I love spring and the flowers it brings

Spring has to be my favourite time of the year. The weather is warm but not too hot and everything is still green before the summer comes and dries the grass again.

I love being out in my garden. It's only small but I find pottering around and pulling out weeds really relaxing.

Yesterday I potted up some vegetables for summer. I planted a pot of mixed lettuces, cucumber, pumpkin, beetroot, rolly polly carrots and a couple of tomato plants. Last year it was nice to be able to go out side and pick fresh lettuce so hopefully this year the plants will grow well and I'll have a lots of vegetables to pick from.

My little potted veggie patch

Some of my favourite flowers in my garden.

My first black Cornflower and Oriental Poppy

I have my first black Cornflower called 'Black Ball' and first Oriental Poppy flowering in my garden. It's pretty exciting seeing flowers that you have grown from seeds coming into flower.

I am really looking forward to seeing the flowers on my Danish Flag poppies. There are a lot of buds on the plants so hopefully it wont be too long before they flower.

I'm really enjoying my garden and love growing my own flowers from seeds. My new greenhouse is working well and on Sunday I collected over 200 small plastic pots from a lady on freecycle. I was also given a little propagating tray with the dome lid so next year I'll try and grow some seeds in that as well.

This Saturday my neighbour, Mily and I are going to have a small plant sale. I am hoping to sell some hellebore seedlings and Mily has some succulents that she has divided and potted. I've potted over 100 seedlings so I hope they all sell!

It's Raining, It's Pouring, Charlie is snoring..

It has been raining for most of the weekend now and my garden is absolutely loving it. The rain gauge which holds 40ml was overflowing this morning which is something that it hasn't done for such a long time.

Charlie doesn't like getting wet so he spent most of the weekend inside. He spent most of Sunday afternoon curled up on the bed sleeping and snoring.

My seedlings are all doing well. I love going outside and seeing which bulbs have come up this year and seeing the new winter flowers coming out.

My favourite flower is the Winter Rose (Helebouros) which was also my grand mothers favourite flower. I have two varieties in my garden -Helleborus niger and Helleborus foetidus. The Helleborus foetidus grows a lot taller than the Helleborus Niger. It also has long thin leaves with small green flowers which grow on the top of the plants. This year I have a lot more pink flowers coming out which I really love.

I recently dug out a Dianella that I had growing against the back fence and replaced it with a Lord Byron Fuchsia, helbouros and some of my Danish Flag poppy seedlings. It had grown so big and was spreading too far so I divided the Dianella into several clumps and gave them away to some other gardeners on Freecycle. The fence looks a little 'bare' at the moment but I'm sure with all the rain we are getting that it wont be long before the Fuchsia grows.

From Seeds to Seedlings

I love gardening and been growing my own flowers from seeds. I've tried to grow seeds before without much success but his year my seedlings are growing really well and I ended up having to get a second little green house (free on my favourite website - Freecycle) to keep them all.

I have recently planted out my first lot of seeds from my green house into the garden. In the pots in the greenhouse are some Danish Flag, Black Flowering Poppies, Heirloom Poppies, Flemish Antique Poppies, Larkspur, Hollyhocks, Aquilgeia, Cornflower Black Ball and Cosmos Picotee. The poppies have grown really well so I am looking forward to seeing them and all my seedlings in flower.