Rome doesn't need built in a day.

Kellie Castle and some of the rhubarb collection.

I came home yesterday from a very inspiring garden buzzing with ideas and scored two free scones and a car full of plants.  Life is good and plentiful and a good scone is really hard to beat (so is a car full of free plants). In fact there's been a few inspiring gardens visited this week, always gets the fingers itching to get going on your own garden doesn't it?

Main border walkway and garden heart at Kellie Castle

Now, I'm not what you'd call a patient sort, really, you'd noticed? But even I have to admit that whilst I'd love to get torn in and spend every last bean I have buying wood, nails, plants and all things marvelous, sometimes planning is required and some thought. Like where to put the third blue shed we have, by the veg patch or under the honeysuckle? Ponder, ponder. 

A beautiful card from a chum with a blue shed in it (and with a fiver in it (RESULT!)) from Susie Grindey.

Three sheds in one garden, is to my mind, a bit odd. 

I'm more of an action girl running off to find a hammer, but I've got the books out instead and drawn up me plot and I'll ponder some more.

In the mean time I've these to give their normal 24 hour soak before they get loose in the garden.

More plants, fabulous.

And a clump of my absolute favourite Ladies mantle (Alchemilla mollis). Now I've waxed lyrical about this beast before with my 'ladies walk'. Yes its common, yes its prolific (no use of the word 'thug' on my watch thank you). 

It looks fantastic in the wet (we are in Scotland after all) and a marvelous cut flower filler to bring out the colours in any plants. Spot the ladies mantle in my bouquet - fabulous! There will be lots of it here, in ten years time when I'm cursing it and taming it. Remind me I actively sought it out.

 Sharing plants from friends and fellow gardeners is a great way to spread joy and keep the costs down. When friends give me plants it reminds me of them, so its nice to have a bit of their cheer in my garden. I never bin a plant, someone, somewhere will be glad of its beauty and cheer. If not a friend, or a colleague, the local charity shops and gardening groups often welcome cast offs. So if its not staying in my garden, someone else will enjoy it I'm sure. Just saying!

Enjoy your weekend! I'm off to find places for these plants once they've had their isolation soak :) and then go collect my chickens. 

Sometimes patience does pay off (as does the ability to bash stuff with hammers, like hen houses).

If they're good I might let them wander about the garden too, like this. Maybe.......they'd just best not eat my ladies mantle.

Crazy daisy weather.....

Its that time of year again - everything is bursting into life - crazy daisy weather! The nights are so light so long - and then light again so early sunrise at 4am, sunset at 10.20pm - soon we'll be out at midnight reading the paper in the twilight - its very surreal! Everything growing like crazy out there!

Doesn't Peeide look lovely and happy - here he is at the edge of my crop (willow), or should I say my old crop frolicking in the daisies. Excuse the late post - I'm not sleepy - I'm all at sixes and sevens - I've just finished my pesky thesis write up - but having gone from crazy busy to job done two copies in the post to the University in the 'sooth'. Now what? Um, tidy up desk - wait for the oral exam (viva) - file everything 'willow' related in a lot of files and put them on a shelf............feels really wierd - my poor crop, I'll miss thinking about it (in a good way). We've gone through alot together over the past 4 years, but I'll bore you about all of that another day. I'll even miss the cutting, lugging samples around and weighing and measuring it all over and over and over again lots of times! Me and the salix have become quite good buddies over the past wee while.



Always good at helping with botanical field work - um, are those my fieldsheets peedie????

Having come vaguely out of my post write up haze - I've had a look around the house (which needs a huge clean!) and apart from that it currently looks like an explosion in a garden centre. Plants on windowsills everywhere - some planted up, some not planted up (many).  The gardens not in any state to have anything out there and the past week or so of really bad winds have even trashed the shallots I planted out. I never learn - here you don't plant anything out until June. Oh, its june, rats - I'll have to get going soon I've a garden to sort out for planting up!

