bulbs – Page 3 – The Gardening Blog

Hi Barbie – Thanks for taking me to Cape Garden Centre Nursery today – I won’t say too much about our visit because I know you want to do a review, but I thought I’d show my “stash” of newly purchased winter bulbs.

I am thrilled with my purchases although I was a bit dissapointed with the lack of accessoiries available at the nursery. I was expecting to be able to get some bulb trays (for planting – to protect the bulbs from moles which I had plenty of last winter) and there was no special Hadeco bulb fertiliser or the usual accessoiries that Hadeco sell (bulb planter, dibber etc). Also dissapointing that there were no Tulips of Hyacinths available – I’ll have to try Ferndale Nurseries for those.

I was very happy to find a pack of Waterblommetjies – aponogeton distachyos (Water Hawthorn – a perennial water plant with edible white flowers which need to be planted at a depth of 10 to 60cm under water). I also bought lots of my all time favourites, Dutch Irises as well as a few Alliums and lots of Freesias and Anemones. Its still a bit too warm to plant them now but that gives me time to carefully plan where I want to plant them and to prepare the soil before I do.

Happy gardening and have a lovely long weekend
xxx

February in the Cape is always very hot! Its hot in the morning, sweltering by mid afternoon and stays that way until its too dark to do anything constructive in the garden. Temperatures have been know to reach up to 40 C, although the average is in the low to mid thirties. Today is one such day – it is 34 C, no wind or breeze to speak of and it is uncomfortably hot, even in my shady areas. So today I have the time … but very little enthusiasm to spend time digging, weeding or anything garden related that requires “work”.

So I’ve decided that for today to I’ll confine my gardening activities to ” list making”.

According to all my books and magazines I have, in the Western Cape of South Africa we are supposed to be doing the following…

– Start sowing seeds of all sorts of annuals and bi-ennials (not going to do that – I prefer to buy seedlings)
– Bulb planting season starts soon – Start buying bulbs such as anemones and ranunculus and store until March (Yay! Shopping …)
– Cut back Hydrangeas and other shrubs after they have flowered
– Continue feeding the lawn with 3:2:1, once a month (oops, forgot to do that – better do it soon)
– Spray regularly against pests and diseases
– Water well during hot dry weather, especially azaleas and camellias

It seems that is all I am “supposed” to be doing in my garden in February. Then I’m not doing to badly, apart from forgetting to fertilise the lawn, I’m doing all the above.

Here’s my additions:

– The Hadedas destroyed my bed of Impatiens. They trampled them to death and all that’s left is a mess. So I need to go and get more and start all over again. And how can I protect them from the Hadedas?

Happy gardening
xxx