I’ve received lots of feedback following last week’s post about making Green Plans for ’22, it seems January makes us all feel motivated to plan for brighter times ahead.

I had such a great response that I thought I’d share some of your inspiring comments; here’s just a few:

Queen’s Platinum Jubilee

All over the UK folk are planning some amazing things for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. Over on Facebook my Dad’s cousin, Lisa, messaged me about wanting to celebrate the event by planting a community flowerbed, which would flower in June. I put it out on socials and here’s the response:

Red Flowers

• Precious Ruby Rose
• Red begonia
• Red pelargonium (Variety: Paul Crampel)
• Geranium Sprinter
• Annual red poppy

White Flower

• White begonia
• White alyssum
• White salvias

Blue Flowers

• Lobelia
• Verbena perfecta
• Ageratum Blue ball
• Delphiniums
• Myosotis (forget-me-nots)

Mixed red, white & blue

• Anemone de Caen

Personally, I’d choose those that are great for pollinators, great to look at, great for wildlife!

As always thanks to my ‘online gardening buddy’, Alan Gardener. He’s been proper helpful answering the questions, where I’m totally out of my depth.

School Gardening

Clair a forest school practitioner got in touch via Messenger:

I’ve entered the school into the Spring Bloom at the Palace Competition for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee , I’m just after some advice. Our forest has a few areas which need attention, my gardening club works hard to help clear the areas , we are hoping to plant a wildflower area, but as we have ducks and chickens, I would love some advice on which grasses or wildflowers would be useful to plant within the forest to help make a natural garden / wildlife areas

My reply – Thanks for getting in touch, its lovely to hear from you. Sounds like a great idea and I would love to help. Some native wildflower mixes would be useful as long as the soil is free draining and gets full sun. Specifically; cornflowers, helenium, wild daisy*, geums, poppies, cosmos and Welsh/Californian poppies will do well. *Just be careful as daisies can take over a bit. Make sure to rake them in well to poor quality rocky soil. The chickens may actually be useful in thinning out some of the seedlings as long as they don’t eat everything!

Speaking of the Jubilee, my London-based friend Kabir is launching ‘70 nest boxes for 70 years’; he’s hoping to get lots of schools signed up. Good luck mate, top project!

Grow your own

My friend Dara McAnulty’s Dad is saying goodbye to his lawn and embracing the ‘Good Life’ as the family transform their back garden into a veg patch, large pond and wildflower borders. He said some of my recent tweets had helped him to get motivated; proper chuffed about that!

We’re a nation of spud lovers in the UK and my recent post generated lots of convo about growing your own. Over on Twitter, Jan asked me which varieties I would recommend and whilst we’ve grown Orla, Pentland Javellin, International Kidney and Sharpe’s Express, we always go back to Charlotte, they just seem to yield the best for us. What’s your ‘go to spud’? Leave us a comment below.

Check out ‘Potato Day’ events at your local allotment or community garden, we go to Hulme CGC for ours; this year it’s on 20^th February.

Hoping @RectoryGardens have more success with their beetroot this year – apparently badgers scoffed their whole crop last year!

Community Gardening

My friend, Joan, set up and runs a local community garden, she said:

This year we have a lot to do on our wildflower community garden too. We have sent for some trees to plant, hopefully we can finish our willow wigwam for the children, we have wild flower seeds to plant, and revamp our peace circle, with new flowers and a new Christmas tree, Donated. We have six fruit trees growing now, so lots to do. Keep us going George with the new things you are doing, because we find it valuable and exciting what you appreciate of the land. Good luck with all you are doing.

Community gardening is amazing, it brings people together and all communities need folk like Joan!

Carnivorous Plants

Via my blog, Georgina asked for – ‘suggestions re first time growing a carnivorous plant outside? Been going to try it and I’d like to buy my son one/a couple for his birthday in March. Thank you – and have a fab year.’

I replied – I’d recommend a sarracenia purpurea as they are the hardiest and tend to survive pretty harsh conditions, also sarracenia flava and most other species of sarracenia. You could also try any of the 3 types of native sundew, the easiest being the round leaf sundew. Check out Hampshire Carnivorous Plants as they’re a really good site to buy from. and have loads of really helpful info.

Good luck Georgina, I’m always up for talking about Carnivorous Plants!!

Good luck and grow well

I’ve been chatting to my Grandma about our spring plans for her garden, but we got a bit distracted by Monty’s new Adriatic Gardens programme and ended up looking at Croatian holidays instead!

As we come to the end of January and feel that first fizz of excitement about planning the veg beds, buying seeds, chitting potatoes and the slightly lighter nights, it makes us feel so motivated to get out in the garden. Keep us posted on your growing success and give us a comment below.

Good luck and grow well!