This is the month for ‘A Big Clean Up” in my greenhouse!! July and August are probably the only months of the year when I have very little growing inside – my seedlings have been pricked out and moved into the cold frames and the sweet peas were flowering on increasingly shorter stems so I was happy to clear them out of the greenhouse bed. An empty greenhouse is a good excuse for some spring cleaning. I had planned to get the people from Alitex to come and give my greenhouse a really deep clean, but time ran out again so I will have to put that off until next year.
Although there are no flowers in my greenhouse, what exists in abundance is August is clutter – unwashed pots, empty boxes, used labels, broken tools and bits of hose abound, as well as a multitude of spiders webs and dust. It is not long until the greenhouse will be a busy place again with seeds to sow, Paperwhite narcissi to plant for Christmas flowering and the chrysanthemums to bring inside for flowers in October and November. At present most of the contents of the greenhouse are spread in messy piles on the grass and inside are just cleaning buckets and the pressure washer. Whilst this spring clean is going on there is not much to photograph, so instead I thought that today I would review the flowers that I grow throughout the year.
I always feel that September is the start of the gardening year and I love the process of planning my bulb order in August ready to get on with planting in September. September is also when the greenhouse starts to come back into the limelight and much of my bulb ordering will be for flowers to grow in my greenhouse.
The first flowers in September will be pots of Acidanthera which are already growing well outside. These bulbs were ordered in late spring and planted at the end of July. As soon as the spring clean is over I will bring these pots inside and hope to have these graceful white flowers to enjoy in late September and October. I know I could have planted the bulbs outside and had earlier flowers, but I like to have these beautiful flowers in bloom later in the year, when it is better to grow them inside protected from any bad weather or early frosts. In September I will also sow the winter variety sweet peas which I will grow on in the greenhouse for early spring flowers.
In mid October I will bring inside the chrysanthemums which have been growing on in pots outside since May. These were bought as rooted cuttings and have been potted on twice to date.
When I bring them inside I will plant some in the greenhouse bed and others in large pots. By leaving them outside until mid October (and ‘stopping’ them – that is pinching out the growing tips – in June and late August), I hope to have them in flower in November and December.
At the beginning of November I will plant my first batch of Paperwhites in the greenhouse bed. I order 250 bulbs every year from The Gedney Bulb Company and plant them in batches of 50 at the start of each month from November through to March. This will keep me in scented delicate flowers all over the Christmas period and well into spring. An arrangement like this can easily use 30 blooms, so having 50 blooms a month is not as many flowers as it sounds.
After Christmas the temperatures in the greenhouse drop to their lowest point. All that is in flower in January are the Paperwhites, but I know that by early February the first of the iris reticulata will be opening their stunning faces.
These will soon be joined by pots of crocus bulbs,
and the deliciously scented hyacinths.
As the indoor bulbs start to go over, spring is arriving outside and there are flowers erupting everywhere.
If I am lucky I will be able to out together a last arrangement of indoor bulbs which might include a few anemones that were tucked into pots last autumn.
The indoor sweet peas will have been planted into the greenhouse bed in January and by March will be growing strongly and showing a few buds.
By April they will be in flower, along with a few hardy annuals sown last autumn and grown on inside.
As I have only just removed these sweet peas that is nearly a year of beautiful flowers to enjoy from my greenhouse.
In summary my greenhouse diary is:
- August – spring clean & order Paperwhites, iris, crocus, muscari, hyacinths and a few tulips to grow in the greenhouse, order sweet pea seeds and ‘stop’ the chrysanthemums
- September – bring inside the pots of acidanthera and sow the sweet peas.
- October – bring the chrysanthemums inside.
- November – plant the first batch of Paperwhites
- December – plant another batch of Paperwhites
- January – transfer the sweet pea plants into the greenhouse bed and plant another batch of Paperwhites
- February – plant another batch of Paperwhites. Enjoy the many pots of spring bulbs.
- March – plant the last batch of Paperwhites and enjoy the hyacinths and tulips that will be blooming in the greenhouse. Add some autumn sown annuals to the greenhouse bed
- April – start cutting the first sweet peas. Order acidanthera bulbs and chrysanthemum cuttings.
From April until July I had the sweet peas to enjoy. Whilst all this is going on there are salads and herbs to eat and lots of seed sowing, but today I just wanted to look at the flowers that I grow every year. This year I hope to add more tulips and amaryllis to my growing plans.
Flowers in the greenhouse are one of my biggest gardening pleasures – I hope that today I have inspired you to consider growing some flowers in your greenhouse! If you have any questions please do leave a comment and if anyone has written a greenhouse review this month I would love it if you would leave a link so that we can all take a look.
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Please could you tell me if your green house is heated or left cold through winter?
