Welcome To Our Second Gardening with Cats! Fun Flower Display & Top Planting Tips

Welcome to

Happy Monday Pawesome Pals

And welcome to another Gardening with Cats post. Now today we're not growing anything from scratch like last time, instead we're going to do a little planting with some flowers that the P.A. got from the local wholesale nursery.

We must add that as the spring was so miserable and seemed to last fureffur she didn't get to the nursery until late May, and when she arrived she discovered that there wasn't many flowers left - yep it was true, due to the weather warming up, a lot of peeps had been and cleared the place out so she was left with a completely random selection that nopurrdy wanted.  And they were in tiny, little pots too, so would take some catching up. But not to be a defeatist she took effurything she could fit in the car.

Anyhoo, if mew're a long-time reader mew may remember way, way, way back in 2015 that we'd been purrusing garden idea's on Pinterest and we came across a really neat idea to transform an old ladder into a really nice garden feature, and luckily we came across a ladder that was purrfect fur a make-offur in the shed, and here's what we did with our ladder*.

So what has all this got to do with today's post? we hear mew ask.

Well that same ladder we gave a make-offur all those eons ago is the subject of today's post, as we think mew can never have enough flowers. Though in our original post we grew herbs in it, and yes funnily enough he P.A. bought basil & parsley to plant! 

Lets show mew what we did with it this year.

Purretty Flower Ladder

What Mew Will Need:

A suitable ladder - see our previous tutorial, link above*

Plant pots that can be attached to steps

Organic compost

A completely random selection of plants [MOL]

Optional - gloves four handling compost 

Optional cat fur snoopervison ~ Today Fudge was on-paw to offur much needed guidance and to take us through the step by step destructions.

A quick re-cap on what the ladder looked like before and aftur it's original make-offur under the careful snoopervision of Angel Snowie.

"Come on!" Fudge said. "We don't have all day!"

"Excuse me?" replied the P.A.

"I'm a furry busy cat, I have oodles of fan mail to reply to and then Basil has got me doing extra weapons training with Parsley and then I'm off fur another driving lesson in the unimog," he answered testily. "And we're burning daylight right now!"

"Alrighty... OK... keep your fur on dude!" retorted the P.A. "I'll go and load up the compost on the trolley and bring a selection of flowers to the ladder and meet you there in 5 minutes."

A short while later the P.A. appeared dragging the trolley laden with compost and flowers.

"Mew took your time!" Fudge chastised as he tapped his iWatch screen and tutted.

"Give me a break would you," the P.A. said. "The least you could have done was give me a paw with the trolley!"

"PFFFFFFFFTTTT!" Fudge replied. "Mew're the muscles around here, so that's your job."

At this point I thought I'd better intervene.

"Children, no squabbling in the garden! Fudge behave yourself and help the P.A. mew have all the time in the wurld to do your itinerary today," I quipped, then added. "Now play nicely and get that ladder planted!"

"Mew heard Basil," Fudge said with a smirk. "Get that ladder planted!"

A few moments later the P.A. had placed several plants on the ground fur a closer inspection.

**Top Tip**

Before planting, make sure mew thoroughly water the plants 

Aftur his careful inspection of the flowers, Fudge jumped into the trolley.  Relishing the feel of the moist compost under his paws, he said. "Wow this compost feels fantastic under ones paws!"

Then dad appeared under the carport and Fudge said. "Dad can mew make me my own little compost area?"

WHAT THE FLUFF!!!???

And no I don't want to know why Fudge want's his own compost area--EEEEEEWWWWWW!

But enough of that, here's what happened next under the effur watchful eye of Fudge. 

The P.A. filled the metal pots half full with fresh compost and then she placed the flowers [still in their plastic pots] on the ladder to see how it would look. Aftur a bit of juggling we finally, sort of made it wurk with the random flowers we had and so the P.A. carefully removed them from the plastic pots and planted them in the metal ones using more compost and then gently firming them in.

With the flowers now in situ fur the summer and autumn we gave them a really good watering, but as they were so small it'll take a while for them to get purroperly established.  We think they'll look their best towards the end of the month, so we'll post another photo to show mew how they're getting on.

**Top Tip**

To get the best show, don't furget to give them a little boost weekly/fortnightly with a specialized plant feed. We also have some slow release fertilizer pellets which we mixed in the compost at the time of planting to assist with growth.

>^.^<

Weather Update:

It's been supurr hot - in fact totally scorchio - here in Mewton-Clawson fur the past few weeks and we've had zero rainfall, luckily we have quite a few large water butts around the property so rather than 'shocking' the plants with icy cold tap water on the foliage, we use the watering can to make sure that the leaves don't get scorched or damaged and we only water after 8pm when the temperature has dropped.

>^.^<

Also earlier this year the P.A. bought 3 old wooden crates, she did plan on using them in the catservatory but then changed her mind and did this instead with some of the remaining random flower selection; furst she painted the crates white and lined them with heavy duty black plastic, making sure there were plenty of drainage holes in the bottom, she also used some stone in the bottom to help with drainage:

And they'll only get better with time and care.

We love flowers [not cut flowers though] and think that no matter how crappy your day is or what's going off in your life, to see a colour explosion greeting mew when mew get home makes effurything better, and if flowers don't do it fur mew, go hug a tree! MOL

Well that sadly brings us to the end of another Gardening with Cats, we do hope mew enjoyed it and do let us know if mew decide to make your own flower ladder.  

We'll be back on Wednesday with our new post called '8 Things About...' so we do hope mew can join us again. Oh and there's a new puzzle on the 'Puzzle Page' of our summer vay-cay to keep mew entertained in the meantime... 

Until then

Bestest green-pawed purrs

Basil & The B Team xox

Disclaimer:

We at BionicBasil HQ are not responsible or liable fur any injuries to person/s and/or cat/s, gardening addictions, compost on cats, misplaced tools and gloves, cats stealing your string, broken plants, or your project not turning out as planned.  By using this information you hereby agree to indemnify and hold harmless BionicBasil and staff from and against any and all claims for personal injuries or damages of any kind arising from use of any Gardening With Cats posts we may share.

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