The veggie patch to be - getting there in Januray, but more work needing done.

I did a recky around the house with a cup of peppermint tea...........to survey the carnage and the indoor vegetation situation. It's alot like this:

Indoor chilli having a shower to get rid of aphids last year - got a good crop from it though!

The utility room has plugs of melons, tomatoes, jalapenos, rosemary from seed and wandering spider plants.

The kitchen a tray of 8 physalis desperate to pot up, big pot of chives, window box of coriander, pot of sage, rosemary, spider plant babies, eucomis, spring onions and some random cuttings of a plant I don't know the name of.

Downstairs sunny room (dining room) - bursting with chillis (7 types), tomatoes (2 types), various cuttings.

Downstairs bath room - ginko tree, purple hazel tree, birch, fig, a chilli on the naughty step (it has aphids) and a wandering spider mummy, 9 cucumbers in the bath (they aren't bathing, just having a rest in there)

Gamerboy bedroom - one tub of tomatoes one mixed lettuce

Cellist hasn't let in on her window sills yet - I'll break in soon and leave a couple window boxes in there

Upstairs loo - italian flat leaf parsley but only a small pot - very small windowsill

Living room/Conservatory upstairs - 9 window boxes of tomatoes - one of basil (on its 5th hair cut), one cucumber with an almost ready cucumber (go Horatio!) on it and one window box of strawberries.

My bedroom windowsills are as yet un planted - need to get on with that one!

Last years sage from a windowsill grown pot - then it got rehomed to a friend - for her to plant outside - it doesn't survive in my garden outside unfortunatley. But makes a nice house plant!

I'm thinking I'm needing to get this polytunnel up and soon - I've started to make a few enquiries about the things I need (ground posts and a cover) - I'll need to do a bit of saving/paid work - cover will be £300, the ground posts I might get here (or something that will do) - but the delivery for the cover is over £120 + vat  to get the cover here as we're an island - but I'll have to try and fathom a plan to get it delivered to scotland (only £20 delviery from the polytunnel company) and then get it over here by a local courier - which should be another cost but hopefully cheaper than the figure quoted by the company in England.

My own tunnel  is recycled from a man in Orkney who inherited a house with two and wanted one of the them to go to a good home - this is hopefully a good home  -  and it will look a bit like that! How cool?!

Fingers crossed we get something sorted soon! Otherwise the plants will take over the house more than they are already. I had put out a thyme and it has got trashed in the wind, not sure it will come back to life - very sad. Thankfully the rosemary, sage, chives, parsley, basil and coriander are all inside - they'd not stand a chance out there at the mo. Not if I want anything from them in the way of leaves.

However, its not all windowsill growing, I've made a tiny start to the outside garden - and I've decided to put my money where my mouth is - I'm going for a total flower/vegetable take over out there too. I've got 'potato onions' in my main central flower bed, planted up with calendula, and I think I'll put carrots inbetween them all. I'm planting a new willow hedge to replace the dead fushia and flowering currants - so inbetween the cuttings I'm putting Ailsa craig onions grown from seed, lettuce, beetroot and maybe something else. I can't grow courgettes/squashes outside - so I think I'll try them in a fishbox cold frame until I can get them into the tunnel - if that happens in time this year...........otherwise I'll have to do without, its pointless with the wind - they'd not last a day out there, or of course I can grow on the windowsill - like the tomatoes.  But I'm running out of room!

Until then, I'll get on with potting up and filling the windowsills to bursting - and trying to get the bits organised for the polytunnel - no wonder I'm not sleepy - how exciting with that be? Very soon infront of that house (this side) will be a polytunnel! Can't wait until the view changes and the vegetation in the houve leaves the buidling for thier very own compound!

As for me - I'll have to learn to channel this bound up this post-post-grad energy into something else wont I? My first task was to repaint my toe-nails - long overdue - and a bit girly eh? I went for a suitable colour and tried my new toes out on the crazy daisy garden!

