More garden dreaming


The two people who taught me about gardening as a child were my Dad and my maternal Grandma. Grandma is still alive and enjoying looking at her garden and gardening magazines, but she has to rely on other people to do the gardening for her now. I think of her when I see aquilegias, remembering when we went to the Royal Show in Christchurch about 20 years ago. Grandma and Grandad also bred pedigree jersey cattle, and we wandered around looking at many breeds of cattle I'd never ever seen before, and then moved on to the garden stalls.

Kings Seeds have many different type of aquilegias, also known as grannys bonnets. I considered the aquilegia yellow star (photo below) for my yellow theme, but as I only have one garden bed which really needs the yellow theme, when I saw the aquilegia shady garden scatter (top photo), I thought of it for the front garden, which is south facing in and need of special treatment.


This is the area which needs the work. Underneath the closest window are some spring bulbs, mostly bluebells which I planted. I'm happy with them. What I would like to add in autumn are some snowdrops, which from memory work well in shady gardens. Mum and Dad had a snowdrop hidden behind a larger tree on the front lawn when I was a child, and I always felt like I'd discovered the secret of spring when it blossomed. Along the back are succulents, which are cheap and grow with no care, but actually some flowers with a bit of height would be best along the back. Along with a mish mash of unknown leafy plants in this rectangle is quite a bit of comfrey. I did that on purpose, marking out my hippy territory. Now I'm moving to flower country for this patch, I expect some comfrey root will be there to stay for ever, but I'll be moving the bulk of it somewhere else.


This is also the front of house wilderness. I had planned on building a super spud patch in the strawberry garden, and shifting the strawberries out to the back. But now I'm into flowers for the front... Maybe sweet peas would complement spuds?

As for the wild long grass excuse for a garden behind the strawberry garden... time for my back to heal and to start some intensive digging and weeding.

Comments

Ruth said…
When we moved to Christchurch 24 years ago I yearned for snowdrops, but you couldn't buy them anywhere then. I begged some, and liberated others from empty sections. Now we have heaps and they bring great pleasure every winter.
July 25, 2011 at 1:48 PM
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