Four seedings and a funeral

Our lame pigeon Lefty has lost his mate, the victim of a hit-and-run accident.  They used to sit in our big holly tree, and it looks as though she swooped down to the (normally very quiet) lane; unluckily there was a lot of rat-running traffic that afternoon, and she seems to have been hit by a passing vehicle.  D moved her remains on to the verge opposite, and Lefty took to sitting on the overhead electricity wire nearby, calling to her.  We buried her when we were sure he wasn’t around to see; D insisted that she go under her holly tree, so after a bit of ground elder removal a place was found next to the little blackbird who was buried back in the early summer, by the front wall where the soil is deep enough to get a pigeon carcass decently buried.  I planted the white form of Geranium phaeum, the ‘mourning widow’ geranium, next to her; the plant had been destined for this area anyway, and it seemed appropriate.  Will Lefty find another mate?  It took him some years to find Mrs Lefty, possibly because his disability makes him an unattractive proposition.  I see from old blog posts that we first spotted him in 2013, and a bit of research suggests that six is an advanced age for a woodpigeon; so he may now be too venerable to pair up again.  Perhaps I ought to reserve a burial plot for him now, given his age; there’s space on the other side of the geranium.

There’s another pair of pigeons who are often about on the lawn; they don’t seem to mind our presence too much, and in fact one of them regularly comes down to the area round the summerhouse in the evenings, even when we’re sitting out there.  It seems quite trusting, as long as we don’t pay too much attention or make any alarming movements.  On one occasion when I was sitting inside the summerhouse with the door open, it trotted up, stood quite boldly on the step and watched me with great interest for a couple of minutes.

As for the seedings, let’s start with a big success:

I’ve never had much success with germinating seed of Bupleurum rotundifolium.  It’s a fancy filler for flower arrangements, with yellow flowers and good foliage, but I just couldn’t get the seeds to do anything, despite a few attempts.  Then I read an article about someone’s garden where it grows, and the owner commented that it self-seeds “if we get a cold winter”.  Ahhh.  So it’s one of those plants whose seed needs to be chilled before sowing.  I popped some seeds, mixed with a little sand, into the freezer for a couple of days, then gave them a spell in the fridge, before sowing them on the surface of a leafmould-and-sand mix (my current sowing compost) – and they’ve come up like mustard and cress.  Result!  Now I have to prick them out, carefully (they don’t like disturbance), and find them a good place to grow.  I’m thinking that under the ash tree by the drive might suit them.  That place is horribly rooty, with very shallow soil, and used to be barren except for ground elder, but in recent years I’ve taken to sowing all sorts of seed there to naturalise.  In early summer it’s full of nigella; that has now died back and the plants removed (enough seed will have dropped for next year), and the current main ingredient is parsley, which has also self-sown.  It’s a bit of an anything-goes area, but it can look good when in full flower.  It might be a little shady for the bupleurum, but it does get fairly good sun in summer, so we’ll see.

The 'anything goes' patch - mostly parsley

My homemade sowing compost seems fairly successful, but it does contain some weed seeds which can make things tricky.  I’ve managed to get some radicchio to germinate – I think.  There are seeds coming up in the seedtray, but they are of at least two different species, and I’m not sure whether either of them are actually radicchio!  One definitely is not, and I’ll try pricking out the others and see what happens.  Let’s hope I’m not nurturing some noxious weed!

Salvia 'Pink Sunday' - after weeks in a vase

Salvia, pinks and knautia

My third seeding is one that has been successful, but about which I’ve had my doubts – the little pink salvia.  I owe it two apologies.  I’ve been calling it ‘Pink Saturday’, but I see that it is actually ‘Pink Sunday’ – but hey, what’s a day one way or the other?  It’s also a better plant than I’ve been giving it credit for.  Now that the sideshoots have developed it has filled out and made a better showing than earlier; I probably planted the plants out too far apart (though I followed the guidance on the packet).  It works very well as a cut flower; I've had some with pinks and Knautia 'Red Cherries, and a few weeks ago some stems were paired with Dahlia ‘Ambition’ then, when that faded, I put the same stems with some purple sage.  When that also turned up its toes I just put the salvia by itself, and the bracts are only now starting to look a bit faded.  That’s pretty good value.  I saw a purple version of the same thing recently in the Rococo Garden at Painswick, and am having plant envy over that too!  Now that I’ve seen ‘Pink Sunday’ actually growing, another year I would happily put it in a pot with some other plants to provide a pink accent.  

Purple salvia at Painswick

Sick tomato plant

To end on a bit of a failure: my tomatoes have not done at all well this year, with the leaves turning yellow and very few fruits setting.  I think they may have contracted some sort of virus, or possibly a mineral deficiency, although since they are planted in commercial potting compost the latter shouldn’t be the case.  For a while I wondered if there were herbicide residues in the compost, or some other nasty, but the new growth looks healthy.  One of the ‘Harzfeuer’ tomatoes is growing in a big pot (and different compost) outdoors on the patio, and it has been less affected, although at some point it lost its growing tip; I’ve tried to train a sideshoot to take the place of the leader, but that hasn’t produced any flowers.  Once the few fruits on the greenhouse plants have been picked I’m going to pull the plants up – I’ve learnt from experience that late flowers rarely produce much in the way of fruit, and it’s not worth persevering with them.  Although my seed-grown plants have mostly been quite successful this year, the tomatoes have bucked the trend!

One of my seed successes - a posy of sweet peas

And another - Pansy 'Cool Summer Breeze'