Another spring… and a fresh start

Well, I blinked my eyes and six months have passed.  The garden looks so fresh at this time of year, especially the plethora of weeds that are truly winning at this stage.  I had a walk around the garden earlier in the week and took photos of the choice plants looking well at the moment.  I must admit that I carefully tried to erase the evidence.  But like the telltale heart in Poe’s short story, my heart won’t allow me to lie about the state of the weeds.  So here’s a lovely tulip with the weeds in the background carefully fuzzed out…

What most of the garden really looks like is this…

And this…

I’ve decided not to fret.  As I am not willing to use any chemicals on the garden, I am happy to pay the price of having to deal with weeds (or NOT deal with weeds as the case has been for the last couple of years).  The bees sure do like the dandelions and the bullfinches like eating the daisy heads.  No, I’m not going to fret too much about the weeds.

Between the weeds there are some lovely things.  There is a really nice Euphorbia, which I bought from Jimi Blake (I swear I nearly typed ‘Jimi Hendrix’ by accident).  I took a visit to his Huntingbrook Lodge last May.  I love his place and I landed on the right day as Jimi, himself, was giving a walk and talk about his favourite plants for May.  It’s great to have his list because May is such an in between time – the spring bulbs are finished or on the way out and most mainstay perennials are not yet flowering.  One of his choice plants was this lovely Euphorbia ‘Sonnengold’.  I think it’s fab.  The acid green goes really well with the rest of the garden, which is at its best, fresh, lush green.  I decided to give it a good year before I started tugging at it to propagate.  I don’t want to harm this gem as it’s a long drive from Galway to Wicklow!  Here she is…

Nice, isn’t she?  The tulips have also been great.  I don’t have a huge number of them, but I do plant them in clumps as I think the effect is better than single ones here and there.  I’ve been trying to nestle these little groups among nice perennials, which will come up after the tulips have finished.  The idea is to allow the perennials to envelope the tulips in their fresh, green growth so that you don’t have to witness the tulips withering (same  with the daffodils).  They can then fade away gracefully in their own time and in peace.  Not a bad way to go, really.

Now to link my two themes thus far… namely tulips and weeds.  Here’s a group of a pretty little dark red tulip.  It’s either ‘Queen of the Night’ or ‘Ronaldo’.  I get the two confused.

This group is drowning in weeds.  I just need to fess up and let this part of the garden go back to being mown for now.  But I am going to rescue these tulips once they have died back, let them rest over summer and replant them in the less weedy beds near the front of the house as they will go nicely with the orange and red theme there.  As soon as the flowers fade I will mark the spot so that I can dig them up and save them.

Another confession to make is that I have hardly any veg seeds sown.  It’s a bank holiday weekend here in Ireland this weekend, so it’s really do or die for me in terms of sowing seeds.  Geez, I’d best get on with this blog as I’m stressing myself out thinking about the seeds (and weeds)!  I have sown tomato seeds and they are now ready to be potted on.  I don’t sow them until mid to late March now as I find I have to do less hoofing them back and forth between the polytunnel and house during colder times.  They do so much better being in the tunnel during the day so that they don’t get too leggy.  But sometimes it just gets too cold in March for them to stay in the tunnel overnight.  So they get to sleep on the kitchen table in the house.  If I wait until March to sow them, it’s nearly warm enough in April to leave them in the tunnel overnight.  That’s another thing on my list for this weekend – Pot On!

Great to be back.  There is so much to do in the garden, it’s perhaps not the wisest time to restart the blog.  But then again, there is so much to talk about!  You grow girl!