I have been meaning to join in with Peonies and Posies monthly meme on the greenhouse for a while but I keep forgetting. Luckily I spotted a post elsewhere which has reminded me so here I am. My greenhouse is tiny, a mere tiddler compared with P & P’s gorgeous greenhouse – not that I am jealous at all! I did do a monthly greenhouse post back in 2012 and you can read the first one here to find out a bit more about my greenhouse.
Essentially it is a small 6′ x 4′ greenhouse with power to it. It has been through a number of guises since 2012 as I have floundered around in my gardening interests, trying this and that, and have almost come back to where I started. I don’t grow tomatoes in the greenhouse any more. Well to be honest I don’t grow any edibles at the moment, that might change in time but as of today there are no plans to. Last year I went a little off piste and invested in a sand plunge as I thought I wanted to grow and show alpines but it has become quickly clear to me that for a number of reasons, not least time, this is not something I want or can to do at the moment. I am looking for a way to reinvent the plunge and I am thinking making it into a heated prop bench might be interesting.
So the pots of bulbs are being moved out into the garden and I am looking for places for them to thrive. That is with the exception of the tender bulbs particularly South Africa ones which I have a weakness for at the moment. I don’t know if that will last as I seem to be experimenting with all sorts of plants at the moment. Due to the bulbs my succulent collection, which I was quite proud of, was overwintered in the garage which was fine for a while but somehow, when I moved them back to the greenhouse, I think they caught a chill or I over watered them but the result was I have lost about half of the plants. It is a pity but it frees up some space for new plants. I don’t think I will be replacing them with succulents but again we shall see.
You will also have noticed my shameful collection of pelargoniums which were also overwintered in the garage. They need re-potting into fresh compost and regular feeding from now through the season. Again I have lost a few.
All this dithering and being distracted with this and that, has resulted in the losses and I think the tiny greenhouse really brings into focus the scatter gun approach I have had over the last few years to gardening. However, I am moving forward in a positive way knowing much more what I am really interested in and what makes me happy which can only be a good thing.
As you will have spotted I have been sowing seeds of various annuals and also some perennials. Spending a couple of hours sowing the seeds made me very happy and it feels like I have come home.
You can see how well used the greenhouse is. The bit of space you can see on the floor is actually normally occupied by a Bottlebrush plant, grown from seed, which I am toying with planting out this year as it is just getting too big to be overwintered in the greenhouse and I think the plant needs to get its roots down into the soil.
I also have two 3 tier cold frames which are full at the moment with overwintering perennial seedlings, and more pots which I am hoping to spot some seeds germinating in soon. My goal this year is to do a better job of growing on seedlings which is my weakness.
Thank to Julie for hosting this meme which is meant to be posted around the 11th of the month.