Plants and animals

This year I've decided the garden needs to be pretty. Everytime we've had flowers, the birds have eaten them or they've died. I forget about this when I buy annuals that they don't just come back. Last year I bought a Laurentia and it lasted a month or two. Thankfully I got seeds from it and have now got a plant ready to put back in the garden come April (I don't plant out in March unless it's a hardy annual, we had a frost only this morning) plus a ton more seeds should I want to grow more.

I don't actually know much about plants, but I have carefully read some seed packets. Our garden is mostly in shade and it's mostly a rockery so I plan to get a pot or two for "pretty" plants and I also bought some alpines to fill the gaps in the rockery. I have sown French Marigolds (annuals!), Nigella (love in a mist- ARGH more annuals!), and my new favourite thing- dahlias (yey perennials!). At least with the annuals if I like them I can collect the seeds, if I don't I can swap them about next year for something else, especially if I find that all our plants are blue like I did the year before last. I've also put some wild flower seed in the vegetable patch as I don't plan to use it this year.I've got a dahlia tuber to play with as well, I wonder how many plants I will get? I am new to tubers (except of the potato variety) so having to do some background reading.Anyway less of my learning-to-garden stuff... have you seen this new quiltalong? I really couldn't resist this one, despite my vow not to make quilts from anything other than my own patterns and bee blocks (except existing WIPS) this year.The Forest Quilt Along is all paper piecing, all animals, birds and plants. 12 12" blocks in total. The first block is a woodpecker and it's available now.I'm going to go and subscribe to all of the blogs now so I don't miss a pattern.