Salad Burnet!

I had my first salad with my herb!  It was good!  Its quite a pretty herb and unusual....best of all its a perennial!  Please see link with an interesting history!

http://www.sallybernstein.com/food/columns/gilbert/salad_burnet.htm

It taste like cucumber....and it is just so easy!  If anyone is interested, I have seeds I have collected from last year!

Enjoy!

Thames Walk....Putney to London Bridge...spring is here!

Here are a few pictures of spring!  We did a 10 mile walk...and here are a few of the "garden" highlights...enjoy!

Glorious Magnolias!

Fields of green......

Big Ben and the houses of Parliament

I found the mystery plant! Celandine Poppy!

Last year I wondered what my strange but wonderful yellow flower was...and i found it!

celandine-poppy

It gets a little wild....but it is gorgeous!

Work the weekend!

 I finally got caught up with some outdoor chores....but its just the beginning....than goodness there was more sun than the forecast!  

 

Accomplishments:  

1. planted chitted potatoes
2. emptied old soil in strawberry pot, refilled, (enhanced with chicken manure pellets) and added strawberries I bought along a road down near the coast this for charity.
3. planted broad beans for the first time!
4. repotted blueberry  with ericacious compost
5. convinced my friend to take my leftover raspberry canes now that she has found a new house and soon to close!
6. Planted the geranium alba I bought
7. Planted foxglove alba (tall!) along the fence
8. planted some dill and red lettuce
9. repotted nasturtium seedlings
10. moved little peony to a better location in the bed (hope it blooms!)
11. cleaned and watered pansy pots
12. cut back and trimmed plants
13. planted my bronze fennel in the herb garden
14. Sowed some Early Nante carrot seeds in two pots
15. Pulled up my last remaining sweet fennel and ate it!
16. Pulled up some kale and cooked it with mushrooms onions and a little chicken broth...
17. Got a package to mail of seeds in reciprocation of a trade..
18. Enjoyed watching my clematis slowly growing for the first year of bllom, and looking at an ancient one I have nurtured up a trellis that is soon to bloom!
19. Oh, and I planted california poppies all along the gravel next to my house and driveway :) poppy growing in gravel..

 Ok....although I have so much more to do (including cleaning the garage (yuck!)...just putting it down on paper makes me feel good!
Great article on bronze fennel

First active weekend in the garden!

Herb garden springing in to life!

Never enough daffs in the world

Neighbor-pollarded lime trees= more sun for plants!

Gotta love grape hyacinths!

My garden man....

My sambucus nigra's first season in the garden...

Love this peony that came with the garden...a bloom already on top!!

My ornamental cabbage....

For the Birds

Ok...I'm a little behind on updating my blog.....but my seeds are coming up...and I succumbed to an old desire.  I have always wanted a bird bath!  Maybe their old-fashioned....but I have always wanted one!  I have this great circular "herb" garden which once held a tree....now this is a stump--on which my bird bath will fit!  I chose the highest bird bath, which also happens to be the deepest as well....so my birdies would have the least interference from the carnivores lurking around my garden.....

Needless to say, I hope they use it!  If not, it will become a bird food platter....  It is a great architectural piece for the garden...and less ornate that most....I am very excited!  I will need to get advice on how to secure it, so any ideas are welcome (from top and bottom!) I will put more pics out where I have placed it once the herb garden rejuvenates itself!


Now, my next project is to finalize my "rock" garden under the cedar tree....lay it with weedproof fabric, then stones, then slowly plant little succulents and alpines in the spaces! Fun Fun!

This ones for Katie!

Ok....although this is in draft...I am writing this one for Katie so she can see what I am up to!  I have just been seed starting....I will finish later tonite!

Getting inspired!!!!!!! New Plants!

I have thought about these plants last year....and now I've done it.

First last fall I bought alchemilla mollis "Lady's Mantle".....a hardy staple...old for some but new for me!!  And, great for shade!!!

I also bought some raspberries Glen Ample and put them everywhere along fences....

I then ordered TROPAEOLUM SPECIOSUM....as a good vine on the side of my house....to bloom late summer when my clematis is not in bloom.  This is the year for my clematis and for the apple trees!  Fingers crossed!

I received these in an unusual package and just two "bean sprouts".....dont know what I will do with them until the winter!!

Then, I got a great deal from Coblands....so I bought


Acanthus Mollis (Tasmanian Angel)---to bloom near the Lady's Mantle (different times)...hope the colors blend!!! 

Geranium_sylvaticum Album ---to bloom in my shade garden area :)

Anemone Honorine Jobert to bloom after my pink roses in the shade have bloomed...

Ok...more later...starting to get inspired!

My foxglove are looking still alive....will be planted along the fence near the verbena bonansiaris....so hopefully will be timed well!