 

Growing for free......sharing 'happy' plants

Alchemilla mollis - Lady's mantle - a 'thug' ? Or a clever little self seeding 'angel'?

How many of us have things which are happy in are garden - so much so they almost become a weed? I don't like the word weed - conjures up images of nasty things needing to be chucked out. Most plants can be recycled to the hen coop, the only real weed in my life are nettles (only because they bite!) which I leave for the butterflies and stay well clear!

The Lady's mantle in my last garden was wonderful I use it for cut flowers and if I didn't watch it would swamp me out the photo above is the culprit in question! They are so happy with us that they go forth and multiply and multipy and multiply. I got given a box full from a friend who simply just had too many - she called it a 'thug' I call it 'clever'. I can see her point - if she didn't dig a few up - her garden would soon be full of it - and with a new garden to sort out I'm happy to have more than a few plants for free/swap.

Plants which self seed for you for free are often much easier than sowing seed - half the job is already done for you - these little monkeys are already growing and are strong healthy little plants. I like letting plants self seed good for the birds who eat many types of seed in the winter, good for bugs who like to overwinter in the wintering plant and good for you if we get strong little seedlings popping up. I'm leaving the Calendula in the photo below which is growing in my veggie garden to self sow later in the year - I'm going to watch out for baby plants in the spring - now that I've sown the plant - I'm not expecting to have to buy seed again - it should self sow freely enough and I just need to make sure if its in a place I don't like - I move it, if I've too many I'll give them away to friends.



If you've got plants which are happy in your garden - you can guarantee that there are friends and family who'd love to have a few - and the reverse is true. Most people have something in their garden which is happy and being prolific (an 'angel' or maybe a bit 'thug' like) - unless like me you've a new garden which is desperately in need of plants! Why not think about a bit of swapping or rehoming? 

A peedie tray of lambs lugs - came in the post after a day or two - right as rain - one small A5 tray which  held over 80 plants!

I've a lovely friend who has 'lambs lugs' (stachys spp.) coming out of her, well, um lugs (ears) there they are in the tray. This happy plant in her garden just makes more and more plant babies. When asked if I'd like some I'd always say yes please - free plants are always good - self seeded ones are clearly a happily germinated plant which isn't weak or sickly - this is a good stock to have!

The slight problem of course for me was that this friend had plants in her garden over 500 miles away! The solution for us was to post the plants in a little pouch and let them arrive at my house safe and sound. Take the example in the photo (up in the picture is the tray of baby plants recieved in the post). Now the little plants were all chocablock where they had germinated - I gently teased them out from their lovely little mass and ended up with over 80 baby plants.

Newly planted free plants of lambs lugs in a recycled fish box from the beach

Brilliant, here they are planted into a temporary big recycled box - in the the old compost from the tomatoes - to grow on a bit before I pop them into the garden in the spring next year. I'm only doing this because of the weather where I am, if I was in a sheltered area - they would go straight into their new home in the garden. Whether its things which reseed, or grow bigger until they burst out of their space - or something thats arrived and just carried on abundantly growing. If we've got extra plants in your garden - no doubt your friends/neighbours and anyone with a garden has why not try a bit of swapping? If you're near to them all the better - but if you're like me and far away from your friends - asking nicely for a few (or alot!) in the post might not cost more than a cup of coffee.

If I'd bought these plants in a garden centre - they would have cost me a goodly amount. I prefer to think of these free plants as 'angels' rather than 'thugs' - having a bit of my friends garden in my own makes me feel as if I'm surrounded with friendship. Thanks to 'Greenval' for the lovely 'recycled' baby plants I've returned the favour and given her a few of my extra baby plants I have, when I see the plants she sent I'll think of her.

Watching out on freecycle is a good way to find spare plants in your area or to advertise any that you've got spare. And, collecting your own seed/dividing plants/swapping extra seed packets are a great way to swap too - but a tale for another time!