Garden Additions

The Polyanthus Blue Shades is growing lovely now, even with todays wind and rain.
I am back on nights for three so the posts will slow down untill Monday.I was very productive yesterday with Cat helping me out. I bought three large 75 litre bags of compost, two bags of Pea gravel stones, and a few more plants to go with the four from Harlow Carr. I wanted to make the African bag gardens with Cats assistance.
http://www.sendacow.org.uk/schools.asp?active_page_id=271
The Charity Send A Cow started me thinking about vegetable growing in a container (or Sack) in December. I ordered two kits and they sat waiting for the stones, soil, bottle, and nice weather to be made up.

Take one hessian sack. Line the bottom with stones for drainage. Use a two litre bottle cut at both ends to leave a hollow tube. Fill the bottle with stones in the centre of the sack in a column. Fill around the bottle with soil and cow manure..I used some of the garden compost as no cows were available.
In Lesotho where these bag gardens are used they have a plentiful supply of stones from the mountains, and cow manure.

A bag garden in construction. Each bag took one hundred litres of compost and I found after halfway they are very heavy. They were placed in situ on the pavers. I put some long canes on edges to keep the sides of the sack taut and out of the way of the soil filling. The sticks can be used as stakes to hold the bag in place.

The Snappy Gardener in Action with the Second Bag Garden. Each kit came with seeds to grow vegetables. With names like Purple Power and Rocket Fuel. The finishing touch will be to decorate them with paint and coloured material. A job for when im off from work..

The central stone column is used for watering the Bag garden plants.It runs down the middle of the Sack. I need to cut some V's into the sides of the Bag to grow plants from the side as well as on top. It is heavy too and not movable by me on my own.

After the bag gardens were done I turned my Attention to planting the new additions from Harlow Carr and Hampsons. Two Teasel, One Valerian, one Catnip, two Photinia's, one Thuja Occidentalis Rheinegold, and a Picea Glauca Conica. I moved a few of the plants about to accomodate the newcomers. The garden is in a state of change. I moved the other green bird bowl to by the corner by the Blackberry bush. There are two pools of water now for the garden birds to drink and splash about in.

After Le Tigre et Le Crocodile in Paris here is my version. Two stone statues by the Holly. I watched a video of a healing garden that did Art Therapy in California. It had a collection of Art work around the Garden. This is part one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz3_CyZ8WkA
and the second part is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJub3-ul5lQ
I saw plenty at Harlow Carr and on this video. I realised I had the plants, and the hard structures but not the fun things like Statues, gnomes, pink lawn flamingoes, or fairys etc. It is the fun twist that puts your personality on your garden. Whatever you like, if you like it...

The Bag Gardens just need a splash of rainbow colour to brighten them up. I have seed potatoes from Marshalls sat in an egg box developing shoots ready to be planted in the two grow bags.I went halfs on Wednesday with Cats dad to buy a patio Herb Planter. A round polythene bag with eight pockets rather like the Victorian strawberry planter. Thats what mine will be used for too :)
Strawberrys and Potatoes will join the African Bag gardens on the Pavers. The Container kitchen garden is growing slowly. I ordered another two Veg planters but they have not arrived yet. I think there is a movement in the UK to grow Organic Vegetables and Fruit, and the experts mention how container gardening can be done on any sized plot.
The benefit for me is that the two borders can grow flowers and soft fruit, and the Vegetables will grow on the pavers. It will be interesting to see how it all grows. The seed packets have been organised into envelopes with coloured names of the bag gardens.

The Mystery red spear growing. I saw some plants at Hampsons that looked like this. I will leave it for a while before saying what I think it is. Blackswamp girl you have already guessed correctly.
Its Febuary 29th too, a leap year! March starts tomorrow and I imagine the growing plants will speed up. So much is going on in the small urban plot of mine that its hard to know what to blog about. I have plenty of topics to write about and photograph.
Hope you all have good weekends and that your gardens keep growing on :)