It is early May in The Fortnight Garden and the plants are starting to fill out. Some flowers are already going over – time passes inexorably. My Six on Saturday this week is just enjoying what has been achieved and wondering about some tweaks in a week or two!
1.Libertia Grandiflora is one of my favourite plants, and earlier this year I pulled out a lot of loose plantlets from the one enormous bush, and also removed a lot of dead leaves and flower branches. Now it is blooming well, and the cuttings are mainly looking good.
2. The Geraniums are really coming out now and I think they are wonderful! Mayflower, the unknown white sport, and Spessart.
3. Knautia Macedonica has developed mounds of healthy looking leaves and today I have the first flower. They self-seed, even in gravel and are hardy – wonderful!
4. Nepeta ‘Seven Hills Giant’ is starting to flower and I am delighted because it was so crowded by the grasses I thought it was lost.
5. The cuttings are starting to mount up! I have begged pots and used up three bags of potting compost so far, and I am not quite finished. AND I have given away plants!
6. And finally I thought you might like to see a birds-eye view of what is actually quite a small garden!
And so there we are – quite a lot of change in the last month! Early May in The Fortnight Garden is quite rewarding and all we need now is warm evenings so that I can enjoy a glass of wine amidst the flowers. I hope The Propagator will feel I justify my ‘membership’!
My Knautia Macedonica is doing well too, and it DID self-seed over the edge of the raised bed! I grew my original three from seed, and these volunteers are so much earlier and bigger! I love your birds-eye view.
Thank you!I like the Knautia because they are resilient, easy and generous. I thought the birds-eye view was a good way of seeing just how much I have crammed into what is a actually quite a small space. Thanks for visiting!
You certainly do make the most of your space. And all those cuttings! I used to under estimate the strength of geraniums in the garden but’ve learned how much they compliment the flashier plants. You’ve got such a great combo of colours there.
How very kind of you!I hate throwing plants away so I am always looking for good homes. The geraniums are easy to grow and easy to propagate; the only drawback is that I find they do need to be renewed after a few years and so I keep going with the cuttings. The white sport is interesting – and it is spreading. I think I need to clump them together; I started with one plants and can now count five!
It’s always lovely to see a birds eye view. I lost several hardy Geraniums last winter – just too wet I think.
I thought it might be useful to see just how small the space is, although at times it feels dauntingly large! Now that everything is starting to grow and fill out I am quite pleased. I find that Geranium ‘Spessart’ is very tough indeed, and very pretty too. It is also easy to propagate. ‘Mayflower’ is taller and seems very tough, as does G.Phaeum ‘Samobor’
i’m trying to grow knautia from seed this year, it refuses to germinate. probably a good thing as i have far too many young plants as it is!
I started with a plant, perhaps two, and once they get going they seem to be indestructible, even growing in gravel with thin tar underneath!