#AD ADDING SUMMER COLOUR TO THE BORDERS / GARDENING FOR BEGINNERS

Hi guys and welcome to this week's gardening vlog. My name is Emma, these are my allotment diaries and every Friday I'm going to be putting up a vlog all about my home London garden, what I've been getting up to, hopefully sharing some really good inspiration with you for your own gardens, or if you just enjoy watching kind of gardening content and me pottering around in my garden trying not to kill everything then this might be the channel for you. If so I'd love you to hit the subscribe button on my YouTube channel and never miss one of my vlogs. So in this week's video I'm going to take you to a garden that we visited which was a National Trust garden and I'm going to take you there because it was so inspiring and I got a lot of inspiration for roses, they had a beautiful rose garden there, so I'm going to take you there, take you into the garden centre as well and show you around and then show you what I brought and get gardening. 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So like I said we went to a National Trust garden and we went to Mordenhall Park, it was absolutely stunning there. So this is Mordenhall Park which is a National Trust park, absolutely stunning and the day we went was so sunny as well this is their rose garden I was going on about and I wish you could smell through the screen because the smell was incredible. They had so many beautiful roses, I think I really like the rambling roses and I'd love to have a rambling rose up over my house, I think that would just be stunning. So it's a really big park and they've got these wetlands there that you can walk around and see all the ducklings and all the yellow irises which are out in full bloom at the moment and it was just beautiful. And then just as you come in there's a cafe and also a garden centre, be warned though National Trust garden centres are quite pricey and I was to be honest I was a little bit disappointed with the amount of stock that they had in, they didn't have as many flowers as I wanted, they did have lots of roses there which I wasn't surprised about, bit on the pricey side though and I found a few sunflowers which I thought was quite unusual, I don't normally see sunflowers for sale in garden centres I think because they're so easy to grow yourself but I did pick up one because the slugs have got mine so that was handy. In fact I picked up quite a lot and you can see my kids helping me to carry it all home and I'll go through what I've got when I get back home. Gosh it's bright today so I can officially no longer be trusted in garden centres particularly at this time of year when everything is so colourful and there's flowers everywhere and I just want to buy everything and looking around those roses at that garden centre makes me want to fill my garden full of roses, they are just stunning and they smelt amazing as well so I definitely want to invest in some roses. Roses are quite expensive though aren't they, they're like ones that I really like like the rambling roses and the big David Austin ones were like £35 for a rose so it's not something I can invest in right now. Having said that obviously cannot be trusted in garden centres so I want to go through what we got so some of this stuff is from the National Trust garden centre and then we stopped at B&Q on the way back as well and I picked up a few things there because some things in B&Q can be quite reasonable I think so I'll show you what I got. The theme of my garden is pink really, what I've tried to do is stick to as many pinks as I can and then oh look all the bees happy, you're welcome Mr Bee and then I've tried to dot new colours in between so I like yellows so I like yellows and I like whites and I also like a bit of purple I think the yellow and the white pop out against the pink and purple so I do try to oh I thought the bee was going to get me then I do try to stick to a bit of a theme a colour theme but that's about it really so we went for this big geranium which I got from the National Trust garden centre I couldn't resist it look at the vibrancy of that pink that is so stunning I think it was only £10 as well absolutely gorgeous geranium I picked up a couple of petunias and I don't normally like petunias it's something I kind of steer clear of I'm not a massive fan of them to be honest I think they sort of look a bit trumpety which isn't really my cup of tea but couldn't resist the colours and they were only £2.50 each so I got a couple of those for pots because I know they like to spill over which is quite nice and I got a couple of these as well which I'm not going to be able to pronounce guys it's that basically agaranthymum but basically daisies let's be honest so I got the white one and then I also got the pink one which has got this lovely yellow centre with the darker pink circle around if you can see so beautiful and then they also sold sunflowers now I don't normally buy sunflowers are so easy to grow from seed but seeing as most of mine has been eaten this year and this is a multi-head dwarf sunflower so I thought I'd just get one and stick him in a pot and then from being cute I couldn't resist these little cherry blossom geraniums and I got a couple of those such beautiful colours and then I couldn't resist the dahlias again I don't normally buy dahlias like this I normally just plant the tubers but I got a little pink one just in the pot there a little yellow one how cute is he he is adorable and then two of the bigger purchases I made I got a hydrangea for my shady area because I don't know what to put in my shady area so I went for a pink pink hydrangea which is this one and he should do really well in the shade and I also got myself one of these which I've been wanting for a long time which is a jasmine um it's this