April Heatwave

We're never satisfied really. A month ago I was moaning about how cold it had been. Although average minimum temperatures are around 6°C in March, they'd dropped to below freezing at night, and I'd had to put the fleece back on some of the tenderest plants. But then it changed and the temperature rose to more normal figures. And kept on rising.... Only a week or so ago, it rose to 32°C - unheard of in April, which usually has average temperatures of around 18°C as a daytime high. I was watering as if it was mid-August rather than spring, and these little daisies just fainted one lunchtime when I hadn't had time to water in the morning. I have to say I knew just how they felt - I was in much the same state as I wandered around town.

The daisies recovered, despite also falling prey to a nasty attack of powdery mildew. I suspect that some of the spring blooms came and went rather quicker than they might otherwise have done, though. A pity, but the heat has pushed on some of the seedlings. The aubergines are now through, and the tomatoes are begging to be transplanted.

The best show so far this month has come from the wallflowers though. I planted far too many last year, but was looking forward to seeeing them all in bloom together. I'd planted some yellow ones and some browny ones whose seeds I'd collected from last year's plants, and some red ones from a packet. I wanted them mixed in the containers so had mixed the seeds together too. How would they come out? Well, those in the first container were all yellow.

And so were those in the second container. And the second, and the third... I'll spare you the photos of all six containers. Out of about forty plants, every one that's bloomed so far has been yellow, except two which have shown a few browny streaks. Given that my sedum is also in flower, it's been a very yellow month so far....

There are some wallflower plants which haven't yet bloomed - nor even put out buds come to that. Are those the red ones and are they simply a later variety than the yellow ones, or have they just decided they can't be bothered? Time will tell...

Yo-yo weather

March - and the month that, here in Milan at least, we can really get going with the serious stuff. The beginning of the month was very mild - two weeks ago I was out on the balcony in a short-sleeved T-shirt. It was well over 18°C and so, finally, all the last remaining fleece came off the containers.

And then, well, all those seeds were just begging to go in. So I spent a happy Sunday afternoon sowing.


The veg went in first - everything from lettuce and herbs (to stay outside) and tomatoes, aubergines and peppers (to come inside for a few weeks). And then it was the turn of the flowers - antirrhinums, alyssum, calendula, marigolds .. and lots more.

When it got dark I came happily in to cook the evening meal, and turned the TV on to watch the news and weather forecast. And they were forecasting snow for Tuesday.

Well, it didn't happen. But wow, did the temperature drop. Down to below freezing at nights. So the fleece went back on all the containers, and I covered up the seed pots as best I could.

The cold weather (and some torrential rain) lasted a week or so and then the temperature gradually began to creep up again. We've been back around 18°C yesterday and today.


Until a couple of hours ago that is. Adelio and I went out this afternoon to get some bags of compost. It was bright and sunny, and as we went I took some photos of the plants and trees which we saw on the way. There's Forsythia everywhere, and blossom on the roadside trees. And though I'm not desperately keen on this plant (whose name I know but can never remember - I always think of Pieris, but it's not) it does look wonderful in the spring when the new reddish brown leaves contrast with the rest of the bush.

Spring seemed to have arrived.

We were only inside about twenty minutes, but when we came out the sky had turned black and there was clearly a megastorm on the way. We just made it home before it broke...

The balcony is back...

In the last few days, temperatures have suddenly shot up. Walking home on Friday afternoon, I suddenly found myself unzipping my jacket and ripping off my woolly scarf because it was so warm. Don't know what the temperature was, but forecasts have been predicting anything up to 14°C (57°C) for Milan this weekend.

And on the way to the supermarket yesterday, I noticed that the new grass was coming through, and lawns were looking green again. Didn't even have to pretend to myself this year - it was clearly time time to uncover the balcony...

So this morning saw several hours of hard work out on the front. The fleece came off the containers huddled against the balcony wall and the dead stuff got thrown away. There was surprisingly little that hadn't made it, I was pleased to see. Most containers seemed more or less unscathed - like this one with the plants that surprised me by coming through last autumn (I'm more and more inclined to believe they're Montbretia), and a couple of Honesty.

