Awful weather - typical Brits talk

pink_poppy

My bullfinch (that wasn’t) an easy mistake to make 😂 and one of the Snakeshead plants looking nice, despite the heavy rain over the last couple of days…

Working_Mum

Hello everyone,
It was splattering with rain early doors here when I started my walk with R0meo. Thankfully within a few minutes it had passed - wind has replaced it though! I passed a garden with a beautiful array of primula's in their borders and then spotted their next door neighbours lawn was strewn with baby Primulas- apologies for the poor pic but it was early.....



I feel very industrious as I've washed the blankets from the sofas so they're ready for Spring and they're out on the line to dry! 

I'm going to get into the garden this weekend and I have done myself a list to keep me focussed! I am hoping that as the days lengthen I can get into the garden after work each evening. I need to cut my grass but think I can get away with the privet hedge for a few weeks yet. Does anyone know when it's safe to cut hedges once the birds have fledged - I can never remember tbh.

A huge magnolia tree near me isn't as far on as the one in the thread earlier. I love the little pond 2P it's really sweet - I am seriously considering digging one this year -  the idea has been rolling in my head for a couple of years but it might actually happen this year! On the subject of red Acers- L!dl have had them in store around August time for the last couple of years - I bought one last year for about £8.99 and looking at it this morning it is showing signs of having survived the winter!

I have a sack truck Farway - it was a cheapy one bought when I first moved here (almost 5 years ago!)and I use it LOADS - it's so useful for lugging things from my car into the garden etc. 

Luna you live in a really stunning area - I don't think I'd ever get bored of exploring that area. Good luck with the weight loss for those on that wagon - slow and steady wins the race for sure. I love the lamb's little feet.

Your new path looks great Dusty - I have to confess I read SIL as sister in law (not son in law) and marvelled at how lucky you were to have such a talented sister in law 

I am loving hearing the birds choir during the day - made me realise just how quiet the last few months had been.

I hope you're making headway with your garden PP - your bullfinch chimney pot pic made me laugh and I love the snakehead fritillary (sp). I planted some in post a few years ago but no idea where they are. I'm happy with what seems to be popping their heads up in my garden at the moment.

Wishing everyone a smashing weekend - I'll be sea swimming at 8am tomorrow - conditions look perfect!

((WM))

Dustyevsky

pink_poppy said:

Dusty, the partial solar eclipse is tomorrow. Shame, because it was sunny here at 11am (and I was stood waiting with my pinhole projector at the ready before I checked   )

Sorry! I was rather confused. I thought it was Saturday, due to activities going on here.  

Once I realised it was Friday, I decided to visit the dump green waste bank to deposit six dumpy bags of laurel with them. However, that journey was hijacked by BiL, who wished to purchase huge quantities of comestibles. So, we ended-up in a brand-new Lidl and a Morries, after finally ridding the van of rotting vegetation.   BiL does speed-shopping, so I'd no time to look properly at anything, but Lidl seemed to have some different seeds from those I remember last time, so maybe they're staggering the supply this year?

If Morries had acers, I didn't see them Farway, but I have one of their 'boring' YS green ones DD got me for 50p, so that will do for now.

Breezy here but very sunny.  I'm off to hoover the van, needed to transport stuff for an event on Sunday. It  still smells like a compost heap!

twopenny

Freeezzzing here from the North wind today.

I'm trying not to put the heating on because I've just paid the bill. That was scarey. And the inflated bill for the fence post.

Farway they fill out in a couple of years but don't grow big. I'm tempted to get a couple more if we get them here. It's taken a while but the autumn colour is just lovely but they don't take up the space of a big tree. No clearing up either

Love the photos. SH fritillery is lovely. But I've never felt the need to grow them. No idea why.

No way I'm I going to look at the moon Dusty, in this wind.

Yup, been washing greatly while its so dry (but did get the rain overnight thank goodness) and my plan to water the pots which they badly need, has gone awry because leg back etc went to pieces. Very frustrating. Maybe tomorrow.

