on February 4, 2017
It is the first Saturday of February and I couldn’t resist filling two new sets of rootrainers with summer colour potential!
The last of the sweet peas (Mrs Collier, King Edward VII and some others (could be any of: Lord Nelson, Prince Edward of York or Matucana) are finally in. I am already fretting that this means the end to plans for successional sowing: does it mean we will have a bright flash of sweet peas for the shortest of seasons and then they will be gone, no youngsters to refill the flanks? I will have to sleep on it, or perhaps invest in even more seeds for reassurance! Or perhaps save my money and simply deadhead, deadhead, and deadhead! Sweet peas can go on flowering easily into September if looked after; only the flower stalks will become shorter over time.
Next to the peas on the sowing bench are the leafy greens of euphorbia oblongata (eggleaf spurge), anethum graveolens (that’s dill), and ammi visnaga. They are all destined for the lime and blue border, with accents of purple and red to give it range. Next to them – blue clary sage, followed by red snapdragons (Liberty Classic Crimson – brilliant red, very hard working). I’m not sure how they will cope being sown so early in an unheated greenhouse, being tender annuals, unlike their neighbours.
The selection is finished off by trying to sow some twigs out of an out-of-date packet of cosmos, Psyche White, and four fickle osteospermums, Glistening White.
Four snowdrops on the windowsill in an old blue medicine bottle. Spring is upon us.
