdust, as I am trying to control the cooch grass which is everywhere underneath the raspberry canes. I am trying to just dig it out of the vegetable garden, but it's impossible to get out of the raspberries, short of digging out all the canes. That's Plan B, if the mulch doesn't work! I have also carpeted between the rows, so the cooch should be well-suppressed.

     My "Pot for Winter Colour" is making good progress. There were some lovely dark purple crocus which lasted for weeks, and now the tete-a-tete daffodils are taking over. I haven't moved it indoors for the night in quite some time, even though we had a night-time temperature of  -7 a few nights ago. The flowers seem to have survived, and I hope the pot has too, as it's an unfired one. There are actual tulips coming as the next layer. At Beechgrove, they kept the bulbs in one of their layered pots, dried them off in situ, and got them going again in the fall - just to see what would survive, and it did quite well. I am not sure if I can spare the pot or the space - oh, I suppose it could summer in the greenhouse! Maybe I'll try it.
      My hellebore is blooming, at last! I planted it last spring, and it just sat there with the same 4 leaves all summer. I guess it was building up its strength, because this year it has produced two healthy flower stalks. I am as pleased as Punch.

        Here it is, looking at itself in the mirror so I can see the bloom, as it is a nodding one. There are many more blooms to come, I am pleased to note!

November is more like September, this year.

I do feel badly for my family in Vancouver, enduring rain and gales day after day, and those in the British Isles and Ireland, too. We have been very, very fortunate and I am thankful. We had our almost traditional Guy Fawkes bonfire last weekend, you can see the balloons marking the way to the site of the fire, beyond the vegetable garden. The balloons had electric tea lights inside, so after dark they were illuminated and showed the way back to the house. Only one burn from a sparkler, and the gingerbread Guys were mostly eaten rather than being tossed on the fire. I found some glow lanterns at the $$ store and they were pretty terrific after dark as well.
Must remember to pick up more as I see them throughout the year. Wonderful music and some dancing afterward at the house. We put up the folding table for the buffet, and afterward just folded it and put it away in the garage, so there was room for music and dance.

I planted bags of pink daffodils yesterday - yes, I know, sucked in again! I believe the pretty pictures on the box, and then in spring have glorious displays of King Alfred yellow ones everywhere. And haul them out in frustration, and move them down to the roadside where their bright yellows will look cheerful and won't clash horribly with my bordeaux-coloured house. Perhaps this year will be different!! Maybe they really will be pink and white, and I'll be able to leave them in the flower beds. Yes, and pigs make wonderful birds, too.