morning I received a lovely Christmas card from my long-time (online) friend Anne, who lives over in Southern California.
Included with the card were two packets of Cosmos seeds, Apricotta and Double Click Snow Puff, which I look forward to growing on cosmos corner next year.
She has always commented regularly here, and usually posts weekly, including over 800 Five Faves Friday ones, on her own always enjoyable and long-running blog Nikkipolani.
Have a good weekend, and take care!
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!
It’s been a cold, dull, wet and windy weekend so it’s hardly surprising that I’ve spent much of it armchair gardening. Luckily on Thursday I received the 2025 Chiltern Seeds Catalogues which I’ve been happily browsing through.
As you can see the Grow something new from seed one is a Golden Anniversary Edition to celebrate Chiltern Seeds 50th year. For anyone not familiar with this Catalogue it’s 4 in/10 cm wide and slightly under 12 in/30 cm tall, contains 126 pages listing around 2,500 items in alphabetical order from Abies to Zinnia, and only has 4 pages of photos apart from the 3 cover ones.
Some of the descriptions make me smile such as Tropaeolum minus Tom Thumb mixed which says – If you can’t grow these you’d better give up gardening as a hobby! The Calendula officinalis Mixture of all Varieties entry says – To bring back fun into gardening, this is a jolly mixture of Marigolds to brighten gardens, lives and outlooks.
The other, same size, Catalogue is The VegBook 2025 which has 34 pages listing vegetables from Agretti to Watercress and 7 pages of herbs. It has no photos but lots quirky illustrations by Jacqueline Sinclair.
Have a good week, and take care!
I was glad to finish clearing the last of the cosmos and sunflowers, along with cutting back the other two big clumps of asters, on Monday and Tuesday.
As usual my feathered friend, the robin, was around and at long last I got a few worthwhile pictures.
It looks like we’re in for a another spell of wet and windy weather so I guess that I won’t be doing much, if any, plotting for a while.
Have a good weekend, and take care!
by doing some welcome plotting on Friday and yesterday. I cleared Cosmos Corner, then weeded and hoed it.
I’ve still to got clear the rest of the sunflowers, top left, and work over the flower patch, over on the right, again to dig up rather a lot of pot marigold tap roots which didn’t pull up when I removed the plants a while back.
I also cut back the stems on the two smaller asters to around a foot then covered the ground with a spadeful of compost.
I’ve never been that happy with the pond, a plastic trug basket without the handle, I’ve had in the ground by the big clump of asters so I’ve removed it. At the moment I’m putting some of the dug out compost there whilst I decide what, if anything I put there next year. The white flowering primroses, over on the right, I will dig up, divide then replant elsewhere.
Looking round I noticed that there’s new growth around the sedum stems and the crocus Romance have started to appear.
Have a good week, and take care!
I was relieved to find that all was okay on the plot after a weekend of very unsettled weather although, not surprisingly, all the remaining flowers had been finished off. The ground was very soggy and, as usual, there was some waterlogging in the corner by the crocosmia.
As we head into winter I’ll still be going to the plot, weather permitting, even if it’s just to have a look round. If ground conditions are okay I’ll hopefully do some plotting, including continuing to dig out, and sieve, the compost heap.
Over the next week or two I want to cut back all the asters/Michaelmas daisies to around one foot/ 30 cm and cover with compost. The stems will be removed in early spring once there are signs of new growth. This picture is from October 2014.
This year the big clump of sedums flopped in the middle so didn’t have the impact it usually do. One recommendation is to remove every other flower stem during May. I think that I’ll wait until early spring when new growth will be showing then dig it up, seperate then replant. This photo is from September 2019.
Have a good weekend, and take care!
This weekend the weather has been cold, wet and very windy at times so it’s little wonder that I’m a touch moochy.
I had a quick look round the plot after lunch a couple of times last week but the ground was soggy and, despite the sunshine, there was a cold wind so I didn’t linger.
These orange pot marigolds Flighty’s Favourites are from August 2012.
Have a good week, and take care!
this week with daytime temperatures feeling around 0 C, a couple of hard overnight frosts and some sleety rain but thankfully no snow.
With weather like this it’s not surprising that the remaining flowers haven’t survived and were looking very sorry yesterday when I had a quick look round the plot after lunch.
I’ve been mostly armchair gardening this week and this morning received the packet of sunflower Big Smile seeds I ordered a couple of days ago. One of these I’ll be growing in a pot on the windowsill, and the rest on the plot. I’ve not bought from RP Seeds before but I’m impressed with the packaging, and their website which I’ll looking through again.
I’ll also be looking at the MoreVeg website as they have a sale on for the next few weeks. I’ve always bought most of my vegetable, and some flower, seeds there and can highly recommend them, particularly if you only want small quantities.
This is an achive photo of sunflowers Ring of Fire I grew in 2019.
Have a good weekend, and take care!
On Friday I was digging out, and sieving, a barrowload of compost during which I looked up and much to my delight saw that the robin was having a splish splash in the composter lid pond.
It wasn’t surprising that he was around all last week as when I was forking over the vegetable patches I was turning up plenty of worms.
He gradually got closer to was almost within reach at times.
It was good weather all week so I made the most of it and got plenty done.
In complete contrast this coming week looks like being cold, frosty and windy with it feeling around 0 C during the day so I’ll be armchair gardening rather then plotting.
Here’s two pictures of the plot I took on Friday. The first one is from the bottom south-west corner looking up the plot, and the other one is from the top north-east corner looking across the flower patches. 
Sadly I’m sure that anything still flowering will be finished off during the week bringing this year’s season to a close.
Have a good week, and take care!
Flighty's plot 