The beginning of the year is always the busy time when things need to be prepared. At the end of this month I had a few small garden projects that I decided to complete. Firstly removing a four Abelia bush roots and extending my rose terrace. Secondly creating a small area to try and grow wildflowers and third to experiment with cuttings and seed planting.

I simply laid out a few rows of cement blocks (3 on the bottom and 5 on the top) either side of the bed. I then added a lot of compost that I have been collecting along with some bags of garden soil from Home depot and have then been watering it to hopefully get it ready for some roses. On past terraces I have found I have not put enough soil and so overtime the bed drops down. This time I have put the soil much higher and we will see if this works. I ordered 3 David Austin roses (with cool names) as bareroot roses and then planted them about a week later (see below). All my roses I drip irrigate which means water is minimized, gets water to the roots and seems to reduce the impact of disease.

The second project was to try and see if I can grow a few wildflowers from seed. I have a small plot along the side of the house at the back which still gets a fair amount of sun and decided to experiment. Having fully watered the bed I sowed the wildflower seed. I then vended some chicken wire into a small cage to go across the bed. The idea being to keep the birds away from the seeds until everything is growing.

After a 5 days I had around 10 seeds germinating and we had some rain last night so I am hopeful in another week to have some growth.

The third project was to grow some flowers from seed and cuttings inside and then transplant them.

I was successful about a month ago taking a geranium cutting and planting it outside. I just took a fresh cutting from an existing geranium (nice and green and soft part of the geranium) and then just placed it in the garden container with moist soil and just let it grow. A month later its growing and seems happy. Based on this success I wondered could I grow more.

My second attempt was to try with a big number of seeds and first grow them inside. After a week it looks like the Zinia’s have started to grow, but the others have failed. Possible because of old seeds, but I will wait one more week and see if anything will appear.

“See, I give you every seed-bearing plant that is upon all the earth, and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit; they shall be yours for food”