September seeds

Wow!  Where have the past few months gone?

My lack of blog posts is a sure indication of clement gardening weather and a busy time on the flowery business front.

Now we're already in September and I'm mentally time travelling into next year's flowers.  A quick rummage in the fridge, where my seeds are kept, reveals the source material for a forest of cerinthe, cornflowers, corn cockles, larkspur and vivid orange calendulas.  And as it is raining this morning, I feel a greenhouse sowing session coming on.  All these hardy annuals can be sown now while there is still some warmth left in the season and this gives them the chance to build up a healthy root system as the weather cools and discourages them from putting on lots of top growth.  They won't be much to look at until spring next year when their rooty headstart will allow them to burst into life well ahead of any seeds sown in the early spring.

And even before the shops start playing Christmas carols, if you want indoor bulbs in flower for the festive season, between now and mid-October is the time to plant them.  Leave them somewhere dark and cool and just moist (not wet) until the growth is about 5cm tall, then bring them into cool and light conditions to put on a final flowery burst.  Hyacinths will need about 3 weeks in the light before they flower.  This year, I'm forcing prepared hyacinths, white and blue crocuses and pretty blue grape hyacinths (muscari).  Lots of limboing up and down from my three quarter height cellar with the tricky steps….

But later I'll have lots of these:
 


And now I'll get out into to the greenhouse which I cleared at the weekend - it's now bare apart from 4 denuded stems of tomato plants with lots of green fruits, and the indoor chrysanths which I rescued from the garden centre sell off earlier in the season.  I've never grown chrysanthemums before, so am curious to see what they do (in spite of my neglect!).  I don't know what it is about things that grow under cover, but once they get beyond the stage where I would naturally plant them out, I lose interest in them and tend to leave them to their own devices.  My garden may flourish, but my houseplants all wither as a result.  I've just killed off my last houseplant, a very hardy parlour palm which has hung on for about 8 years.  It has now been replaced by dried flowers which I don't need to take any care of.  Bad mother.

Another month of flower markets to go, and then my brain has to really switch into Christmas mode, organising venues and supplies for wreath-making workshops, planning my range of plants and products for Christmas markets and drilling those china teacup planters for all that I'm worth!

Pale, but otherwise unharmed, prisoners emerge from the cellar.

Even the gas man is giving me funny looks now.  He knocked on the door to do a meter reading this week, and was ushered down into the darkness of the cellar, with me on his heels carrying a watering can.  He looked rather nervous at the prospect.

As he checked how many billions of pounds we owe the gas company, I carefully tended my row of captives - hyacinth and crocus bulbs which are being forced to grow, against their seasonal inclinations, to flower in time (I hope) for Christmas.  The first planting of crocuses looked anaemically sprightly, with significant shoots poking sturdily out of the soil.  So, as they have decided to submit to my will and cooperate, I have granted them release from the darkness.  Added a bit of moss to the soil to hide their naked bits, and voila:

…they're ready for market on Saturday.  Now I'm wishing I'd planted more up. These will be white 'Ard Shenk' crocuses in the coming weeks. Rather pretty, don't you think?

Christmas bulbs: keeping them in the dark

I have imprisoned things in the dark dankness of my cellar today. Not something I did lightly.  Indeed, in order to achieve my objective I had to move the ironing board, the recycling, the camping table, the shopping bags and the vacuum cleaner and then remove the floor sections of my glory hole. (I'm sure the people who come to read the meter have palpitations and have flashbacks to Kathy Bates' film 'Misery' when I go through these procedures and usher them down the dark brick steps).

Today's victims, whose banishment will endure for about 8 weeks, were teacups full of crocus bulbs, and terracotta pots of hyacinths which I'm trying to force into flower around Christmas time.  I am going to put together a few teacup bulb kits for people to plant themselves, but feel that these are nicer sold ready growing, with a hope of flowers during the dark days of December/January rather than the recipient having to plant them up some time in the new year, with the resulting flowers appearing at the same time as the ones in the garden.  What do you think?

This spring's teacup planter crop in late March - a great success with customers.

In the garden, I've cleared spaces and put in lots of scented narcissus bulbs, muscari and leucojum aestivum. I've also laid waste to a couple of the viburnum bushes, which has generated new wish lists for things to put in the gaps.  Scented peonies from Kelways Nurseries are currently tempting me greatly, but they have such a short season for the space they take up.  Should probably be more practical about it, although they are soooooo beautiful and I love the idea of scent with those blousy blooms.

Still have all my tulips to plant, but will leave those until November to avoid the risk of the fungal disease, tulip fire.  At least the weather is turning colder now, which should kill off lurking bugs and beasties that munch.  It will also, sadly,  put paid to my cosmos and dahlias which are still flowering their hearts out.  In the greenhouse, however, I've got a nascent crop of cornflowers, ammi, marigolds and cerinthe which are all doing brilliantly from September sowings.  I've got so many cornflowers, that I'm even going to risk planting out a load after hardening them off to take pot luck in the great outdoors over winter.  If they don't make it, at least I won't have had to invest lots of watering time and compost on their upkeep over the next few months.

I didn't have a great deal of success with my anemones this year and the Twitterati of #britishflowers were all swooning over their tunnel grown crops of the same, so have today planted lots of black nuggety corms in my greenhouse border, to see if I have better luck with getting a decent crop of them in there.  I'm dreaming of future bunches as I tend all these bulbs and babies.

This year's anemone planting is 'The Bride' - a white variety. Hope I get these mad red ones reappearing too.

But back to the present:  I've got 100 wreath bases taking up valuable shelf space in my shed, lavender, statice and honesty suspended from anything vaguely suspenderable (including my light fittings where the ceiling is high enough) and bags full of cones waiting for the call to action.  It feels very odd to be thinking about Christmas this early, but need to start organising my plan of action for stall wares in November and December.   I've even got to organise a Christmas photoshoot for my china wares in order to generate some festive purchase spirit in my online shop!  I just hope my family will be in the mood for mince pies and german lebkuchen at some point in the next couple of weeks.