Garden inspiration

Hello and welcome to GW online - your temporary and interactive alternative to our much missed Friday night spot on TV.

Here at BbC (Bluebell Cottage ) we've been cutting back perennial grasses, dividing hardy geraniums and sowing early peas and beans.

(I would have got much more done, but have spent two days figuring out how the chickens were escaping from their new run. As runs go, it's palatial, but a poor substitute for the fresh herbaceous shoots they've been nibbling in the garden!)

To save the hosts the trouble, may I point out that your TV presenters are posting blog update entries on the GW home page and very interesting they are too.

Before we kick off, would anyone like to volunteer to open the show next week? First to ask gets it.

So, with apologies to the Corrie watchers who will join us when they can...

"Dah-deedah-deedah, diddly-dah dee-dah, doodle-y doodle-y doodle-y, dit dee dah...."

silly me I posted a question on the 13th feb thread Trillium wld u mind looking at it for me.


32 31 30 dum de dum de dum 15 10 ooh 6 yippee

We've got quite light soil so we can start dividing hardy herbaceous perennials now. Some like Kniphofia should be left until April, but the toughest such as most hardy geraniums can be done now and will get a flying start to the season.

Lift the clump out of the ground, or dig out a section using a sharp spade. Shake, tease or prise sections apart, ensuring you have healthy shoots with plenty of root attached. You might need a sharp knife to separate some plants. Wash the divisions in a bucket (optional but recommended), then pot up or plant in a new area.

Hey presto - free plants!

Pinging for after my ballerina transportation duties are completed for the evening!

See you later... (BTW I'd be delighted to open the show next week, as long as you all want to wait until about 9pm! Otherwise it might be a good idea to find someone else!!!)

Margi x

It's Agastache 'Liquorice Blue'.

Short lived perennial which grows easily from seed. Lovely aromatic leaves and blue flowers which bees love. Flowers for ages.

A busy day down on the plot. Dug another trench which will be filled with vegetable waste from home to welcome the beans later in the year. I then removed all the dead leaves from the strawberry plants. Some of the plants are looking a little sick and will need to be replaced by the runners from last year which are being nurtured in the greenhouse.

If Trillium has already planted her early peas I shall have to find the length of guttering and prepare a row in the greenhouse. They can always go under a cloche.

What is that liquorice plant?
dwarfbean

My tomatoes, peppers, broad beans, red cabbage, leeks, celeriac and lavenders and quite a few other things are all nicely up (started indoors)and in my cool greenhouse. (only heated at night)

My greenhouse in the veg patch had a scrub down yesterday to get rid of all the mould, tomorrow I shall take off the top surface of the soil that may be harbouring anything yucky. I will then dig in a fresh load of manure.

Today I have been pruning shrubs away from the fence so that I can paint behind them. It's a good time of the year for fence-painting - there are long spells of dry weather and it's easier to see what you're doing when all the leaves are off the shrubs etc. Plus, you're not walking over anything too much and squashing it all. (apart from the ground elder, but we won't mention that and perhaps it will go away!)

Dwarf bean - I haven't planted them outdoors - just started them in pots for planting out. I expect I'll wish I'd waited a week.

Wish I'd remembered the gutter trick!

Can't help you with the lights - best ask the Oracle to throw some illumination on the subject..

On the subject of seeds, I've sown some ornamental grass seeds this week (Pennisetum and Hakonechloa) and some perennial seeds that I stratified in the fridge over winter - they've germinated almost straight away.

(Oops - that's made me realise - I meant Miscanthus and Panicum being cut back in my earlier thread, not Pennisetum. )

Anyway, has anyone else sown seeds yet, and if so what, and how?

Sorry I'm so late. Had a very long phone call from an ex colleague who goes on, and on, and on ...

That agastache looks good and is the kind of height I'm looking for. And I love blue flowers.

Haven't sown any seeds yet (apart from the autumn sowing of SPs) but I RETIRE fully next week so will be sowing like mad (bearing in mind limited space to keep them !!). Bought some Early Onward peas the other day, and also have some ornamental grass seeds I want to try which I've had for a while so hope they're still viable.

Has anyone noticed how some seed companies don't put a packaging/use before date on the packets (or, just as useless, say "use within 2 years of purchase"). I'm sure I can't be the only one who buys seeds in good faith and doesn't get round to sowing them that year and then looses track of their age . Now that I will have the time I MUST keep a proper list.

Jb