Monday 8 March 2010

Same Places Different Times.

Today I've top dressed the wallflowers in the main garden with Growmore fertiliser. I think now is a good time to give your spring bedding a feed. I know with these cold nights nothings growing but it takes a couple of weeks for the feed to get through to the plants. Any balanced feed like Growmore or blood fish and bone will do. I use growmore because its easy to apply at a rate of roughly one handful to a square yard. Also if I use any animal based fertiliser the dogs tend to dig up all the plants looking for it which is not good. The one thing you have to remember to do after applying feed is to work it in to the soil or it will just sit there, especially during periods with no rain.

I'm going to show you something now that I find quite interesting and shows what a difference a cold winter can make. I've got the angles slightly different but as you can see its of the same places in the garden the top picture of each set being taken on the 8th March 2008, the bottom one of each set being taken 8th March 2010. The rose in 2008 has shoots two inches long where as the same rose today has no shoots at all and when you look at the bottom picture you would think I went and dug up all the scilla's for all you can see of them yet and its the same story through out the whole of the garden.
8th March 2008

8th March 2010

8th March 2008

8th March 2010

4 comments:

Jim said...

Hi Bob -- Spring is late here this year too. Last year the grass was green and had been fertilized. This year there are some little green ones but only this week will we mow away the old brown stuff and fertilize.
We can't grow rhubarb this far south because the winters generally aren't cold enough. This year with the freeze it might have been.
Thanks for peeking in on our youngest. I am in the middle of tax and aren't doing much blogging now until it's done.
Cheers,
..

Matron said...

Have you started lambing yet Bob?

Phil Voice said...

That's interesting Bob - I like the way you record these stats.

I don't know if you've seen but I added a post on LJ today about the Victorian Kitchen Garden and in one of the videos (May I think), Peter Thoday is moaning about the continuous wet weather - he then complains that June is colder than normal (about 16 degrees) - there is also a comment that May is the wettest since about 1886:-0))

All the best and I bet you're looking forward to Sunday and the first GP?

All best


Phil

Merle said...

Hi Bob ~~ It sure shows how cold this winter has been so I hope it
soon warms up and lets those roses
grow some leaves etc.
There sure some some awful damage in Melbourne $220,000,000 now the damage assessment. Here in Shepparton there was a mess and lots of trees down.
I was fortunate that most of the tree branches went the other way. I had lots of small branches to clear up. I see you are still checking those St. Kilda sheep Bob
Take care, Regards, Merle.