Lessons learnt from a cold damp Winter

Testing my default temperament.

I pride myself in having horticultural stoicism.

I am prepared for some seeds not to germinate.  For the pheasants to keep pinching out tasty new shoots. For plants to flop because I didn’t net in time and others to flop because in the end, they simply wouldn’t condition.

This Winter though, this trait is being sorely tested.

Let me list the ways:

1. Ranunculus

2. Hardy Annuals

3. Tender Shrubs

4. Perennials

5. Dahlias

6. Reframing

7. Winter Plants

8. New Year, New Me

1. Ranunculus

I admit to being a little, let’s say, confident when growing ranunculus. It’s one of my star flowers, I grow really good strong stems. I thought I had it nailed. Maybe even unattractively smug. This winter, I’ve learnt my lesson!

I pre sprouted and planted out ranunculus successionally. And they have successionally failed.

Batch by batch.

It can’t be the corms themselves, some are old stock, some new. They are in different beds.

This is what they looked like just a few weeks ago and I thought I had done well considering we had days of -12 degrees and deep snow.

It can't be the actual corms themselves since some are old stock some are new. They were all soaked and sprouted separately but broadly in the same way.

In one way or another, they are just not thriving in the way that they usually do. I did take a risk and plant them in the dampest and shadiest part of the garden. They grew, leafed and then I think with the soil being damp all winter, the corms have rotted. I wonder that I would have got away with it in the raised beds of the Braybrooke Garden but I will never know.

Rotting & freshly sprouted corms. The ones on the left have got little shoots growing but the main part of the corm has rotted away. The new seedlings are too young to grow away rigorously whilst the light levels are low with the soil cold and damp.

I've got some new corms starting again. And I'm really hoping that these ones despite being planted later than I’d like, will grow more vigorously. Now that that we’ve got warmer weather and better light levels. Fingers crossed.

2. Hardy Annuals