Spring Evenings

See, this is why I like the clocks going forward. Once we got home, it was still light enough to spend an hour in the garden before coming in to do the indoor things that always need doing.

The tulips that—in desparation, almost—went in the rectangular vegetable bed (qua nursery bed) are growing nicely, but as the space is needed for vegetables, and to allow us to move the pile of topsoil, we had to replant the tulips in pots. No, they probably won't benefit from being moved, but they were a freebie on a bigger order, and needs must. Never mind: we'll coddle them, and hopefully they'll survive, if not thrive this season.

We also moved five roses that had been unceremoniously dumped there, much longer ago: they went there in autumn 2009, in a hurriedly cut bed that we hoped would become a vegetable bed. Fortunately, it fitted in with the final plan, and the roses (excess from Liz's grandmother's garden when she moved), willow nursery log, and herbaceous perennials have been there since. The willow log was a section removed from Jenny's garden: it had collapsed sideways, and sent out a few roots, so when they took out the tree, we salvaged the log and 'planted' it. It's responded, as I hoped, by becoming analogous to a coppicing stool, and has sent out a couple of dozen withies, each now about a metre long and 5–10mm across. Who knows, I might suggest some wicker work. The roses are a mixed bag: I think they were all, originally, grafted ornamentals, but are now overcome with suckers, and we're thinking of them as dog-roses. The last two still seem likely to be ornamental, so we've moved these to the area cleared of cotoneaster. The dog-roses have gone along the bottom fence in the copse and behind the fruit-cages (where we're slowly establishing a mixed hedge).

In all that, I forgot to check how the onions were getting on. Perhaps tomorrow.