Thank you for commenting Gillian – I do have an electric heater in the greenhouse but only use it when I have seedlings growing and temperatures are very low. All the bulbs & flowers that I grow are very hardy so do not need any extra heat.
We are lucky enough in Sydney not to need greenhouses though I love the look of them 🙂 I am in love with your chrysanthemums; it is the symbol for Autumn in Chinese paintings and literature.
Thank you Mary – I love to hear about the symbolic meaning of different flowers in Chinese culture – thank you for commenting.
Thanks for all the information relating to your yearly plan and your greenhouse flowers. I’d definitely like to have more flowers in mine next year but I can’t believe your lovely greenhouse is largely empty now! Surely your father’s old one still has tomatoes etc?
I feel our greenhouses are out of synch as mine is (rather belatedly) absolutely heaving! Here’s my post
https://duverdiary.wordpress.com/2015/08/13/the-greenhouse-review-mid-august-2015/
(And as a little aside, I’ve just heard today that my daughter’s place at Durham Uni is confirmed. Am I right in thinking your daughter graduated from Durham this summer?)
Hi Jen – sorry for the late reply. My daughter did go to Durham but graduated last summer. Congratulations yo your daughter – I am sure she will love it. If she has any questions or worries let me know – I am sure my daughter would be happy to advise her. Re the greenhouse you are right – my fathers old one is full of produce! In my rush to write the post I forgot all about mentioning it. Well done for spotting my omission and I will make sure to include it in my September post.
A really interesting post Julie. I enjoyed reading about your yearly plan. I love all the round the year, flowe arrangements. By the way, the Ammi plants you gave me in April have been an absolute joy. I just love them in arrangements.
Thank you Chloris & I am so pleased you enjoyed the ammi – mine grew into gigantic plants!!
My greenhouse is very empty in summer too, Julie. Despite the new (expensive) outside shading one day the temperature inside rose to 49.8°C, I can hardly believe it. so it is not surprising that the only plants thriving in the intense heat are lemon grass and 2 passion fruit plants I amazingly managed to grow from seed. No fruit as yet but I am hopeful for next year. Thanks for sharing your plan, it is very helpful even if I have to change the months, the pattern is there.
Wow Christina – I am amazed that the outside shading was so ineffective. Hopefully it will keep the temperatures down in other seasons – your summers are just to hot. AS you say you will need to rearrange the order of activity quite significantly to make things work in your very different climate, but I am pleased my plan works as a starting point.
The only part of the greenhouse that isn’t shaded is the front and doors, I’ll change that next summer. Also the automatic windows didn’t open early enough I think I can adjust the temperature they are set to open. The lemon grass and passion fruit are loving the temperatures
What a marvellous blueprint for utilising greenhouse space all year round, and superbly illustrated too.
Thank you Kate – I am glad you found it useful.
Yes, I second what Kate has just said – I know I kept a record of all my seed sowing but it wasn’t all planned in advance like yours and you have included some useful prompts. I have been mulling over a bulb order today and haven’t decided yet what to grow in the greenhouse over winter – decisions, decisions! I have chrysanthemums for the first time so need to look into stopping them – just nip out the top?
Sorry Cathy – I am catching up tonight and have just seen your question – I have cut mine back by about a third – I just look for buds lower down the stems and cut back to there. Mine are all still outside and I am planning to leave them there until mid October, unless the weather is very bad. Last year I moved them inside in mid September and they were all flowering in October. I am trying to hold them back until November this year if possible, but it might not work.
Thanks Julie – I did check online and cut them back but perhaps not as much as a third. Mine are from SR and some she describes as indoor and some outdoor, so I shall move the indoor ones in due course
Thanks for another great post, you have been a great inspiration to me in getting my greenhouse operational again and am very happy to join in with my first update 🙂
https://gardeninghands.wordpress.com/2015/08/15/my-inaugural-greenhouse-review-august/
Thank you Jill for joining in this month and I am so pleased that I have inspired you to start using your greenhouse again! I apologise for being so late in replying and really hope you will join in again next month.
You are so organized and get such great results! I want to thank you for writing about sweet peas in your posts earlier this year and inspiring me to try them again — I wintersowed them in late winter and they have kept blooming from June until now (although they are blooming on short stems now). This is the first year I have been able to grow them successfully, and the inspiration you provided really helped! 🙂 Thanks for continuing to write about your impressive greenhouse efforts. -Beth
Thank you Beth – I am so happy to hear that your sweet peas have been a success this year! Top of my list for this weekend is to dead head and feed my sweet peas – they are looking very tatty and I want to make sure they keep flowering for a few weeks yet. Do you know that if the plants have reached the top of their supports you can train them horizontally as you would a climbing rose and they should throw up more flowering stems.