October in our garden

Spending time in the garden during October involves getting the garden tidy before winter and preparing the garden for spring. I spent most of this weekend tidying up the garden, sweeping up leaves, planting bulbs, restocking the bird feeder, adding new plants to my window boxes and rearranging a few things before the winter kicks in.

I emptied my window boxes, keeping the geraniums and planting them into small pots to keep over winter in my cold frame greenhouse. In their place I planted red cyclamen and ivy into my window boxes, creating the same arrangement for each front windowsill. These new plants will hopefully last into the new year and add a bit of colour during the grey and dreary months ahead.

I love the combination of delicate cyclamen flowers and the trailing ivy. They are so pretty!

I planted a pack of violas in the window box on our windowsill in the back garden, the flowers look like little faces! These should last during the winter as long as I dead head the flowers and keep them watered.

It is that time of year when you need to plant bulbs for spring. I planted two different types of pink tulip bulbs, one with a white edge and one deep pink. I love daffodils and bought two types of daffodil bulbs, Tete a Tete and Pheasants Eye, both new to me before my trip to the garden centre but I loved the pictures shown on the bulb packets so went with these. I interspersed blue and white Grape Hyacinth bulbs in amongst the other bulbs to mix up the arrangements a little. I haven't planted bulbs in Autumn before so I think it will be a bit of a trial...I hope to have a spring garden full of pots full of colourful flowers! 

Here's our little courtyard space this October...

I spent time sweeping up and moving a few of the pots around, re-potting a few plants and separating the lilies into different pots. I'm hoping I have done it correctly and that they will survive being split up!  

And look who spent most of the afternoon with me...

A very friendly robin enjoying all the worms and slugs that I found when I moved the pots around!

I had a great weekend enjoying the fresh air and making the most of being in the garden. Have you started planting any spring bulbs yet? What have you chosen to plant?

Container Gardening - potting up and planting out

I can honestly say that I have a new found love of gardening! I spent Saturday enjoying the dappled sunlight and warm weather, potting up new plants and rearranging our courtyard garden with the hope that some plants will grow well this year! Being out in the fresh air, getting mud under my fingernails and handling little plants made me appreciate the joy that gardening brings to your life and it made me really happy...gardening is a great chance to escape and think...

Having spent last week looking longingly at the plants I bought the previous weekend...Saturday finally arrived and I got up super early to start gardening!! I started the gardening by getting things tidy...I swept up the clematis petals and pollen stamens that have now all dropped into our courtyard...

I arranged all the empty pots in one space so I could work out what I should plant in which pot. With lots of plants it was like a jigsaw getting them all potted...I'm sure some will need to go in to bigger pots in a few weeks according to the planting advice!

To add to our collection of plants I bought a range of herbs, vegetables, fruit and a few flowers to grow in our courtyard garden, these included - sage, chives, fennel, curled parsley and rosemary. I planted these into a wooden container...

To start the 'edible' summer garden I bought a few vegetables and fruit to grow in our containers, including a few different tomato plants, strawberry plants, a chilli pepper, a pepper, patio peas, french beans, mixed lettuce, little gem lettuces and a small rocket plant.

The courgettes I grew from seed in March, were moved into the greenhouse a few weeks ago and survived! I had six courgette plants that I had grown from seed and have planted them out in a temporary container to see how they get on. I know that courgettes can grow quite large so I may need to re-pot them in a month or so depending how they have got on.

I love having flowers in the garden (I'm still waiting for my lillies to bloom!)...so for some instant colour I bought an osteospermum (daisy type flower), a lavender plant and some red and yellow nasturtiums that will flower over the next few months.

One of my favourite containers didn't have a drainage hole at the bottom so I drilled a few holes...the perfect container for my new lavender! Doesn't it look so lovely next to the bay tree and one of our willow planters!