YoungBlueEyes

Good morning weekend play mates   A lovely morning here, sunny but cool and still. We've had a few nice days here, the sun's been out - even if it was tempered by the wind - and it feels properly Springy with all the flowers n stuff bursting into life. 

No gardening done here (work is v stressful atm, bluddy stamp duty changes and people are being completely unreasonable erseholes about it) but I did get some plants last night in morries - I think it was the shock of the gc bit being open wot threw me - so now I need to hoik out some dead 'well they might die' things so I've room for them I bought an orange rose (an orange rose!), a "thornfree" blackberry, and a rhododendron cos the flowers on the label look like wafty silky hankies so I had to. I'll get pics. I didn't see a red acer or I'd have lifted that too.

I like the babby lamb Luna and the gorse Dusty I can't wait for it to come out round here. You take such good pics Luna I bet you'll be a regular on the front page. Wort those wee flowers do look like my ones, I've more come out now and yours are just like them. Did someone say they were scillia? (sp?) Gawd that's some work you've done there Dusty, what will you do with the hornbeam bits? Firewood or sling them in a pile for wildlife? I've got diddy snotters buds/figs on the ends of my fig branches too Farway, it's all a bit giggidy eh   Did you have a nice not-Mother's-Day meal out pp? I agree it is a bluddy racket, same as Valentine's meals and Christmas meals and all that carryon.  I absolutely agree - a blackie or 2 or 3 singing away is one of the joys of life 2p, if they could start a bit later in the morning though I'd be fine with that I think I prefer the dusk chorus to the dawn one tbh, there's less urgency about it, it's less piercing. 

Speaking of Carlin peas - I used to live in the town where the shop was that was the Home Of The Carlin Pea. 
https://www.foodsofengland.co.uk/carlinpeasorbrownbadgers.html
The recipe on there is how we used to eat them, boiled then fried in dripping then drowned in rum. #MoreThingsWotKidsTodayWouldNeverBelieve.  The way to stave off Fartin' Monday (the day after Carlin Sunday) was to carry an onion in each pocket and a whole clove of garlic in your mouth all that day. It never worked though, I think daddy made that bit up, god love him
 
Arb hasn't reappeared then no? @ArbitraryRandom Has anyone got their tatties in yet?

That's a proper grown up garden you've created there Dusty  Anyone else thinking we should abandon the search for Rottery Acres and just move into Dusty's...?  

Dustyevsky

Working_Mum said:

Does anyone know when it's safe to cut hedges once the birds have fledged - I can never remember tbh.
Your new path looks great Dusty - I have to confess I read SIL as sister in law (not son in law) and marvelled at how lucky you were to have such a talented sister in law 
I hope you're making headway with your garden PP - your bullfinch chimney pot pic made me laugh...

Good luck with the weight loss for those on that wagon - slow and steady wins the race for sure.

I think hedges aren't supposed to be cut from April until September, as many birds fit in multiple broods, but I'm sure people in the city used to do theirs at random times in summer. I make one pass along our garden side of the elm hedge in early July with a quiet battery trimmer to improve density. That's of overall benefit to the birds, which hide in there, but they rarely nest. Most parts are simply too cat-accessible.

I'm sure there are some sisters-in-laws out there with huge biceps; that being the main requirement for laying 3' x 2' paving slabs. I could just about manage them once, but alas, no more.

I laughed at the chimney pot misidentification, too. Then I remembered surreptitiously sneaking a photo of my new old neighbour working by the shared hedgerow, only to find I'd taken a fetching picture of a tree stump. The cut piece looked like a bald head.

With arthritic knees, losing excess weight is a no-brainer. I agree, crash-dieting is too much punishment and unlikely to improve morale. The rest is down to focused exercise and, it seems, the weather. I've found my osteoarthritis isn't helped by rest, which isn't surprising, as muscle wastage with age is part of it. The physio gave me exercises, to which I've added cute little 'extras', like climbing up and down hedge and stream banks, chainsawing!

twopenny said:

No way I'm I going to look at the moon Dusty, in this wind.

I got the wrong day!   Not so windy today, but it looks as if clouds may obscure things before more rain arrives.

