I potted the root divisions of Aster ericoides that arrived as a free gift with my delivery of Foxgloves [see yesterday's entry]. I haven't decided where I'll plant them so will grow them on for the time being.

 The Foxgloves will go in the ground at the weekend. Bare root plants need to be planted asap on delivery but resting a day or two in a tub of moist compost keeps them healthy. 

 The ground is arguably too cold for planting this early in the year but outdoor grown Foxgloves are very hardy and I bought them for the garden of my flat in London. The metropolis is a heat bubble; in effect the growing season in London extends as late as November and begins as early as February.

 Having said that we are having an actual cold winter by recent (southern) standards so I will pot some of the Foxgloves as well for planting in a month or two. 

 Delivery of bare root Foxgloves (Digitalis pupurea) as I didn't get round to sowing any seed last year. They make ideal 'gap fillers' to be dotted here and there. These are a year old and D. purpurea is biennial so should flower late spring/early summer. 

 I bought some excellent Geranium phaeum on the interweb last autumn from the same source (Tanya's Blooms). Also bare root they were healthy, hardy, outdoor grown, sufficiently mature to be planted with confidence. I'm sorry to say many garden centre plants are pampered polytunnel weaklings which immediately succumb to slugs in search of tender morsels.

 Her Foxgloves are equally good, excellent value at £21.64 for ten including delivery. In fact she included several more and an envelope of Foxglove seed plus some root divisions of Aster ericoides as a bonus! How good is that?!

 As I've noted before bare root seems to be enjoying something of a revival as a way for small scale growers to dispatch plants by parcel without the weight of pots.

 Time to harvest the Jerusalem Artichokes, said to taste a bit sweeter after the first frosts. They don't store well so the best thing to do is leave them in the ground and dig them up as needs be during Jan/Feb/March before they start sprouting with new growth.

 They are ridiculously prolific. I dug over a square foot or so of the bed which yielded several kilos. The smaller ones I replanted, some of the bigger ones I'll cook with. I'll have to give a lot away. A couple of years ago I planted twenty of the knobbly tubers which begat hundreds. I returned several dozen to the soil; there will be sackfuls this year. 

 Looking forward to some wildflower walks when the days get longer and warmer. Perhaps a sighting of the rare Pasque Flower at Eastertide, the county flower of Hertfordshire. Seen here at Knocking Hoe which means venturing into Bedfordshire.

 The warmth of the sun! Brightest day of the year so far; it seemed sensible to hop on the bus and have a pint at the Strathmore Arms in St. Paul's Walden. The local churchyard has a fine show of Cowslips (Primula veris) in the spring. I see they encourage this by having sheep chew the grass to a short sward over winter.

 Churchyards can be a good repository of wildflowers. Typically they are kept fairly tidy but not overly so and that mixture of maintenance and neglect suits certain species. Indeed there may be species that have declined in the surrounding area but find sanctuary in the grounds of the church.

 Good and bad news for bees as reported in today's Guardian. Bad news is a study by the University of Sussex that demonstrates the effect of the high application of fertilisers (i.e. NPK) on agricultural grassland. Their test bed was a swathe of permanent pasture at Rothhampsted, Hertfordshire which has been studied for over a century. Flowers have been reduced as much as fivefold thereby halving the number of pollinators particularly bees.

 Good news is that the government has refused the use of the neonicotinoid pesticide Cruiser NB for the first time in five years. In 2018 it was banned in the EU but the Conservatives authorised its use on sugar beet on an annual 'emergency' basis post-Brexit.

 Professor Dave Goulson at the aforementioned University of Sussex has stated that one teaspoon of the chemical is toxic enough to kill 1.25 billion bees. Furthermore he has noted that "Just before the ban we were applying 110 tonnes of neonics to the British landscape every year". 

 

For the winter garden: Hellebore and Heather.