Pricking, slashing, snipping, chopping and pinching
Hello Friends!
Highlight of the week - kew's tulip meadow!
My five minute forays this week:
Monday:
Today is a bank holiday. I don't normally love bank holidays - they simply represent days in which my have to juggle family life in addition to work. But today was different - the weather was glorious, and this fact, in addition to my expectations being lower than many many low things, turned the whole thing into a delight. We go to Kew to see the new re-vamped Temperate House - what a glorious achievement.
I want to go back again and set up camp there, and just soak it all up (without children). Other than this faintly horticultural activity, I simply water my pots at the end of the day, with my pink wine in one hand, feeling as though I have finally discovered why people love bank holidays.
Tuesday:
Today I finish feeding the shrubs (see last week's newsletter for the 101 on feeding) and I also plant the argyranthemum seedlings I ordered ages ago and that have been growing on in little pots. I put them into two large terracotta pots and they look frightfully neat and a little bit prim. I water them and whisper that I want them to be shaggy and bonkers soon and I think they listen (see below).
Wednesday:
The argyranthemum have started flowering - overnight. The tight buds suddenly popped open, presumably in response to their new home, in rich compost. Inspired by this, I grab a little pot of alpine strawberry seedlings, sown back in February, and remove them from their pot.
I tease them apart tentatively, and put each tiny little baby into its own little pot (the ones vacated yesterday by the argyranthemums).
They look a bit ridiculous those teeny tiny seedlings in such relatively large pots, but I have only to turn around and look at the huge hummocks of strawberries that were the same size as these last year, to know that this state of affairs won't last long. In fact, if I look carefully I can see the first strawberries forming on some of these large plants; if I can get in there before my pesky kids it's going to be a good year!
Thursday:
I spend five minutes removing some of the pond weed that has happily covered my once-rather chic pool on the terrace. I realise that finishing the job is going to be an on-going thing as I don't even make a dent.
I leave the detritus on the side so that any creepies caught up in the algae can get back in, and I write a blog-post about it here, for good measure. I also make béchamel and do shopping, but hey, that's outside the scope of this 'ere missive.
Friday:
My sedums are so beautiful SO BEAUTIFUL I TELL YOU!! They come out of the ground every year and make me SO happy in their neat, fleshy roundness - so tidy and glorious, with the promise of beautiful blooms to last the whole of the winter. They're worth making a fuss over, these wonderful plants, so I pinch out the tips - it's very easy and satisfying work, because the fleshy stems give so obligingly between thumbnail and fingertip, coming off cleanly and easily.
before pinching (above)
after pinching (above)
I do this to create a bushier, stockier plant, and (let's be honest) because it makes me feel accomplished and happy and like I'm DOING something. My hunk is here today, working from home, getting in the way. Most annoying. I contemplate getting him to mow the lawn, and then realise I want to do that myself. He can clear the pond weed.
Chelsea chopping and all that jazz
The weirdness of the weather this year has made the thought of chopping some of ones perennials back at this time of year into a rather more nuanced decision than usual. The general idea is that if you get out the choppers and remove a bit of top-growth from things like geraniums - things which have perhaps started flowering and have lots of side shoots further down the stems, then you will of course put the plant's energies into these other shoots, which will grow, producing a stockier plant with more flowers. It's generally a frightfully good idea; you get more flowers a little bit later (or indeed a second flush of them) and it negates the need to stake in most cases...nothing not to love. But there's no question that it is a rather brutal thing to do, so I tend to be a bit selective and chop back only half of the shoots of multi-stemmed perennials, so as to stagger flowering, rather than delay it entirely. In terms of what to do now, I have pinched out the sedums, but I'm leaving everything well alone for a while. I shall watch and wait, and pounce anon mwahahahahahaaaaaa!
Here's an entirely unexhaustive list of things you can cut, chop, slash and pinch if you want to.
Nepeta
Penstemon
Rudbeckia
Aster
Achillea
Phlox
Geranium
Campanula
Echinacea
Sedum
Helenium
Also don't forget to take off the main stems of foxgloves and deliphiniums just above the developing side shoots, to get a second bite of their respective cherries.
All the good things
x Laetitia
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