Have you had a lot of garden plants die this winter?

[20Bees]

My casualties include rosemary (pots and in the ground, sage in a pot, hardy fuchsias, youngish agapanthus, and several carex grasses in pots. The oldest lavender looks ropey. There isn’t anything id have thought delicate, the garden is mainly grass, with veg beds, herbs, trees, pots.

Lots of the pots are teeming with ants. In 30+ years here ants have used various spots in the lawn, but not in my pots. Last autumn I planted about 100 dwarf crocus, irises and narcissi, in windowsill-type troughs with violas. Two of the three troughs have lost half their violas, but not a single bulb has emerged. Not one. Would ants do that, or simply the weather?

Almost all the seeds i sowed last year failed, flowers and vegetables, even cosmos and calendula. I think all that has thrived and self-seeded is aquilegia, even forget-me-nots are well down from the usual display.

Happily the rhubarb is wonderful!

 

[girasol]

Just read this, thought I'd share here Ditch your spade, forget fertiliser, listen to the weeds: Alys Fowler’s guide to laid-back gardening

 

[gentlegreen]

I had acres of nasturtiums last year and the soil is covered with seeds, but only a very few, sad-looking self-sown ones

 

[iona]

I had acres of nasturtiums last year and the soil is covered with seeds, but only a very few, sad-looking self-sown ones

Give them time, I usually find nasturtium volunteers only really get going when my runner beans are already right up the poles and flowering

 

[platinumsage]

I planted a bare root narrow water rambling rose back in November, it was just a sorry-looking stick. It's gone absolutely ridiculous, it's a full-on bush already and I can literally see how much it's grown each morning.

Everything is so verdant in the garden it reminds me of growing up in the West Country, which had nearly twice as much rain as here in East Anglia.