Non-Gardener builds an Observatory, Garden Railway and even Dabbles with Plants!

I don't think we have any moss now, as we recently scarified the lawn, twice over. The daisies that I planted around the edge of the water seem to be doing better.

 

15th April 2025

Lynne is off work this week, so I decided to put her to work! It began with a trip to a couple of garden centres, both of which have great cafes, 'though we only made use of one.

We'd been buying some bedding plants and also some replacements and gap fillers for the hawthorn border and railway. The purchases are shown below, apart from a Lavendar, already up-potted and in the cold frame until the slate area is finished.



I filled the two grey planters bought last year, with soil from the lawn edging spoil heap. The two middle Silver dust plants at the kitchen patio, were dug out and replanted in one of the grey plastic planters. I plan on putting one each side of the path to the lawn, after the lawn edging is done.

I then left Lynne planting a mix of Pansies and Petunias to fill the space left along the edge of the patio. She also planted some in the two square planters beside the patio doors.

 

With the Daisies moved to the wood recently, it left the lower part of the kitchen border with gaps, which Lynne also filled with the Pansies and Petunias.



While Lynne was doing that, I was down at the railway planting. There were a few gaps in the plants and a couple had either died off or had been dug out by animals. The first two were on the left, near the Hebe.

 

In the centre of the border, a Petunia and Lobelia were added.



On the right, I planted two yellow Calibrachoas, to balance the yellow Lady's Mantle on the left side of the railway. Later in the afternoon, Lynne brought a couple of spare plants and we put them on the left side.

 

The railway is looking really colourful now, even though there's still plants that aren't flowering yet. It was a lot of work and quite a bit of money to build it, but I don't get tired of looking at it and photographing the changing colours.



After the railway was done, there were another eight plants to go in the Hawthorn border. These were a mix of Sedum selskianum, Arabis rose delight, Sedum selskianum, Pritzelago icecube and Aubrieta audrey purple shades



At the back end of the afternoon, I concreted in the last edging stone at the top of the lawn. This is the one at the far end, that puts a border to the slate area, next to the Laurel. There wasn't anything here before, so the slates slipped down the bank, into the base of the Laurel and heading towards the neighbour's drive.



After that, all the tools were put away and we finished the afternoon, spreading two 25Kg bags of Weed and Feed on the lawn. A busy but successful day.

 

It's looking great!
But you must have a milder climate than we do, if you can put petunias out this early and not risk them being clobbered by a late frost.

 

Your lawn edging looks good and I'm dead impressed you got the levels right, I can say for sure, mine wouldn't have been! Hard work though concreting them all in.
The plants are also looking good and very colourful.

 

19th April 2025

We were back out in the garden for most of the day today. Before I get into that, I noticed the other day that the Bluebells have finally started putting up shoots with the flower buds. The purple/blue is visible inside. I've been really looking forwards to the Snowdrops and Bluebells, since planting last year and it doesn't feel long now before the Bluebells are flowering. I planted sixty Bluebell bulbs.



Indoors, the seedlings are gradually turning to mini plants. Some are already in the cold frames and will be planted out soon, some amongst the woodland. I'm expecting a delivery of top soil, sand and gravel this week, with a large amount of the soil going into the bottom of the woodland, which is where we've been working today.

 

We spent the morning, weeding and digging out grass from the stepping stone path area. I also spent quite a while digging out bricks, which can be seen in the bottom of the image. After that we barrowed four loads of soil from the top of the lawn where the edging has gone in and brought it down to this path, to fill in some low spots and the holes left by the bricks. That all took us into the early afternoon.



The rest of the afternoon was spent planting out most of the Thyme plants, seen from the other end of the path, looking back towards the brick pile. We've only planted Thyme on the right side of the path looking this way, as I want to build up the soil height on the left. There's still some large sections of wall just under the surface, so I want a greater depth of soil for planting into.

In this new soil embankment, I plan of putting Hollyhocks at the back, with some Achillea in the mid position. In the foreground, near the path and following a suggestion earlier in the thread, we're thinking a mix of Winter and Spring Anemones. We spotted some yellow Winter types, which flower Winter and Spring and some purple and white for Spring/Summer. We'll probably add some elsewhere in the wood. We spotted a load of white ones in a wood on the way to the garden centre the other day. The whole of the woodland floor was covered in them.

 

I noticed yesterday that the bluebells in the woods near us are out. Seems a bit early, maybe due to the warm dry weather.

 

Several years ago, I was on a military convoy event in Wiltshire. It was the first weekend in May and the Savernake forest was just a full carpet of Bluebells as far as you could see. That's what probably got me interested in Bluebells. Now Wiltshire is a lot further South than Durham and probably gets warmer sooner, so I'm guessing I'll see mine in mid to late May. Time will tell as it has been a mild and dry Spring, certainly compared to last year.

 

Mid-May is the norm here, but they're out in the woods now and it's only a bit past mid-April. All my bulb flowers have gone over more quickly than usual too.

 

The bluebells in the lane were in flower last week and today I noticed several small clumps in the community orchard where I was planting native primroses - hope both spread well.

 

It's a while since you mentioned this, but looking at the info from one seller, they flower in Spring if planted in Autumn and flower in Summer if planted in Spring. It says they can actually be planted at any time of the year, so long as there are no frosts.

So to cut to the chase, I've just ordered 100 of the Blanda mix to plant around the woodland and probably a few other areas. I'll look at Aconites come Autumn.

 

They should make a lovely spread. I'll look forward to seeing those.