Friday 9 October 2015

Breath of Heaven

The plant named Breath of Heaven has now become part of Snowy's Bed. It has white flowers and I suppose is ideal plant for cemeteries. It does have a fragrance that some may describe as heavenly, but I don't know...for me, heaven is the smell of sweet peas. They are starting to flower now. Snowy's Bed needs some serious attention now the bluebells have finished and the blue lupins dug in. Nothing much will grow in the dry shade of the maple tree and any soil and compost I put there doesn't seem to do much, as you can't dig too deep, the roots are all compacted. After removing all the flower carpet roses I attempted sowing seeds there but they didn't take. The annoying thing is the chickens keep digging things up. Cyclamen did well but now they are drying out I have put them in Mt Asher.

So what to do? Licorice plant seems ok and snow-in-summer is starting to get established so that may be a goer. I thought white anemones, but they just seem to sit in a clump and not stretch out. I need a spreading plant. Hellebores or winter roses might be fine, but it does get sunny there too. Lavender was ok in the corner but near the fence my attempts at growing lavender came to nought.

So much for Snowy's bed.
Down the back near the fence I spread out our homemade compost and put in another comfrey plant which hopefully WILL take, and sowed some pumpkin seeds a friend gave me that ought to have been sowed 10 years ago. Will they grow? Who knows??

Another peppermint was put in the L shaped poppy bed, which doesn't seem to have any poppies.
It is taken over by this mint that's neither pepper, nor spear, nor vietnamese. It seems like a strange hybrid. Mum likes to cook it with eggplants. I've seen chocolate mint, but I don't have that, I have apple mint and ordinary mint. They could be called Breath Fresheners of Heaven.

Freesias have bloomed, they are a spray of pinky-white colours. I like them with the dutch iris and definitely will plant more next year. Also, my tulips have started to bloom! One purple, and two red.
They survived the onslaught of chickens....