Hard work in the garden

It has been frantically busy at work these past few weeks, so much so that I have been bringing home my work laptop to catch up with e-mails on the train. My poor old diary, as a result, has been somewhat neglected. So here's a rare chance to catch up - what's been happening?
This year saw the wettest April for more than 100 years. The day after a drought was declared (and I bought a motorcycle), it started raining and pretty much didn't stop right through April and into May. The start of May was also quite cold.
In the garden, the grass is growing strongly and the lawn, which Sam and I spent some time repairing last autumn, is now looking pretty good. Only at the corners top and bottom where Holly charges on and off, are there a couple of bare patches. I might just leave those or, if they get worse, I'll put some wire netting across and re-seed them.
Apart from grass, other things have been struggling. I have germinated some seeds - sweet peas, nasturtiums and some others bits and pieces, but it has been hit and miss. Chinese lanterns didn't come up at all, radish only germinated at a rate of 25 per cent and those which did come through were gobbled up by slugs. My cosmos which I was delighted to see come through very quickly, then just sat there and turned yellow. I couldn't even blame Margaret for over-watering (my usual excuse if things don't turn out, because she's not watered anything all month.
The worse thing has been that I've not really been able to get into the garden for more than a few hours and I've been able to do virtually no weeding. What nice days we've had have been during the week when I've been sat in an office. I have got the hanging baskets done; I managed to repair the wicker baskets from last year and will get at least one more season from them. They've been stocked with fairly cheap plants from the florist in Whittlesey. The woman in charge is a right grump, but the plants are really cheap, so we've been buying them in dribs and drabs on a Saturday morning. I've probably managed to spend less than £50 on plants for pots and baskets, which is pretty good going.

White anemone - Pauline bought us these
for looking after Gremlin

This weekend is typical of how it's been. It was really cold both days with a brisk northerly wind and fine misty rain blowing across first thing. The ground is cold and wet and compacted where I've been unable to work it. I went out in the afternoon, but it was really hard to get going, so instead of weeding, I was pottering about without any great enthusiasm. I planted up a couple of pots and tidied up the border at the end of the patio near the house. I've put a couple of pots in the border to make a feature at the end where you enter the patio from the house. Gravel and Holly have destroyed every plant that's ever been there. It's a popular area for them to sniff under my sister's fence and try to spot cats, so hopefully this will deter them. It wasn't pleasant working and I soon got distracted, lit the chiminea and sat in front of it with a gin & tonic. 

Aquilegia from Chelsea - these have
been really spectacular

On Sunday, it was even worse. I did manage to sort out the border under the conifers, but there were loads of weeds (particularly young elderberry seedlings, which have obviously been carried by birds eating the berries then sitting in the conifers and taking a dump). When I started on the big border, it was miserable - lots of weeds, but the ground was hard and nothing was coming out easily. Crocus and narcissi leaves have not yet shrivelled and there were lots of slugs everywhere. There were also lots of small, prickly twigs from the small berberis atropurpurea nana, which I had trimmed in the autumn. I don't like to weed wearing gloves, but my fingers were getting pricked to death.
There have been some successes. This year, we have a policy of growing plants which will attract insects into the garden, in other words, those which provide nectar to pollinators. The idea is to fill the border with those and restrict the begonias and geraniums (which do provide amazing splashes of colour) into features by planting them in pots. That will enable us to have colour in patches around the garden all summer, but also some plants which, we hope, will encourage butterfies and bees (and all the other insects which depend upon nectar). The pots have been planted up and look good. In the borders, I have planted single dahlias, cosmos, nasturiums, cornflower, night-scented stock, anemones, lobelia, alyssum, rudbekia, delphiniums, hollyhock, lupins and (the success story of the spring) Margaret's aquilegia from last year's Chelsea flower show. Unfortunately, the mixed colours have turned out to be all the same - blue with a white centre - but they have been (and are at present) really spectacular.
This week, the weather is set to turn much warmer, so I'm hoping my seeds will pick up and some of the flowers (like the clematis and alliums) which have been in bud for a long time, will break out into colour.
You can see four photographs taken each month from four points in the garden in the blog posting: My Garden Through The Seasons. The pictures are also on Flickr in a folder of the same name.

Bidens Golden Flame - we have these in a few pots
and baskets this year.

Good old geum - we just have the common orange one
but they are very pretty