Next, the railings and container holders, as well as the drip trays and the containers themselves, all got washed down - as did the tables. And then the fun started ...

For the past ten days or so, I've been "collecting". A visit to the garden centre last Sunday saw me coming home with a couple of bags of primroses and pansies, and when I was at the supermarket yesterday, and saw them putting out stuff that had just come off the lorry - well I couldn't resist.

So in they went, together with some other plants that had been keeping warm under the fleece since the autumn - like the cyclament I blogged about then.


But I wasn't the only one who'd decided that spring is just around the corner and it's time to wake up and start work again. While I was potting up the new plants, I had a visitor...

The first bee of the year - obviously pleased that he'd found somewhere where there were a few flowers. And very welcome he was too. May he be the first of many.



By the time I came in to make lunch, the sun had hit the balcony and the thermometer was showing 18°C (64°F). I'd stripped off the heavy Norwegian style sweater I use for winter gardening (I can't bear gardening in a jacket) and winter seemed only a memory.

But no - I'm not that naive. It's still only the first week in February, and a quick look at the forecasts for the next few days show that though daytime temperatures are staying up around 14°, at night it's going as low as -2°(28°F). So (if sadly) I left the tenderer plants, like my plumbago, close to the house, and wrapped them up again in fleece. The primula and pansies should have no problems, but there are a few biennials that I'm more worried about. Like the plants in the first container above. I think they're daisies, but have to admit that I can't really remember. But it's easy enough just to pop the fleece on at night and off again in the morning, using bulldog clips to hold it.

So there we are. The winter may not be over. But for the moment it looks as if we might be heading for an early spring. Or have I spoken too soon...

The Good News, The Bad News, The Borage ...

Haven't been blogging much recently because I've been too busy gardening. First a week getting the back balcony clean and tidy, and seeds sown ready for summer. And then a week in the UK, sorting out my London garden.

Now, if you've been following my vain attempts to keep the garden decent at a distance of 600 miles, you'll know that I've spent the last two summers battling with borage. When I left last autumn, I'd spent two months digging out taproots nearly as thick as my wrist. I cleared the garden, but I knew it wasn't the end of the story. Not only does borage self seed like crazy, but if you don't dig out every last inch of root, it just bounces straight back. And I knew that I hadn't. So the bad news is that when I got back, this is what confronted me ...

It was clear that another week of digging was ahead. Except that you try sitting at a computer for six months and then decide to spend all day digging. Balcony garden may be good for the soul, but the exercise that you get when coping with a real garden is sadly lacking.

Anyway, I did what my back would allow and managed to clear and plant several flower beds, as well as cutting the grass and the hedge and deadheading the hydrangeas. And the good news was that when I started, I found most of the borage didn't come from old taproots at all. It was from last season's seed - and came out of the ground like butter. Weeding in the spring when the soil is moist is also a different experience from doing it in the summer when the ground is baked hard. Even those plants which did have well-established taproots were far easier to deal with.

But back to the bad news. This year it wasn't just the borage. There were three other invasive plants covering the garden. One was this ...

In one of my posts last summer I remember saying that the garden was filled with hundreds of tiny bulbs which I couldn't identify. I even collected them carefully and replanted them in clumps. Well there they are, valiantly competing with the borage to swamp the flower beds, destroy the lawn and, in general, dominate the garden.

What are they? No idea. Wouldn't mind if they showed signs of flowering, but only one in about a thousand seems to be in bud. Which leaves 999 per square foot just putting out straggly, unattractive leaves. I yanked them all out as I cleared the beds, but much of the garden is still swamped. However, at least they're providing ground cover for the parts I didn't get round to.

There are some bulbs though which I've been quite happy to leave. Little clumps of muscari are dotting the garden, together with some tall, broad leaved plants which aren't flowering and which I can't name. But I've seen them flowering in a neighbour's garden and they're lovely. I think they're Snowflake, either Leucojum vernum or, as they're not yet in flower, possibly Leucojum aestivum. If so, they should be flowering by the time I next go back - I've planned another trip in early May - so I should see.

