In A Vase On Monday - Old-fashioned Charmers

Happy Monday Everyone,

It is a lovely day here ... the sun is making the garden, and gardening, look so inviting, but first I'll have to clear up the chaos caused by yesterday's high winds and rain. After potting up some new seedlings the postie delivered on Saturday I just dropped the empty pots into a pail to be cleaned later ... and even though I tucked them behind the shed the wind got to them. They are now strewn over the garden and need to be rounded up. But that's a job for later. My first job was to pick this lovely bunch wallflowers (Erysimum) for Cathy's meme, In A Vase On Monday.

They are such a ray of sunshine and the perfume is wonderful. I grow these old-fashioned charmers because they remind me of my father and the garden of my 1950s childhood. Dad was a keen gardener who grew vegetables in the back garden and flowers in the front.

Every year he planted a border of wallflowers just along the front of the house, under the living-room window. When the window was open the perfume would waft into the room - an unforgettable experience!

My bunch of wallflowers came from the round bed that is in the front garden ... the one that was filled with pampas grass when we moved in. It's still a work in progress but starting to fill out with roses, alliums, wallflowers and a few other plants that have yet to really establish themselves.

This stunning dark red specimen is growing in the back garden in the long border. It came in a bunch of bare root plants that were labeled as 'purple'!

Last week I mentioned that I'd emptied the tray by the kitchen door to make way for these herbs ... flat leaf parsley, lemon thyme, bush basil, alpine strawberry and celery leaf. That last is a new discovery for me ... the instructions on the label are to use is as a celery-flavoured parsley.The bush basil looks to be struggling after the horrible weather we've had over the weekend so I may bring it indoors and nurse it, hopefully into life again.

Now a tale of woe. My husband, unknown to me, recently spread some Growmore fertiliser on many of the plants around the garden thinking he was doing them, and me, a good turn. Unfortunately, he didn't read the instructions correctly and, in a few cases, sprinkled the stuff directly on to the plant. Needless to say, we've had a number of casualties! So, this afternoon he is taking a trip to the garden centre in the hope of replacing the damaged plants ... could be he is on a mission impossible because the plants were bought from various places at various times of the year!

Finally, I'm thoroughly enjoying reading this book! Charles Elliot, the Transplanted Gardener of the title, writes entertainingly of gardening in England, his garden is near the Welsh border, from the perspective of an American living abroad. I was lucky enough to pick it up at Culzean Castle Estate's second-hand bookshop for the bargain price of £2 :)

That's my garden update for today but before I go a current weather report - after the sunny start to the day it is now pouring rain ... so the planned round up of pots will just have to wait :(

Happy Gardening,