With the planting done I spent time a lot of time moving the containers into their new homes. I spent time over the past few weekends observing where the sunlight falls in our space so I could plan where the plants could get the best light. I realised that I hadn't been utilising the space near our back door in the most productive way. I have a huge willow vegetable planter that I haven't got anything growing in at the moment, so I moved this out of the way, moved the metal garden seating further along the wall and had space to create an arrangement of pots and containers near our back door.

I've started to use the window sill for one of the pepper plants in the hope that the sunlight will help it grow really well.

I have a mixture of containers and pots as you can see, they all look quite nice next to each other. I have a bit of an obsession with pots...my bright blue pot is a new favourite! I'm already eyeing up my next purchases to add to the collection and also have a few lead-look window boxes on my wish list too! Back to the gardening...

Using some decking squares we had and some bricks I elevated a space in the corner so that I could stagger the plants to make the best use of the light and space.

I'm thrilled at what I achieved and our new look space. I just hope that things will grow and not get eaten by slugs, snails and other bugs! I will really try hard to care for the plants and the space as much as I care about the inside of our home.  I vow to water the plants and not forget about them and to keep an eye out for slugs!

Now that the space is more sorted I will try and add a few things to the courtyard over the summer months, get some more flowers growing in window boxes and pots. I'm thinking about planting red and white geraniums in lead-style window boxes and maybe creating a container with some wild flowers...I need to do a bit of planning first but I'll let you know how I get on and keep you posted on how my garden grows over the summer. Keep checking back for updates!

Container planting - my gardening inspirations

Gardening is something that I have been itching to learn more about. I dream of owning a house in the country with a garden where I can grow wild flowers, have a little herb garden, grow vegetables all year round and maybe a fruit tree or two. I'd love to have borders of flowers and a tree to sit under just like those lovely gardens you see in Country Living magazine and gardening books. A big dream but perhaps I can do something on a smaller scale within our courtyard and grow similar plants in containers...

You may have noticed over the past few weeks I've been writing a number of gardening posts...well, as part of my goals for the year I wanted to start gardening again. I know that I need to learn the basics to make it a success and have spent a bit of time trying to learn from books, asking friends and family for advice, and looking at gardenersworld.com.

Last year Mr C and I had a delivery from the wonderful organic garden company called Rocket Gardens. We were given a generous gift of a Patio Container Garden...ooh it was so lovely getting the delivery of lots of baby plants, carefully placed on a bed of hay in a huge box. We planted the plug plants in our containers and watched them grow...however shortly after they arrived we had an unwanted visitor that managed to dig up lots of the plants. Following this many of the plants died as they didn't have chance to establish themselves...our little visitor put me off our garden space a little! However after the visitor was no longer able to dig up our remaining crops, many plants did grow thanks to the dedication of Mr C who took it upon himself to tend the tomatoes! We had a constant supply of rocket and mixed lettuce as they grew really well in our containers. We had one huge courgette, some green tomatoes and we had a few French beans!

I vowed that this year would be the time to try hard and learn more about growing plants and how we can make the most of our urban garden space. With the sun finally arriving and the weather warming I have a real desire to make it work. I'm keen to make our space tranquil, a place to grow things we can eat and admire and also improve our space to entertain friends. To get started I looked through a number of books that I have for some inspiration.

I especially like Organic Crops in Pots - How to grow your own vegetables, fruit and herbs. The lovely photos of bountiful crops, querky containers and achieveable projects really inspired me. Then there are the more practical books by the 'gardening god', Alan Titchmarsh, and his 'How to Garden' series. I have the Vegetables and Herbs and Container Gardening books and found them packed with practical details.

After looking at the books I set about making a list of plants that I thought would grow well based on a few years of experience, what may be suited to our environment and space, but also what I was keen to tend and eat over the next few months!

I also had a think through the many gardening mistakes that I have made over the past few years, I don't want to let these happen again this year! I tend to forget about my plants and not regularly tend to them, this means that they get attacked by bugs, shrivel and die, and are therefore beyond rescue. I told myself that if I am going to invest in new plants that I must go on a slug hunt each day and remove the nasties, find good locations for the plants with plenty of sunlight and water regularly...

