Spring Clean

Lovely to have the sun out yesterday. 

It took me a long time to change from Nagging wife to Happy Gardener. 

Every year it is the same. I nag , nag , nag spouse about the importance of a can of Jeyes Fluid  and showing it intimately to the greenhouse. We never agree, as C is artistic, and into the look of things, especially where Garden Pots and plants  are concerned. He thinks Vine weevil grubs  are rare treats for blackbirds, and algae covered greenhouse windows spare the trouble of shading. 

I nagged and raved for an hour about science and soil and throwing away useless bits of ornamental tat from the greenhouse shelves. We agreed to keep what you see;

Really I am having to write this by way of an apology to my longsuffering C. He will read this , probably  a week after its posted, and the clean  GH shelves are laden with pots of this and that sprouting hopefully. He will be waiting for my 'Damping Off' speech and my annual 'wash out the watering cans' speech. I will be waiting for his 'too leggy' speech and his 'we don't want thousands of tomato plants' speech. We will have a good laugh, we are both right and wrong.

By suppertime last night we had had such a productive garden time together. We managed a job, (removing some old wooden planks) that was started 15 years ago. We decided that the Solanum was dead, and the grapevine was very much alive though looked dead. We said farewell to the Dead Acanthus, brought as a tiny plant from the Roman Forum in 1974, only to find it had sent a runner out about 50cm away , which was alive. I agonized at the state of my national collection of Echiums, 2 varieties only left, and C agonized at the loss of both our bay trees.  

Grandpa White(Sedum seboldeii, top right)) lives on for another year. Named by the family after Aunty Ann Whites father  all Cs family know it . We all have a bit.  It is Spring  for us , up again, out again and Im waiting for the lovely pink flowers. It doesnt care if the greenhouse has been swept out, cleaned out .