Next year already?

It's hard to be a gardener when you are impatient. It's true. With SGS and NGS gardens on lock-down, both organisations are hosting virtual tours where garden openers are uploading videos of what is happening in their gardens right now and I have to say I am rather jealous! Living in the North East of Scotland does mean we are usually a couple of weeks, sometimes even a month behind of our most southerly neighbours in terms of plant growth. I've seen astrantias out in London where mine are at most a small clump of leaves. While my garden is becoming fuller year on year, this year its has become glaringly obvious I need something to bridge the gap between the early spring plants and the stars of the summer. In the cottage border, the spring green tulips have been increasing in number although a number of the daffodils that were de-congested only produced leaves this year. I've added to the purple tulips and it seems that the best way to bridge the gap will be with the addition of a lot more tulips. As I sit on the new seat by the pond, I have mixed feelings. The wee woodland/spring garden has looked beautiful this year. The erythroniums were just delightful and the primulas have spread a fair bit. The muscari that were donated by a pal who was doing a garden tidy a couple of years ago are really starting to mingle through the rest of the border, and then the gaps become evident. While the warm weather really has given many plants a boost and the lack of rain has also meant a lot fewer slugs, there are too many areas that just have foliage and nothing else. A mix of early and late tulips might just do the trick! The limited number of tulips already in the garden have lifted areas considerably and where the reddish/orangish ones have come up, I've been out with my trowel pulling them up in flower and popping them over in what is the hot border later in the year. I wonder if anyone else does this? I know that despite taking notes and a plethora of pictures, that once they are over I will not remotely remember where they are so at least doing them now...assuming they survive...they will already been in place for next year. Of course as I add to them in the autumn I will, inevitably, dig them back up again.

My whole garden has been put together on a tiny budget but I really must get into the habit of buying more of the same bulbs in one go rather than a few different varieties, especially as I don't have the patience to wait for plants to clump-up. But I just love different plants and I can't really imagine a designed garden with a limited pallet of species and colours. I want everything that takes my fancy...finding where to put them in the garden is the trick.

I've just seen a picture of a friend's epimediums and having investigated these gorgeous delicate little flowers I'm already scanning seed catalogues to see what is available. The greenhouse is already full with perennials and annuals grown from seed, at some point they will be big enough plants to go out into the garden and I will no doubt end up having to move things around to fit them in. I'm inclined to put plants in to close together and a few times I have been caught out with how quickly they have spread. Last year I grew monarda which was planted out as a single stem, this year they are foot-wide clumps and I feel a little bit smug that for once I had given them a bit of space. Gardening is such a learning curve. Onwards and upwards.