Some tulips are also in bud, and the daffodils which I planted last year have been glorious. The roses and lavender which I put in are also coming on well. More good news.

And back to the bad. There's a weed in the garden which I've never seen there before - but which is quickly taking over. Horrendous stuff - but luckily fairly easy to pull up. This is the compost heap...

Occasionally shy little flowers attempt to poke their way through ...

The third invasive plant is good news, however. Last summer I posted asking if anyone recognised a plant which was gradually creeping over the lawn and flower beds. It had clearly flowered in the spring because it was full of seed pods, but I had no idea what it was. Several people suggested violets, but I said no, I'd already thought of that and rejected it because the leaves were too pale. But what do we have here ...

Bright green leaves and little violets everywhere. So humble apologies to Disquina, Wendy and Jan - you were right all along.

So, it was a week of weeding. I did about a sixth of the garden thoroughly, hoed a bit more where baby borage seedlings were sprouting, and, on the last day, gave up and sprayed the rest with weedkiller. I'll be back in a month to see if it had any effect. But I suspect the borage may well have just lapped it up ...

Pansies and Primroses

Spring finally seems to have arrived. Only two weeks ago there was still snow on the ground and night-time temperatures were dipping to -5°C (22°F). And then suddenly today, it was here. Bright sunshine and 17°C (63°F). I was out on the balcony like a shot.

Off came the fleece, and the work of clearing up after the winter started. As I said after Christmas, I lost a lot during the big freeze this year, and there was a lot to throw away. But the real work on the balcony in February isn't really gardening at all. It's housework.



Washing down the railings, sweeping up the dead leaves, washing the floor, washing all the tables and container frames. As my husband said - Why don't you do that in the kitchen occasionally ?

Because that's his job. And anyway, he exaggerates. Back to the plot.



It couldn't be all boring stuff though. I had to have some reward for all the hard work. So while we were at the supermarket, I bought the first plants of the year - primroses and pansies. And concentrated on getting one corner of the balcony fully finished so that I could get the containers back up.

I've talked before about the dangers of buying plants on impulse at the supermarket. These looked healthy enough though. But sure enough, when I got them home, two of the pansies were completely waterlogged.

First aid was clearly called for, so I whipped them out of their pots, wrapped them in absorbent paper and sat them in the warm sun for a while. After a couple of hours the paper (which I changed a couple of times) had soaked up as much of the water as it was going to, so I popped them in the container with the others. I've left the surrounding compost fairly dry, so I think they'll make it. I'm hoping that they'd just been watered when I got there, rather than having been sitting with their roots water for a couple of days.

So we're off again. The cleaning up and washing down is going to take a while to complete, but there's plenty of more interesting stuff to do. The plumbago needs a good prune back, and the first seeds can go in. Please, please don't let the weather change back ...

Images of Spring

March started grey, cold and wet and hopes of an early spring seemed to disappear. But then it changed. And wow did it change. The temperature shot up, and the sky turned a clear blue. And before long ...

The forsythia came out.

It's rare for Milan to look good but if it happens, it happens in March. As we get very little wind, there's usually a pall of smog hanging over the city. The EU sets limits of pollution (measured by the level of particles in the air) which it considers "acceptable" and allows cities to exceed those limits for no more than 35 days a year before they impose fines. By the end of February, we'd become the first European city to exceed that total.

So thank goodness March brought winds. Warm ones at first, which had the trees budding and cleared the usual grungy colour of the sky ....

And for almost the whole month we've been able to see the mountains - something that usually happens no more than a few times a year.

Soon the cherry blossom started to come out too, but sadly didn't last long. A few hours of very, very strong gusty winds one day destroyed it before we'd had time to enjoy it. Just sad for the ornamental trees, but dangerous for the "real" fruit trees. The greengage tree below the balcony, which feeds the flocks of great tits and the chaffinches which live in the garden in summer, wasn't in flower for more than a couple of days. We shall see later this year.

Luckily I'd been out with my camera the day before the winds came ...

