They're out!

One of my favourite programmes on BBC Radio 4 has long been Gardeners' Question Time, or GQT, as its most ardent fans call it.

Heaven knows why, as I've never had a garden of my own.

In my previous flat, I asked the landlord if I could take over the garden and was allowed one of the long flowerbeds. The other one was tended to by another family with a fondness for my least favourite flower: begonias. Ugh.

Anyway, since moving to this place in 2008, all I've had is a long balcony and I usually have up to 21 different species of plant in the window boxes and tubs there.

However, this still isn't enough to appease my itch for soil so, over the last couple of years, I've done some 'guerrilla gardening' - undercover gardning in the street in front of this building before the sun comes up at the weekend.

Now, I have a terrible touch when it comes to bulbs and it's been that way ever since I tried planting them as a child in the parents' garden. They've always disappeared. I've even used rulers to measure the right depth, as recommended on the bulb packet. And don't even mention the bulbs I bought at the flower market in Amsterdam in Easter 2017. I heard later that anyone would be lucky to get any bulb to flower from what they sell there.

Anyway, last year, I thought I would try again. I heaved three bags of compost over the soil at the foot of the tree in front of the building - week by week (not all in one go) and then I put in some tulip and crocus bulbs with the result that there is now a line of purple across the soil. RESULT!!

Maybe my luck with bulbs will change. Let's see if the tulips will bloom. The leaves are already there.

It would be nice if other people did the same in their own street. More plants, more flowers, more bees, more honey! Flowers beat litter any day.