Rain at last

Rain -at last!  Wonderful, life giving, refreshing rain at long last.  We finally had a reasonable rain -enough to actually do some good.  Everything seems to have turned green over night!  You could almost see the plants grinning and stretching out their leaves in sheer joy!

Of course this is a good time to do some weeding while the soil has some moisture in it and the weeds are fairly easy to pull.  I am currently rehearsing for a play called Trojan Women -a pretty demanding lead role too as Queen of stricken Troy after they have been defeated by the Greeks. ( The Trojan Horse stunt and all that!) So right now free time is scarce for weeding when line learning and rehearsals take up the bulk of my life outside work.  The show opens on October 5th but
hopefully though there will be time on Saturday to get some fresh air and relaxation in the garden and maybe take a picture or 2.  The cannas have done spectacularly well especially the gorgeous dark leaved Canna Australia and the variegated foliage version of Canna Stutgart giving splashes of eye-catching creamy bright l;ight to the shade area under the oak tree.

Bulbs again

I hope the contrasting pictures help to prevent disappointment in planting bulbs that then don;t give a good show.  Even if you onlyhave a few bulbs -it is still much better to plant in clumps rather than try to spread them out too much.  for a more formal approach especially with tuilps you might like to plant staggered rows to give depth.  In other words plant one row  about 5 or 6 inches apart, then behind that plant a second row about 5 or 6 inches back and in the spaces from the first ones and if oyu have the bulbs plant a third row also.  Hope this helps.

Fall for Fall Bulbs

Now is the time to start planning for your fall bulb planting.  We are often asked about how many bulbs to plant in a certain space -how many  bulbs will make a good show?  Well the answer is really simple -   50 bulbs cover 10 square feet         That is an easy number to remember and and an easy number to work with.                          Let me show what I mean:             take this picture

you can see how lonely and lost these tulips look!

Ok so lets try again -now you can see what they look like en masse. Most designers recommend that you plant at least 50 bulbs to make a good show.  You can also of course plant in clumps of any shape.