It has been some time since I have penned a blog, I have been concentrating on the other patch of grass dear to to my heart located at Vicarage Road and now that the Hornets have secured promotion to Premier League I can now focus my attention back to Reveley matters. Mind you this almost ensures that next years tulip pots will be in the Watford colours of yellow and red.
May is now upon us and the greenhouse and frames are full to bursting point with plants jostling each other for space before they are planted outside for the summer display. Several cold nights at the end of last month meant abandoning my customary evening glass of wine to go back into the garden to cover the frames and move pots back into shelter.
I usually start planting the more tender plants outside during Chelsea Flower Show week. The vegetable garden is the only area where I sow seed direct into the ground, preferring to sow even hardy annuals into plug trays or small pots as the soil here takes a long time to warm up for successful germination. Patience is a horticultural virtue and many an early planting gets done by a late frost, still it keeps nurserymen in business.
There is a lot of colour at present, self sown mysotis (forget-me-nots ) and celandines , which are a bit of a weed here, have stunningly filled in the gaps in the borders and the regal pelargoniums in the conservatory are very day-glow , there is also a second flower spike on the bird of paradise plant which is very tropical and almost worth the 4 years of tending to get it to flower. One of the garden robins carrying on the robin tradition of nesting in the most awkward places set up its station on a cabinet shelf in the potting shed and managed to rear its young despite my presence on many occasions. I did retune the radio from Talksport to 3 Counties so at least the youngsters would know where they were born. Rockin’ Robin indeed.
March 2015
