>I went up to the garden in the middle of last week to see how the ground was doing, and everything looked fine. The butterfly bush seemed to be dead, but apart from that the flooding had given no casualties.
Slugs, however, have eaten the shoots of one of the dahlia roots I planted in pots during the wet weekend, but the other dahlia seems to be shooting along nicely. I also sowed some sunflowers and nasturtiums down by the fence at the entrance, and they should have a chance of making it.
And just to have one piece of definitely good news, the old clematis by the terrace is flowering, and so is one of the new clematises we planted a few weeks ago. The three other new clematises seem to still be focused on adjusting to where I’m telling them to trail, but they seem to be doing fine and are being eaten by neither slugs nor deer.
I went up to the house again Monday evening after work, just taking the time to stop by a supermarket and buy 40 litres of compost to do some more sowing. Since the soil in the garden is so heavy, I figured seeds would stand a better chance if I sow them in a nice, loose compost, rather than in heavy, dense clay. Here’s the sowing list:
Scented lupins (annual): 17
Irises (perennial – will not flower this year): Two packets of seeds
Dahlias (perennial but not hardy – should, however, produce both flowers and roots 1st year): Two packets of seeds
Various sunflowers: Approx. 50
Goat’s rue (Galega officinalis): Approx. 20
I’ve planted them all in pots and placed the pots directly on the lawn in the hope that the dampness of the soil will keep them from drying out, and then I’ve placed a wire mesh fence around them to keep the deer off, should anything actually decide to grow. I’ll also go up again for the coming weekend and make sure they get plenty of water, so I have high hopes that something will eventually materialise in the pots. We shall see…
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