Halfway through the week I got a dumb virus. I guess that’s what happens in winter. It slowed down the week, or at least my ability to work through my list of things to do.
My main goal this week had been to plant out seedlings and to find new places to plant out future seedlings. I have more seedlings than spaces to plant them. Even my friend Gaylene, who has a huge flower farm compared to me, complains of having too many seedlings. I think it’s time to colonise the decks. Plastic rubbish bins make cheap raised beds.
So, I only ended up planting out one raised bed with seedlings. The bed had been decimated by blackbirds. The previous seedlings, poppies, had all but gone. There were 2 or 3 buried in the soil but I don’t rate their chances. I can’t remember what seedlings I planted. I do remember making sure that each seedling was secured by 2 bamboo skewers. And I drove those skewers down deep. Bloody blackbirds.
I’ve started thinking about a having a flower stand. It won’t be long before I have lots of spring bulbs. I won’t be starting up my mobile shop until September. So the flower stand will be my main income (assuming anyone bothers to come and find it).
I found a great table that a local person was giving away. It was green. I painted it blue. It’s going to be the flower stand. It’s got a hole in the middle for an umbrella. I've got a sandwich board and I started to paint it orange. Except the paint I thought was orange was actually yellow. So I stopped. Luckily I had an orange testbot in the shed from another project. It turned out to be the perfect orange. Unluckily the paint ran out. Once I’m over this dumb virus I’ll get some more. It’s a shade called Adrenalin.
I got one more job done before I ran out of energy. I made a garden beside the back steps. I planted 2 pink spirea bushes and 2 hellebores. Eventually the hellebores will sit in the shade of the spireas.
One of the upsides of having more free time, albeit free time where you feel crap, is doing the inside things I never get around to doing. I put some solid work into designing my 2025 spring greeting card. I have a decorated vase I recently bought. I want my spring card to have the same decorative look as the vase. The vase has texture, gentle colours and lots of layers. It has a wonderful orange flower too.
I want to use a couple of spring flowers: daffodils and anemones. I haven’t come up with the final design yet but it’s not far off.
Last year my friend Sophie introduced me to Aesme Studio. It’s a floral studio in London. It’s owned by two sisters. One of them grows the flowers and makes films about flower arranging and gardens, the other sister is the floral designer. Their flower growing philosophy and practices are the same as mine. They grow their flowers in a garden setting that’s a habitat for wildlife. Their floral design work is stunning and inspired by nature - it’s the way I want to work.
I treated myself and signed up to their ‘Flowers On Film’ channel. It’s very inspiring.
Last Sunday I went to the nearby park with my husband and tried to back the pop top. It was hard. I’m lucky that my husband is patient because I sure as hell aren’t. I seem like a calm easy going person, and I am. Mostly. But get me behind the wheel backing a big trailer (namely Marigold) and I lose my cool quick. My husband, on the other hand, is very cool headed and logical. He got the hang of it a lot quicker than me.
Before I did my trailer backing practice I watched a ton of you tube videos made by dad types. I’d like to say these friendly guys were helpful but they weren’t. The only way to learn to back a trailer is to back a trailer. Lots and lots of times.
I still can’t remember which way to turn the steering wheel to make the trailer go in a particular direction. I’ll be back at it next weekend.