jasmine I'm just going to show you the words because I cannot pronounce it but it's a climbing one and I think it will smell amazing and that's my little garden center hall for you so I've cleared out this um planter here I've left in this lovely shrub which I don't know what the name is but the bees love it I've just had to keep it a bit clipped back because it goes crazy and then I got this lovely scabia here for the butterflies which is just doing amazing so healthy I've got my sweet peas here going up the archway um but then I've cleared out most of this so some of the new plants can go in there and then down here oh look there's a tennis ball in there my kids been playing um so I've got the nice border with the boxes um which hasn't got any caterpillar damage so far this year fingers crossed it stays that way I have my lovely rose in there but I've had to clear out all of those forget-me-nots because they were sort of dying and looking a bit scraggly I have a couple of cosmos in here but they are getting eaten I'm not sure if they're going to survive so this is going to have to have some new plants in as well I'm not really sure where I left that last video um so it's a few days later and as you can see it's a lovely beautiful day blue skies lots of sun so I'm going to dot these about now and see where I'm going to plant them because they've been sitting in their pots for a few days it's been really grey and miserable in the UK especially seeing seeing as it's like June it's like a week into June and it's been really really cold so I've actually had to wear a coat out most mornings which is just crazy for June now it's lovely I can't wait to get these out and I think they're probably feeling the same way as well poor things have just been cooped up in these little pots for like a week um but they're doing really well and they're all alive so I'm thinking this bed here so I think this is about right so I've got my like daisy one there and then the other daisy one there and then the two geraniums here and over here and then I've got this lovely big pink one which is kind of right next to the rose but the rose isn't getting any bigger and I want something this year so I think that's about right also just before I get planting I just want to show you these new gloves from cord job so obviously I do work with cord job they sent me they send me free gloves um every month when they get like a new product launch this is their newest product launch how cute are these they come in I've got another pair as well um but these are my favourites I love the colour these ones are actually adjustable as well they have like a strap at the bottom which is so cool so cute um I'm in love with them I do have a discount code so go below and you'll see my code just below in my description bar and you can order yourself a pair with some money off but yeah just wanted to share those because they're so I just love them actually before I start I'm just gonna saw these lower leaves of the tree off so I don't think trees like having their leaves this low I think it saps the energy out of them obviously this is an ace no prunus it's a prunus it has a really long stem and then it kind of all splays out at the top which is perfect for smaller gardens and I really like the long stem because it means that I can plant all around it um and then it's thrown out some leaves here so I'm going to take these ones off I think damaged no it keeps bending I don't think it's made for this this is definitely not the right tool for cutting branches of a tree but it's all I could find I think this is actually cutting metal or something I don't know anyway I was trying to make I was just trying to make sure it was a really really sharp cut so that I don't let any like disease or anything into the tree so I'm trying to make it really sharp I think I've done quite a good job actually I think you're going to be all right please be okay I sort of noticed when I was doing that that I was pulling up some of the tree roots and also a lot of bulbs as well because I had a lot of um tulips and daffodils in here what I might do also haven't planted them where I wanted to plant them it's like it's not quite in the place that I actually put the pots in but I think hopefully they will sort of spread and I might throw in some Californian poppy seeds around here as well what I'm going to do now is actually mulch it with a big bag of compost that I've got and just give it a bit of a top up so I thought I would end my vlog today by showing you what I've got growing in my little greenhouse out here because a lot of you are always interested in what I'm growing because I know how hard it can be to remember to keep sowing stuff you know once you've got your plot in full bloom in the summertime it's quite hard to remember that that stuff's going to be picked and harvested and then you've got to put new stuff in if you want to continue the harvest so I do get it because in my first year I grew a fantastic allotment plot and harvested it all and then and then picked it all and then didn't have anything else growing for like months so let's have a look what's in my little greenhouse so these here are my calabrese now what happened to them I hear you ask well basically they didn't have enough sun I had them at the bottom and they weren't getting enough sun so they've gone a little bit leggy which basically means they've got a long a long leg and they're flip-flopping all over the place some of them are a little bit happier than others I think they're going to be fine I'm going to put them on again and bury them a bit deeper hopefully I'll be able to save those but those are calabrese and then over here I've got what are these kale you can actually tell they're kale because the shape of the leaf already looks a bit like kale so I've got some