There are no sleuths investigating a dastardly crime here, it’s just that all but one of my contributions for Jim’s meme at Garden Ruminations this week are inside and undercover! Snowdrops, both common and specials are all but over here, but Galanthus ‘Peardrop’ (above), my star performer, is still strutting her stuff, flaunting her HUGE blooms, a full 2″ (about 5 cms) from the top of her green ovary to the tip of the outer perianth segments – she’s gorgeous!
I lifted all my dahlia tubers back in autumn when the first frosts were threatening, potting them up in dry soil once the tubers themselves were dry and after I had brushed excess soil from them. Saving space in the greenhouse, they then spent the winter in the sitooterie, protected by minimal underfloor heating, and I began watering them a few weeks ago to trigger new growth. They will still need warmer, lighter and longer days to begin to flourish, but I have found that this way I can usually plant them out in May or early June, subject to no hard frosts. This week, I have been rewarded with the first shoots, starting with universal favourite ‘David Howard’:
In the working greenhouse, filling up rapidly with new seedlings, my early flowering sweet peas are now about 18″ tall (45cms). This is such a reliable way of having early sweet peas, if you have greenhouse space for a few months and this Winter Sunshine variety can sometimes provide the first bloom by the end of March, with picking continuing beyond the end of June before I remove them to make way for tomatoes.
The Winter Sunshine variety was sown in October but I now leave my summer varieties until the new year, usually the end of January. This year there was a cuckoo in the nest, albeit still in the pea
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