Clematis ‘Pilu’

There’s a lot in this blog about the weather: our gardening lives are dominated by it. Today started out a bright cold morning: blue sky, sunshine and a sense of spring in the air. A morning designed to inspire optimism and plans.

Some of us had arranged to go to our local garden centre; it was the kind of morning when I have to be restrained from buying every beautiful plant in sight. We bought more dwarf daffodils and some pansies to fill spaces in the tree pits and platform planters, along with the primroses imported from Wales and some lovely red primula, reduced in price at a garden centre last week. We also bought another clematis (‘Pilu’) for the Lewes planter and leek seedlings (‘Musselburgh). I envisaged an active work session of planting out.

Indoor gardening

As we looked back across the Downs from the garden centre, we saw – and felt – the clouds and the cold roll in. The sky was bleak and overcast by the time we got out to the LRSP gardens this afternoon. We retreated to the conservatory to sow some more seeds. This is how it is at this time of year: lots of plans, lots of aborting plans cause of the weather – too wet, too cold, too windy, too frosty. This year has had a very different set of gardening frustrations to previous years: very wet and over 10c before Christmas, now dryer but falling to just above freezing at night and in single figures during the day. In March in the south of England, that’s unusually chilly. And not great for sowing seeds, which typically need 15-20c to germinate.

So this afternoon everything was in the conservatory: us, the seeds, the compost, the seed trays, the watering cans, the propagators – all a bit of a muddle. But we have managed to sow this week and last:

• Courgette ‘midnight F1’
• Lettuce ‘Lettony’
• Lettuce ‘Salanova’
• Swan river daisy
• Cleome
• Marigold French petite mixed
• Lovage
• Basil (Italiano Classico)
• Basil (Crimson king)
• Sweet peas (Giant waved)
• Cleome

So far no sign of germination, except the classic Italian basil: tiny green shoots pushing through the soil. Just enough to make me feel it’ll all grow, despite the cold.