Seed ordering

A spot of colour. I decided we needed a bit of colour. It is February after all.  Well, February in northern Europe. I know that Australia is enduring a heat wave of climate change proportions right now.  So you won’t be yearning for colour the way those of us in winter are.

Here in London it has snowed all day. Just the wet stuff which is almost rain, but is white and fluffy and rather fun.

But grey. Relentlessly grey.

So what better thing to do than get out the stack of seed catalogues, put on the sunglasses and gaze at glorious promise.

I’m going to be trying out some different wildflower mixes this year.

It’s something I haven’t done for about five years; but I will have some spots in the top potager and behind the soft fruit orchard that might take a bit of colour this spring.

Bare earth isn’t bare for long, so I thought, instead of the ubiquitous red clover which I usually sow, I might sprinkle some of these miracle in a seed packet mixes.

They won’t look as good as this of course.  My garden barely gets a quarter of the rainfall as the south coast of England where Sarah Raven has her garden.  These are shots from her catalogue.

But like most avid gardeners, you always think that seed buying is barely shopping. Just a few quid per packet of seeds.

It adds up of course – who can resist? I want to do better sunflowers this year; I’ve been relying on self-sown ones for three years now. Back to Claret and a go at this new one for me, Ms Mars.

And more cosmos and rudbeckias which haven’t thrived the past two seasons. I have been so in thrall to my dahlias and zinnias that I have become lazy about variety.

And my dear friend Elodie is moving house in June – and she gets a potager at long last. So I want to sow extra flowers for her as a housewarming gift.  She waters the plants when I’m away, so I know she won’t begrudge the extra work.