Planting bulbs, but not the normal method
When you have 9000 bulbs to plant and the ground is rock hard then the traditional use of a bulb planting trowel really does not work. So other approaches have to be considered. In my case it was the digger.
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| Digger in action |
The advantage is that, if you scrape the surface and only take off a few centimetres at a time it turns the soil into a fine powder which is suitable for putting back on top of the planted bulbs. You get a better idea by going to the link and playing the slideshow (set to one second), unfortunately I am unable to insert the flash sequence here.
When the hole has been dug to a depth of 12cm then the bulbs are placed at the required distances and the covered over with the earth. The later has to be done by hand so there is still a considerable amount of hard work – but tant-pis as the locals would say.
The bulbs are planted with the smallest next to the drive, gradually progressing to the larger daffodils.
This should mean that the first flowering will be the daffodils in February to March with the tulips lasting to the end of May and the Ranunculus and De caen anemones filling out the intervening months. Hopefully there will be some pictures next year.
The planting order was
- Ranunculus nearest the drive
- Anenome de caen next
- Tulip hageri
- Tulip linifolia
- Tulip turkestanica
- Daffodils
More work round the house
A couple of weeks ago I related the planting of the grass seed on the bank to the house. And here it is – just visible if look closely.
The main problem has been again lack of rain so the seed is having difficulty in germinating and if it is not quick then it will be paralysed by the cold. We had the first frost this morning at -0.9 deg C.
The main work is the continuing work of creating the path around the house with 20 -40 mm gravel. Here it is arriving in my big wheel barrow
before being transferred to the little one and then tipped into position.
Hopefully this will result in an all weather path all round the house and one that is permeable.
Technically – I have put a geotextile under the gravel to stop the gravel mixing with the soil and preventing some of the weeds pushing their way upwards.
Some other bits and pieces
A couple of photos taken that I particularly liked.
The first is our meagre display of pumpkins. They are reasonably large considering that they have never been watered.
The second is of a holly oak (Quercus ilex) that has survived the dry summer.