Inspired and raring to go, I took a trip to our stunning little garden centre a few minutes drive from our flat. The Riverside Garden Centre in Bristol is tucked away near the river and some old industrial buildings. The Riverside Garden Centre have such a lovely collection of everything you need for an 'urban' garden and plenty of healthy looking plants tended by their helpful staff.

I was armed with my list, as I knew I would be in danger of getting carried away. I treated myself to two big blue pots to make our space more cheerful, and bought a new Burgon and Ball trowel which blew a hole in my budget...I know I will use them year on year so it is worth the investment. I selected a range of herbs, vegetables, fruits and plants suitable for container gardening.

I saw so many beautiful flowers and little plants that I wanted but I will wait until next month to make a few more purchases as buying new plants can be expensive! I definitely need to try and grow more from seed! I'm hope to grow some red and white geraniums in window boxes and have some more flowers in pots to attract some bees!

Take a look at how I got on with the gardening in my next post where I kick start the summer by getting our courtyard looking tidy and a little bit more summery!

Springtime Planting

At last Spring definitely feels like it is on its way. With foggy mornings, blossom covering some of the trees and a gentle warmth to sunny days. This time of year is always so refreshing, with a change from the rainy cold miserable days, to the joy of more hours of daylight and a mildness in the air. I love it when the seasons change...I've recently packed away my chunky winter scarves and replaced them with my favourite light springtime ones instead!

I live in a little basement flat which was built in the 18th century, I love it as it has its charms and little alcoves for my many books. We don’t get the best light throughout the flat, however we are very lucky to have our own courtyard garden with unique archways and a little cave at the back. The problem is that it is a sunken courtyard garden, we live on a steep hill with other houses surrounding us and so we struggle to get all light we need to grow plants successfully. Last year we managed some green tomatoes and one courgette! I don’t think that my heart was in it last year but this year I want to try a bit harder and really look after things, plant some flowers to brighten up the space and hope that the veg I plant may some how grow much better this year!

Over the past few weekends I’ve been preparing our courtyard garden space ready for Spring. I’m really enjoying being outside in our courtyard at the weekends, whether I'm tidying up our little space, looking at the plants coming back to life after winter or pootling around planting things in various containers. Being in the fresh air is such a great way to have space for time to think and clear your head of the weekly goings on. A few months ago in my post Planting Onions I was hopeful that the onion bulbs I planted were going to do something! I'm proud to let you see that they are coming on nicely!

We have a few chunky windowsills that do get some light, so I took the plunge and a few weekends ago I planted some window boxes to brighten up the window sills. I wanted to make the most of the spaces that get the most sunlight and usher in the spring with some cheerful primroses and narcissus…oh and look how they’ve bloomed! I love seeing these happy flowers when I look out of our windows.

I was in the mood for planting so I sowed some seeds to see what I could grow!

I bought seeds to grow courgettes, marigolds, nasturtiums, peppers and geraniums. They have now been planted and placed near the window in propagators. Look what a dose of water and inside warmth has done to the courgette seeds and nasturtiums in a few weeks…

The other seeds are still dormant so I’ll wait and see what happens to them! Outside in our containers I planted carrot seeds and lettuce seeds, but upon checking them this morning nothing seems to be happening with these either. I have no idea if any of them will grow but it's worth a go.

Alongside the planting came the desire to have a spring clean of our outside space. So I swept the courtyard, tidied up the pots, moved some containers and gave our new little wooden greenhouse some clear oil protector in the hope that it will last many years. 

Finally I potted up some pink and blue hyacinths that I’d bought...and look how they’ve bloomed...

I’ll keep you posted on my gardening developments over the coming months! Fingers crossed some more seeds will germinate this week... I'd love to hear about what you are planting at the moment.