Garden. (Watching flowers grow)

kitchen after

living room before

As most of my dear friends know, I moved to this wee house on the 30^th of August 2017. Of course then my wee garden was not looking its best but I had dreams, I still have dreams, let’s face it, I always have dreams. I saw my house as it was going to look back when I started, and thanks to my builders, it has surpassed my expectations.

stairway before

living room after

Anyway back to my garden. After I moved in, I heard of someone giving away top soil, for free!  Free! Good top soil costs! I should have known right there that there was a catch. The lovely boys who were building me a patio offered to go and pick it up. I should have gone with them. The free top soil consisted of small stones and clayish soil, but by the time I realised, it was already filling the empty spaces of my garden!

garden before

Well, I couldn’t ask them to take it back, could I? Not when they had been so kind as to do it gratis. Anyway, long story short, as my daughter would say, I spent a small fortune on compost to cover the offending soil, this providing a welcome bed for my plants. Once the roots are established, I thought, the plants will hopefully not mind the rubbish underneath. And, of course, the worms would do their stuff. Strangely enough, in all my attempts at gardening, I have not encountered a single worm.

garden in progress

By the end of February the weather looked promising, so out I went and bought some plants. Now I’m not so optimistic that I believe the Scottish weather would not throw more plant destroying frost our way, so I went for plants that normally withstand our winter. Primroses, (every colour in Homebase) dwarf Daffodils (Having a very small garden, I need dwarf everything), dwarf lupins, a patio rose, snowdrops. Of course, as luck would have it, not long after I had slaved for days, the weather gods decided to throw a spanner in the works. March came in like a freezing lion, and covered my newly created garden in the white stuff. Now, most of these plants could weather the storm. Let’s face it, if they want to survive up here, they have to, and mostly they do, so I wasn't too worried.  

Now the snow has gone. The daffodils still stand proud as do the snow drops, but the primroses do not seem to have stood up to the Beast from the East. Yet their cousins do survive. All over the countryside they grow wild, their yellow flame covering the hills and slopes and the edges of the woods. Maybe the tame variety, cultured beneath glass, are not so hardy. Methinks I shall have to go out into the country with my spade!

Let’s hope that the old saying is true. If March comes in like a lion it goes out like a lamb. I spend so many hours watching the plants grow, each day looking for new shoots, wondering if the primroses will take a second wind, and decide after all, to bloom again. We shall see.