It’s been one of those crazy busy times recently. I’ve done absolutely loads of seed planting and gardening at home. My Blue Peter Gardening clip was aired this week and tomorrow (Monday 21st May) I’m off to ………………………

RHS Chelsea Flower Show #WooHoo

Our front yard

We’ve had some wonderfully sunny days these past few weeks, so it can only mean one thing, time for a bit of gardening at home. We live in a fairly typical northern type terraced house, with a yard at the front. Whilst it has some lovely long flowering grasses and flowers, planted by previous owners, the majority of it is paved over. I’ve mentioned before about the RHS campaign to Green Grey Britain – which is all about, “tackling the growing number of grey spaces by turning them into beautiful green places“. I made a daft video about it a while ago, check it out here:

So, 2 Saturdays ago, me and my Dad took the flags up, we might reuse them in the top garden either broken up for support or back fill. Then we dug it over and removed as many weeds as possible. We placed out the plants to decide locations and then dug holes and planted them. There’s still a lot to do, for example my Mum really wants a small white headed hydrangea that we saw at RHS Chatsworth last year, so we are going to buy one of those when we visit this year.

Here’s what we planted:

1. Phlox – Grandma’s friend, Meg gave us this. Dad divided it at the time, before planting one in the top garden
2. Lamb’s ear – came from Grandma Brenda’s garden. It did really well last year up in the top garden, so again Dad divided it.
3. Potentilla shrub – this was from a hardwood cutting from a few autumns ago, from a shrub in the back area
4. Leucanthemum – a really great pollinator, which we bought from a visit to Threave

Wildlife

I’ve seen a couple of orange tipped butterflies just near the local river, my first swifts of the year, there’s nesting great tits at Grandma Brenda’s, a family of sparrows visiting our bird feeder and this grub in its pupae stage.

Top Garden

Up in the top garden we’ve been moving plants around and planting some new purchases, including the helenium from Threave. We planted an aquilegia that was previously in a pot, in a space made vacant by the lamb’s ear, which had totally took over the area (we’ve rehomed that in the top space)

Seed Planting Videos

I had a lovely time in the back yard space, with my Mum, planting a load of seeds. I love the idea of creating new life and over time watching it grow, it gives you a great feeling inside. I filmed all the clips, for my YouTube Channel

**Just to say, me and my Mum aren’t experts at planting seeds, so we may have got a few things wrong. That’s what it’s all about, you learn what worked and what didn’t, but most of all we had a lot of fun!**

1. Courgettes – I had lots of comments on my social media pages about courgette recipes, I think that’s to do with the amount and speed at which courgettes grow. Jo on Twitter said she had planted seeds for the first time and was going to make her fav Hospice UK’s Courgette Soup 
2. Coriander – ZZiggysgal sent me the seeds and said We are so excited to have the world famous ‘Green Fingered George’ an RHS Young Ambassador and gardening wildlife enthusiast grow our seeds! This post got the most attention and totally divided opinion – coriander is a love or hate thing, with nothing in between! Sue on Facebook said it tastes of soap, whilst her brother, Steve, loves it!
3. Sunflower – Mrs Thompson from my old Primary School gave me the sunflowers, she got in touch and said, “Mine are growing well, so we should have another field of sunflowers this year, have sold loads of the seeds so got about £50 to spend on other gardening things. You need to come to school one day George and see what we are doing now“
4. Peas – just like me, Anthony on Facebook also grew them in toilet rolls, “The fact they break down in the soil is brill!”
5. Beetroot – this variety has a very strange name, ‘Rouge Crapaudine’. Mum saw it on Masterchef and really fancies trying it. We’ll keep you updated on this one!
6. Sweetcorn – always a favourite at BBQ time at our house. We’ve never had much success with full cobs though, they look more like baby sweetcorn!
7. Cucumber – this grew really well in Grandma Brenda’s greenhouse last year, so I’m hoping for similar success
8. Lemongrass – totally new one for us this, but Mum uses it a lot in red Thai curry, so it will be great to grow this ingredient

My job as an RHS Ambassador is to inspire people to give gardening a go and last week I got this lovely message from Gary, my cousin Rhys’s, Dad,

“I’m sitting here watching gardeners’ world and enjoying it. But 7 years ago I wouldn’t have been seen dead watching gardening programmes. Now I’m enjoying doing gardening and watching and learning about gardening. One of my inspirations has been you GFG . Many thanks George, keep up the great work”

Mayfield

Last week I blogged about my visit to Mayfield in Manchester, well here’s the video!

Back in the Blue Peter Garden

If you didn’t get chance to watch my Blue Peter Gardening clip, it’s on iPlayer until 14th June. I’ve also made a YouTube version of it too:

RHS Chelsea Flower Show

I’ll finish with some exciting news, I’m off to Chelsea!!!!!

I’ll be travelling down on Saturday (same day as a certain Royal wedding!) and heading to the flower show on the Monday.

I love, love, love Chelsea and the first place I’ll visit will be Mr Ishihara’s Artisan Garden – he remains the ‘coolest gardener in town’. I’ll be posting and tweeting, so check out all my social media sites for live updates!

Me and Mr Ishihara – the coolest gardener in town!

Chelsea here I come!