Blooming cold here this morning, and our heating's on, regardless of the cuts. The weather outlook's good for the next week, though, and despite all the scary nonsense, heating oil prices are at summer lows already.

When we arrived here, it was amusing to see a local artist had altered a number of local road signs with funny results. On my recent trip over the low moors, I noticed someone has revived the 'tradition,' though not as skilfully. Yes, we are behind the times, and times being as they are,  most of us like it that way too!

YoungBlueEyes

Pics. The 3 as yet homeless newbies - 

A lovely puffy something. The stick at the back is the branch of fuschia from up the road that did eventually stick to me

My front ‘garden’. I put about 20 daff bulbs in along there and this is all I got for my trouble - 

My back’s looking better though. These daffs were those nets of random floor sweepings carefully selected to compliment each other daff varieties that you get in Tesco. Much better. 

Forgive the size of the pics folks, my phone used to let me pick the size I wanted to post them as but it doesn't do that now. If anyone knows how I can force it into doing what I want I'd be grateful
I agree with Dusty re the hedge cutting wm - you should only cut your hedge between October 1st and when the daffs start to come up. They need leaving be inbetween times for the birds to get their wee babbies up and away. Good to hear that R0me0 is getting back to top form  

Farway

Cold, but sunny & bright. Heating on here as well.

pink_poppy said:

Happy new red acer, Farway, is it going in a pot??

It will be for the time being, it's only small, about a foot high, and would be smothered in my jungle. Once it's got a bit more robust, or died, I have just the spot.

YoungBlueEyes said:

 I bought an orange rose (an orange rose!), a "thornfree" blackberry, and a rhododendron cos the flowers on the label look like wafty silky hankies so I had to.

I've got diddy snotters buds/figs on the ends of my fig branches too Farway, it's all a bit giggidy eh   

Snap then! 

I have a Thornfree blackberry, had it a few years. 

Not quite the taste of Merton, but good enough to warrant the space. Tasty when really ripe, OK for crumbles.

BTW They root easily at the tips if you just poke the tip into soil. I have one in a large urn that came from just such a event.

Mine runs along the fence, cane can get over ten feet if you let it

The birds seem to leave mine alone, too busy elsewhere, I guess

So, figs R Us!

I've always liked orange coloured roses, never grown them, just like them. Maybe one will find its way into my next Morries trolley, along with the compost?

That puffy something, ball primula? AKA Primula denticulata, drumstick primrose

Good luck with the sticky fuchsia stick, my fuchsias are just breaking buds, so fingers crossed for the stick

My daffs are all “going over” now, a pleasure while they lasted. I may get round to dead heading them if sun keeps out & my back behaves.

Hoping to start another batch of pea shoots later, this time it's real up-to-date seeds

Plus, back & sun allowing, sort out the Boysenberry, get photo, maybe, of the Snakes head, very dangerous 'cos they're behind pear branches and need to be a Houdini to get there

pink_poppy

I haven't been gardening for about a week, W_M, everything has ground to a halt because of the rainy weather. We're forecast lots of sunny weather this week coming, so I'll be back out there. Some smaller gabion stuff popped up on my FB feed, so that's given me some ideas too.

Dusty, I was stood there like a lemon yesterday, with my back to the sun, waiting for the partial eclipse to start   It didn't help that I already had Friday in my mind for it to happen, so not really your fault haha.
The tree stump incident reminded me of a shadow I saw on our front room wall a week or so ago that looked like Humpty from Play School. I took a pic and then my DH pointed out that it was his (bald) head with his glasses perched on top - I laughed out loud at that one    

YBE, it wasn't me with the Mother's Day meal - I was out for lunch last weekend though.
Your garden is looking lovely, very Spring-like
I did laugh at your Fartin' Monday after Carlin Sunday    

Farway, have you used your sack truck yet?? I can just imagine you strutting around with it like my DH was when he got his very first wheelbarrow    

Did anyone see the partial eclipse then?? No chance here - it's been raining non-stop and we've got 40+mph winds forecast for this afternoon. It's a day for staying in, putting the fire on and reading a book.

pink_poppy

One of my Amaryllis garage rescues from previous years has decided to start flowering today… 😊