Excited by the buds appearing in my garden… any ideas?

[Workingmomof2]

I moved in a year ago and starting to focus on the garden. Last year I planted a few bulbs but should have waited as soon the beds were full of lavender and other plants and my plants I planted were lost beneath the others.

I was surprised to see some little buds appearing for the first time this year. They’re small and yellow. I’m a newbie but enjoying discovering things growing in my garden. I bought a mini greenhouse and seeds.

any ideas what kind of plant or flower these are.

also should I be trimming the dead lavender plant back to its roots or not?

Crocus?

Lavendar is best pruned after flowering (around August) so I'd give it a light trim now, just to tidy and take last years flower stalks off, and then in August take it back to a neat shape by removing up to half the length of the stems. So long as the stems have some green left on them, they will reshoot. Take them back too far and they may not.

Ok thank you. I had 3 lavender plants. One I left completely. The other two I trimmed right back to the bottom stalks with nothing left. Might regret that now.

Woody herbs like Rosemary and Lavender. Don’t prune them. They need light trimming. If you cut into the old wood they will suffer. They don’t last forever. So plan to replace every 5 years or so.

Eeek!

Still, you never know. I once rejuvenated a massive old lavendar by taking it back very hard - though I did it in sections - and it thrived.

Sometimes nature hasn't read the rules so fingers crossed

You have a little yellow crocus. They spread so hopefully you might have a couple more next Spring.

Just leave the crocus to do it's thing. The little leaves will die back after flowering and it will disappear until this time next year. Perhaps plant some more bulbs in the Autumn.

Give the lavender a bit of a tidy. After flowering is best but now will do to keep it in shape. They tend to get rather straggly otherwise.

is it sad that this is really interesting and exciting to me! I’m really enjoying learning (from scratch) how to grow and look after plants. The excitement I felt with a seen the little crocus was really funny to me as I have never been bothered by gardening before.

I bought this house and the people before me seemed keen gardeners and have done such a lovely job. I was surprised all last year when things would suddenly sprout and appear from no where.

it has made me want to preserve their efforts and hopefully enhance it.

I have a 6 year old who Is also really keen to help.

Sorry, late response. It's not sad, it's brilliant. Great, healthy, fun and educational way for you and your child to spend time together.

Yes they're crocus . I'm slightly concerned that your lavender won't recover from being pruned so hard but it often needs replacing after 2-3 years anyway so it's not a biggie

I have just planted tulips bulbs. Any hope of seeing them this year?

I always wait to trim my lavender until the spring. I saw a bee feeding on some late flowers at the end of last year, I'm talking December! so I was even more grateful I do this. I just trim them to where the last set or so of new leaves are starting to sprout. This keeps them nice and fairly compact and not get too leggy.

@Workingmomof2 it's so exciting to see what is happening in the garden, I went out today with my gloves and secateurs to cut back some overgrown shrub (cotoneaster ) that catches my washing on the airer , and some brambles that are rampant .

My dogwood has new leaves ,so does my older Boston Ivy . There's a newer one which I haven't looked at yet
My Passionflower looks a bit meh , I'll cross my fingers and give it a feed . Hopefully it;ll grow , it looked gorgeous last year .

Some bulbs coming through , ?daffodils .

Pear tree and a white flowering shrub are just starting to show signs of life .

Too cold to do much more .

Sadly not . Tulips are best planted in late Autumn/ Early Winter. The new series of Gardeners World starts in couple of weeks on Friday nights on BBC 2 . I can heartily recommend watching for this year at least . It will show you weekly things to do and it will mostly concentrate on Monty's beautiful garden over the season.

You could buy grown tulips from the garden centre which will flower for you this spring,

Had a look at my crocus this morning… a lot of them have grown and flopped over onto themselves or into the soil. It doesn’t look good at all. I’m thinking they need to be buried a bit deeper into the soil?

I don’t think planting deeper helps. What does help is growing the smaller species and varieties, and growing amongst other plants or in grass so they get support from the surrounding vegetation.