Rain + clay soil = weeding nightmare

The rain continues its relentless downpouring and i've resigned myself to having to deal with tougher weeds; our ground is very clay-y and with the rain it makes it impossible to weed without snapping half the roots off so any attempts at clearing the borders are counter-productive.

My tallest sunflower is about 2 1/2 inches though :) and its top little leaves are open.

The mini rose on my windowsill which i (almost) killed in the frost is surving on one of its parts :) there were four shoots comming out of the ground orignially (dunno whehter it was four separate plant or just one...?) but three died when i left it in the car over night during a hash cold spate, but i have loads of new leaves on the surviving part :)

even if one of the bits i had to cut back has gone mouldy...

Lots of things seem to be going mouldy this year. Mum says its because its so damp and cold at the moment and there's loads of moss around where we live so the spores make it worse or something....? don't know how true that is, but laods of my seeds are going mouldy and the roots of plants. Part of me isn't sure whether the ends of baby seedling's roots are supposed to be like that, but its a bit frustrating. Just hoping they'll grow through it because i can't think of anything i can do.

Put some lavender, verbena, cosmos, corn/field poppy gys... something or other in mum's heated propagator yesterday, so hopefully in a while some of that will come through. Not entirely certain how many of those should have gone in it, so i put some pots of the same in dad's greenhouse (which is now apparently mine, but due to the dead tomato plants, big thing of woodshavings and massive box of tool-type stuff i have to step over it still seems very 'dad's' to me. Will be interesting to see which comes up first :)

Also experimented with some Ipomoea, because i read you should soak the seeds over night in warm water because the shells are quite hard, so i did that for some ''morning glory'' ones and they doubled in size and you could see the pale bits of seed showing through, so i planted some of those in two pots, and some un-soaked ones in two others, put the big pots in dad's greenhouse and the little ones in my room so they can have a race aswell.

My yellow carnations are comming up and the first two of my third batch of ''inkspots'' ipomoea (the purple and white ones that mum originally got for me). the old sutton's sunflower seeds appear to be dead though :( might have to buy some more or try another of mum's packets.

The nasturshiums (excuse the spelling) from best before 1989 have moulded though, but the bedding stocks from 2001 are doing just fiine :)
-apart from the ones with the furry roots like i said earlier in mum's greenhouse.


Weeding yesterday i also had troubles telling appart some of the young buttercups from the peony. Think i killed a couple of canturbry bells aswell becaue i thought they were one of those annoying underground nettle roots or yet more ivy. Bunged them back in the ground anyway so they might survive....


Its the annoying thing about weeding someone else's garden thats been left alone for too many years... theres just the odd cluster of plants dotted around that have somehow survived and spead and i'm obliged to do my best not to kill them. Can't help having a certain amount of respect for anything thats survived our garden though....