MARCH

I’ve never tried a bulb lasagna before, but they’re good aren’t they! Somewhere in the middle of this glorious mayhem of muscari, daffs and tulips is a salvia, which I’m hoping will rise as the bulbs fade, and then keep on flowering until the frosts come (if they come, given that climate change has turned my back garden into a relentlessly tropical paradise). By which time, of course, the bulbs will be poking through again, and we’ll be ready to start the extravaganza all over again.

Hellebores plus, I think, Lamium galeobdolon (common names: yellow archangel, artillery plant) both of which have been transplanted from a garden in Hampshire. It’s taken the hellebores a couple of years to settle into their new home, but they’re doing okay. This has been the hardest part of my garden to get right. It’s dry shade, and you can see it from the living room window, so it needs evergreen things (ferns, heucheras) and winter flowering things (hamamelis, hellebores), and things that just flower and flower and flower (geraniums). Things take a while to establish here, but once they’re happy they’re dead happy,

She built a shallow raised bed for her tomatoes, then she sowed some runner bean seeds (“beanstalks”). Went too early on the seeds I think, and they haven’t germinated after two weeks (no greenhouse here, so we’re relying on hot sun and not baltic nights). But we’ll try again soon. She will get her beanstalks.

Tomato ‘Red Cherry’ embracing life on a south facing windowsill. They germinated very quickly, but when the sun comes out they dry out super fast so they need attention paid to them. Sowing seeds has become my new favourite thing, because it feels good and proper to go on the entire journey with a plant, from germination to (in this case) extermination. But given that I have a fairly small garden, I’ll be giving 90% of these plants away (or selling them). The rest I will DEVOUR.

Is there a finer sight in a garden than homemade compost? I do not reckon. Here’s how I make it in a small space. I have two large garden waste bags. At any given time, one is being used as a compost heap. This is treated as you would treat any regular compost heap. Plant matter is added, veggies are added, cardboard is added - all the usuals. It gets very hot (it’s in a south facing spot) and I very rarely run out of space to add stuff into it. The worms and the heat very quickly churn through whatever gets put into it. Then, in spring, I empty it into the second garden waste bag (this is the only time it gets turned), and there is always a nice load of delicious fresh compost at the bottom of the bag. The second garden waste bag goes where the first one was, and the fresh homemade compost gets spread around the garden. I usually only have enough to properly mulch a small bed or two, but still: totally excellent.

Pulsatilla. In a trough that’s full of dry and surely by now basically nutrient free soil, and in a south facing position - happy as you like and coming back every year. I’ve added an aubretia and some thyme to keep it company, and also a Euphorbia characias subsp. wulfenii that will, eventually, swamp it, but hopefully not for a year or three. I want those zingy limey flowers to clash perfectly with these.

A happy bee.