Category: A good cause

The Christmas cards I sent this year I got, as I generally do, from the  gardening for health charity Thrive. The design is Winter Allotment, picture courtesy of Louise Cole.

Have a good Christmas, and take care!

(Please note that my next post will be on Sunday 28th December)

is a variety I’ve tried growing a couple of times before without much success so I’m going to try again next year. They only grow to around 4 feet/1.2 metres but the same across making it a spherical bush.  The 6 in/15 cm flowers with dark-brown centres and golden-yellow petals grow on long stems making them ideal for cutting.

 

Because of their size I’m only going to grow three, or maybe four, plants which I’ll start off in small pots at home before taking them to the plot to plant out.

As I always do I’ll be posting about all the sunflowers I grow on The Big Sunflower Project for Centronuclear and Myotubular Group’s Facebook page.

Have a good week, and take care!

Following last weekend’s very wet and windy weather I went to the plot on Monday morning wondering what I’d find.  Thankfully I was surprised to see that all was okay, and although the ground was really soggy there was no standing water unlike on some of the other plots.  I’ve not been there since as this week has been cold and dull  but tomorrow I’ll go and have a look round.

I recently made a donation to the wonderful charity Living Paintings and as a thank you I received this special handmade gift from them.

As I don’t have a Christmas tree to hang it on I’ve stood it on the mantlepiece where it has pride of place.

Have a good weekend, and take care!

Last year many of the sunflowers were devoured by slugs and snails but thankfully that’s not been a problem this year as I’ve yet to see any.  I generally start some off at home but haven’t this year so I’m relying on direct sown and self-seeded ones.  As usual I’m growing plenty of the knee-high variety Music Box along with a few each of the taller Ring of Fire and Valentine.

I direct sowed some several weeks ago and more this morning. So far there are plenty of seedlings appearing, most of which are in the right places.  This self-sown one is the biggest, being about 6 in/15 cm from left left tip to right leaf tip, and judging by where it’s growing may well be the variety Holiday  which I grew, not very successfully, last year.

As I’ve done since 2016 I’ll be sharing photos of my sunflowers on The Big Sunflower Project’s Facebook webpage , and this year also on Twitter  @BigSunProject. In November 2018 Toni, the Project’s founder, did this  blog  post titled Mike which is about my sunflowers and support.

Here’s an archive photo of some plot sunflowers from July 2011.

Have a good weekend, and take care!

The past couple of days have been miserably damp and dull so I’ve been mostly armchair gardening again browsing through some of my various gardening books.

I ended up rereading the excellent Cuttings book which is a cornucopia of gardening tips from famous, expert and green-fingered friends including me (credited @ sofaflyer).

It was published in 2020 by the wonderful Gardening with Disabilities Trust. Since then it has been reprinted three times and sales have raised over £18,000.

I did this blog post about it in December 2020.

It’s cloudy and dry today but tomorrow looks like being another damp and dull day.  Thankfully it’s looking better for the weekend and into next week.

Take care, and have a good weekend!

has  recently been published by the Gardening for Disabled Trust.

It’s a softcover book, 6″/15 cm by 9″/23 cm with 156 pages,  full of wide-ranging gardening tips from famous, expert and green-fingered friends including me! It’s well laid out, easy to read, has colour photos at the front of each chapter and some black/white drawings.

There is a foreword by the charity’s President Alan Titchmarsh then a Contents page listing the 14 chapters which include Planting Perfection, Essential Kit,  and The Final Farrago-Musings and Timesavers.

One page is devoted to a Case Study; how a grant from GDT helped a community.

I was delighted to have been asked to contribute to this lovely book and two of my tips are included, which I should point out are credited semi-anonymously to @ Sofaflyer, which is my Twitter identity.  There are over 500 tips by numerous people including actress Dame Helen Mirren, The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and rock guitarist Jeff Beck.  I’ve already noted several to use next year, and found my myself nodding and smiling at what Susan MacCulloch says – Make yourself a cup of tea (with a chocolate biscuit), sit down and look at what YOU’VE achieved in YOUR garden.  Marvellous!

My thanks to the committee members and trustees involved, which I’ve no doubt was made far more difficult by the restrictions on all our day-to-day lives at present.

Gardening broadcaster, presenter and writer Mark Lane, one of the trustees,  did this excellent short video to celebrate the book’s publication a couple of weeks ago.  It’s well worth watching.

At £10, plus £2 post and packing (UK), a copy of Cuttings is an enjoyable read and will more than repay you with sound gardening advice.  Details for ordering can be found here.

Happy reading and gardening!

Take care, and have a good weekend!

have been the usual mix including the knee-high Musicbox  (right) and a few eye-catching Ring of Fire  (below) along with various unknown ones from saved seed.  They’ve grown from around 1 ft/30 cm to over 6 ft/180 cm.

I also tried a new to me variety Sonja but it didn’t do as well as expected, nor do I like the colour of the orange-yellow flowers so I’ll be looking for something else to try next year.

I’m not keen on most of the dark coloured varieties but like this one that I grew from saved seed.  I don’t know the variety so I’m calling it Sunset Shades. 

As I mentioned on Thursday I’m collecting the flower heads to save the seeds.  Most of which I’ll be sending to Toni at The Big Sunflower Project to use next year.

 

Take care, and have a good week!

for the Gardening for Disabled Trust blog was published two weeks ago and I forgot to mention it so rather than link to it here it is.

Much as I like to grow soft fruit and vegetables on my  Flighty’s plot allotment it’s annual flowers that I really enjoy growing.  In recent years I’ve grown California Poppies, Candytuft, Cornflowers, Cosmos, Love-in-a-Mist, Nasturtiums, Poached Egg Plants, Pot Marigolds and Sunflowers. As I don’t have a greenhouse and only limited windowsill space at home I sow nearly all my seeds direct in the spring.  At the end of the season I collect and save seeds from most of them, let some self-seed and buy a few new ones.

My favourites are the Pot Marigolds which are a mix of varieties, to which I’ll be adding a packet of Playtime Mix which won an award for consistent quality with a fine mix of single, semi-double and double flowers in a mix of bright, buff and pastel shades. I’ll also be trying the delightfully named Oopsy Daisy, which is a dwarf variety which has bi-coloured flowers in a range of bright oranges and creamy yellows. The description for the Mixture of Varieties in the Chiltern Seeds catalogue says – To bring back fun into gardening, this is a jolly mixture to brighten gardens, lives and outlooks.  Who could ask for anything more?

My plot is rather exposed so I generally grow the knee-high Sunflowers Musicbox.

This year I’ll also be growing the slighty taller variety Sonja, which has dark-centred, golden-orange blooms.  These are shown as being excellent for cutting, and I’m hoping that they’ll be good enough to exhibit at my local horticultural society’s annual show in early September.

 

I’m always a touch apprehensive when I sow the Nasturtiums Tom Thumb Mixed as the Chiltern Seeds catalogue description states – If you can’t grow these then you’d better give up gardening as a hobby. Thankfully so far they’ve always, germinated, grown and flowered.

Have a floriferous 2020!

If you’d like to read my first guest blog post, which was published at the end of November 2018, then click here.

Take care, and have a good weekend!

next year including the wonderful Ring of Fire, which did so well this year.

As I’ve done in recent years they’ll be grown in support of the The Big Sunflower Project, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary.

I recently updated my webpage there writing about how I did with sunflowers this year and what varieties I’ll be growing next year.

I’m also hoping that I’ll have some blooms to enter at the horticultural society’s annual show in early September.

Have a good weekend!