.. and just walking round our block had taken all these photos except for the one of the mountains, which was taken during a walk in a local park. The mimosa tree at the bottom of the road was in full bloom ...

... and the gardens around the appartment blocks were full of magnolias

The good weather and clear air went on for three weeks. Too good to be true of course, and March is going out as it came in - cold, wet and grey. And without the March winds, next month the smog will come back. Ah well. At least we had those three weeks.

Looking good ...

Even if I say it myself, the balcony is starting to look good. I worked hard last weekend pulling out the last of the spring plants - a sad goodbye to my little pansies - and rearranging the containers to emphasise the things which are now at their best. One of the few advantages of balcony gardening is that a lot of the the plants are mobile. Whatever is looking most glorious can always be bang outside your living room window.

Several things, like the pelargoniums and petunias, have been blooming for a while, and whether they were old plants, new cuttings, or bought this year have settled well and doubled in size. Some of the perennials, like the plumbago and the hollyhocks, aren't yet in bloom, but are growing strongly and their foliage is giving the balcony a lush, "full" look. And in a month or so they're going to be great. The hollyhocks particularly are towering over everything else and are full of buds. And lot of the bulbs, corms and tubers which I put in for the first time are now coming through well. This year's experiment are the dahlias, which because of their size had to go into the "container from hell" - a large container in a particularly shady, but extremely hot spot on the back balcony where very little survives. And yet they're doing wonderfully, and are now coming into flower. Probably because the hot weather hasn't hit yet. They're tall enough to find the light, but aren't yet suffering from heat exhaustion. We'll see what happens later.

One of my favourite plants is the lychnis which you can just see peeking through the hollyhocks in the picture above. I had several, but the majority, which were in a different pot, suddenly wilted. I suspect they didn't need quite as much water as the other plant which was in there.

Lack of some decent weather has held back the growth of the annuals which I sowed in March and April - the only disappointment so far this year. Yet again this week we've had torrential rain and temperatures well below usual. As I write there's thunder rumbling around, and this morning the bus even had the heating turned on. Things like the marigolds, which would usually be putting out buds by now, are still in their seed pots while the more delicate seedlings - like the surfinia - are still tiny.

The rain has also knocked down the antirrhinums and made the ivy leaved pelargoniums look a bit straggly, but there are plenty more buds coming through.

I don't like very hot weather, so I'm not desperate for the summer to arrive. But a bit of spring would have been nice ...

Gardener's Bloom Day : Sedum

In Milan, April is the month of sedum and it has to be my choice for this month's gardener's Bloom Day. Stand in any residential area of town, look up and you'll see balconies lined with yellow - sometimes there'll be container after container across whole apartments. It looks great - from below it's just a mass of colour.

But I've always been intrigued about what happens to it afterwards. The flowering period is only two to three weeks. Do the people who fill their balconies with the stuff really only want flowers for a couple of weeks a year? Are they content just to look at the rather boring grey green plant for the rest of the year? Because if your balcony is full of sedum, there's no room for anything else.

Possibly yes. Because if you don't actually like gardening but just want "decoration" on the balcony, sedum is the perfect choice. It must be the least demanding plant that exists, at least in relation to the reward it provides for the albeit brief time it's in flower. Forget to water it for a while? It'll still be there. Brush against it by mistake and break half the stems off? Just stick 'em back in the pot and forget about them. They'll take, and you'll have an even larger display. Which means that you don't have to think about spending money for it. Despite the fact that it's found everywhere here, I've never seen it in a garden centre. Who'd buy it when it's so easy to nick a bit from your neighbour?

I've even seen someone guerilla gardening with it. Near us there's an underground garage, and around the entrance they'd built a low wall, hollow inside and full of earth. But it had never been used. So one day this little old lady arrives with her trowel and all her bits of sedum. And half an hour later, she'd planted a flower bed.

Personally I've only got two pots of the stuff - one small at the front and a larger one at the back. I'm not willing to give it any more space than that, and for much of the year I find myself toying with the idea of getting rid of it all together. But then April comes and I think that well, maybe it's not such a bad plant after all ....