March 1st tour of my cottage garden....

... and everything I'm growing in the greenhouse.

March tour of the garden

You can watch the video of my March tour of the garden below. In it you can see everything I'm growing and the stage it is at in March to give you an idea of how things measure up with your plants etc.

What I've been doing and growing so far...

I'm in zone 8 UK, which is a temperate climate, which means we have fairly mild winters and summers and don't suffer the extremes of temperatures often experienced in the USA and other parts of the world.

Obviously this climate is ideal for most of the traditional cottage garden plants that are seen in the classic english cottage garden but of course this doesn't mean this garden style cannot be replicated elsewhere. It just means adjustments have to be made.

In the video you can see the stages my plants were at on the 1st March 2024 after a relatively mild but unbelievably wet (even for us) winter.

For me here in the south east of England, this means that my snap dragons have overwintered even outside and even after a few frosts. So it is true that snapdragons can survive down to around -5c (23F) for brief periods. Our frosts didn't last more than a few days each time so I'm not sure they would survive a prolonged freeze at these temperatures.

The rain has been unbelievable too. Deluge after deluge. Although I garden on clay soil, there is overall good drainage in my garden but it was getting so bad the water was sitting in pools all over the place for day after day only to be bombarded by another deluge. It's been challenging to get out there and when I do the mud just churns everywhere making the garden look a mess despite all the work going on. This means that the grass pathways which are supposed to line the flower borders, are all but destroyed. Only time will tell if they grow back in the spring. If they don't, repairing them is just another job I will need to add to my list of jobs to do.

The idea of the cottage garden is of course to have billowing borders. You don't want neat well spaced plants with soil or compost showing in between. I also grow for cut flowers. So with so many plants required I have been sowing a lot and I have another video coming out about everything I have been sowing in March so if I don't post that here on my blog, please check out my you tube channel.

So here's a list of everythign I am growing so far...

Started previous year 2023 & overwintered

1. Cornflowers (black), 2. Snapdragons (my own seeds so don't know which varieties) 3. Gypsophillia (covent garnden) 4. Delphiniums 5. Hollyhocks (died of rust) 6. cerinthe (bolted as it was so mild so I started a new batch in feb) 7. Larkspur 8. White musk mallow

Started Jan through FEB

I just stagger seeds at this time, sowing them as and when I can so this is everything I started in Jan and feb and I will list march separately.

FLOWERS:

1. Pink cornflowers, 2.cerinthe (second batch) 3. saponaria 4. More snapdragons 5. dahlias (from seed) 6. strawdlowers 7. Persicaria orientalis 8. roses from seeds (trial click the link to watch my video) 9. Asters, 10. Marigolds, 11. Gomphrena, 12. Ageratum (florists blue), 13. Bells of Ireland 14. Sunflowers 15. Statice 16. Rudebeckia 17. feverfew

VEGETABLES

1. Tomatoes (2 varieties) 2. Aubergines (2 varieties) 3. Watermelon 4. Kiwi 5. Cucumber 6. Courgette (zucchini) 7. Peppers (still to do... onions, potatoes and carrots)

Started so far in March 2024

1. Violas, 2. Ageratum (different variety) 3. Chrysanthemum snowball 4. Dara 5. Ammi.

I still have lots more to sow as I want to try lots to see what works and what doesn't. I grow for the cottage garden and for cut flowers and anything that I don't like or is a faff to grow will just get ditched next year, until I have refined my growing list.

Anyhow that's it so far for 2024. Despite being winter it has been pretty busy and productive. So lots more to come.