kale and then over here I've got absolutely love cauliflower so always growing cauliflower and then I've got some cucumbers these are the crystal lemon cucumbers you can see they are an okay size not ready to plant out yet they might actually do well if I put them on into a bigger pot and give them a chance to get a bit bigger down here I've still got my leeks now somebody told me that you shouldn't plant leeks out until they get to the size of a pencil and then somebody else said yeah but they never get to the size of a pencil so just plant them out I might just go for it and put them out I think the slugs will leave them alone so I might just go for that this I believe is a melon um but I didn't label him are you surprised no neither am I I didn't label him I think he's a melon so hopefully he'll keep growing he's doing quite happy out here and then these I don't know what these are that's cosmos and that might be brussels sprouts I don't know whatever they are they're a brassica so we'll pop them on and put them in the brassica bed and then I've got some courgettes because I actually killed on my courgettes so I've just started sewing them again I think these are the yellow courgettes but I might be wrong um so they look like normal courgettes but they are yellow and then I'm running out of room so I'm using this um shelf under here to grow some sunflowers so I've got the dwarf sunflowers which are multi-headed so they'll have lots of different sunflowers on them literally cannot remember what I sewed in here but I do know that half of it is something and a half of it is something else I don't know if that's at all helpful not really at all um but there are two different things sewn in here we go I guess we'll find out when they come up we'll find out and then there's some more sunflowers there being very hopeful with the sunflowers this year I do have some sunflowers growing at the plot I have two at the allotment plot and they are really tall doing really good but I'm going to try and succession sew them um and hopefully have even more growing because I do love them and then I've got some pots down here that I've kind of really taken off recently which is quite amazing I think because the weather's been so good so I have this lovely broad bean and he actually does have some broad beans on him look look at that just absolute proof that you can grow a broad bean in a pot because he's doing amazing he is absolutely covered in black flies or aphids whatever they are but I mean the plant seems really healthy and there's loads of ladybirds in my garden so I'm hoping they sort of help me out this is just a sunflower that's decided to grow all over the place I think he's quite funny so I'm just sort of leaving him uh this is a tomato plant that I killed this is a tomato plant that I haven't killed yet so hopefully you'll keep growing and then I've got strawberries in here look at these guys how exciting and that is a bullet from that my son was firing from the window but we'll talk about that another day maybe or not at all this is a cucumber that I planted out someone said he's got a bit stunted in my last video you might be right they usually do for me I've never managed to successfully grow one I can see a lot of slug slug slime on it as well I don't know I he's in the pot and he's there so if he wants to grow he can and if he doesn't he can just sit there and die um these are some potatoes these are early potatoes that I put in a bag and actually look what they're doing they're starting to flower and when they flower that's a good indicator that they are just about ready to harvest so once these flowers start to open up a bit more I think maybe sometime next week I might harvest these so stay tuned potatoes um this is a what is this blueberry blueberry bush and look I am getting teeny tiny little blueberries I don't know if they're going to turn into anything bigger than that we'll see I mean he looks quite healthy at the moment in this planter here the only thing that has changed is that I've taken out the radishes because they were just too close together and they weren't developing into anything more than a teeny tiny radish and I put in some rainbow chard I've also done something that I've never done before and that is to thin out my parsnips and also thin out my carrots just in the hope that I get some decent sized carrots I don't know if I've done it enough you think I sort of left this one here because I thought I'm trying to envision well let's see that one there that can come out that can come out because that's teeny tiny that's in the wrong place but I'm envisioning a carrot full-sized carrot one carrot two carrot three carrot I think they've got enough room then um but I've actually thinned them out I've never done that before I know right who am I who am I I've just noticed something behind me I don't know if you'll be able to see it on camera no I don't think you can but it's very very exciting come with me I can see my first ripe strawberry possibly the smallest strawberry known to man but we're gonna pick him I mean literally the world's smallest ever strawberry but it's my first ripe one I don't even know if I can eat this like it's so tiny but let's give it a go I mean I have to taste the first ripe strawberry of the season but I mean this is a little bit comical why is it so bleeding small right here we go can I even bite it okay what it lacks in size it makes up for in taste there is nothing like the first ripe strawberry of the season oh my goodness and now it's gone thank you so much for watching my video today I hope you enjoyed it if you did do give me a thumbs up leave me a comment below subscribe to my channel all of the above and I will see you again in my next video it's always flies about on Monday see you Monday guys thanks for watching bye