Awful weather - typical Brits talk

phoebe1989seb

twopenny said:

Phoebe I put loads of primroses under a mature apple tree in my last place. It makes a wonderful sight. Always wanted to put a circular bench around so that I could relax under apple blossom and primroses in the Spring sunshine.

I'd like to put one of those benches in too, twopenny, although it would probably be around a different tree as it's a bit close to our paved seating area 😉😃

How coincidental that you and Dave were  both at Greencombe! Looks lovely!

It's been a mixed bag here today - one fairly heavy shower, typically after I'd just hosed some recently planted stuff 🙄 as well as sunshine, spits/spots and a bit of a breeze.

My Claire Austin delivery is due tomorrow....with DPD which is good as you get a one hour time slot 😎 Then I just need to locate a standard bay tree a similar size to the existing pair. Hopefully our local independent garden centre that's just moved to larger premises will have one that's suitable!

Here's a few pics - of the primroses (I think I've thirty-five in total now) and a couple with the large apple tree in the background (far right). I can't seem to find a good one showing it in full blossom...will keep looking 😉

twopenny

Oh how pretty! That's such a charming garden right out of a fairy tale.

DD265

That's a gorgeous garden Phoebe.

I'm now 99% sure that my nectarine has copped it, having snapped some branches yesterday. There is a small sucker so some of the roots must be OK, but it was a grafted tree so the sucker isn't going to be nectarine (Rootpac-R I believe). I don't understand why the peach is fine (it hasn't blossomed but plenty of leaves) but the nectarine never got buds. Do I need to replace it with a dwarf tree, or can I get a 'standard' one and keep it small between the pot and pruning? I think I may have to wait until autumn anyway as I certainly can't find any dwarf ones online.

The front garden is looking great; I'll take a photo over the weekend. We've had some rain and the slate is nice dry, but it's gorgeous wet. I'm glad my husband came around to the idea when he saw some Pinterest inspiration! The herbs appear to be happy around the front and the plants in the slate are perky, but it's too early to say they're all growing. I need to take the snips to my barginous £1 lavenders from B&Q - they've definitely got new growth so I'll take off the dead bits they came with.

My sad pepper is happy inside under a grow light. The fly trap is happy as well and the traps are getting redder all the time. The jade... I've not given up on it yet but I'm not too hopeful. There's black mould where the branches had snapped so I'm going to take the shears to it and cut right back to any healthy growth I find. It - and the nectarine - are coming out of their pots tomorrow so I can nosy at their roots. We're off to the garden centre to hopefully find a tree and pot for the front, so I'll investigate these two plants first and see what, if anything, I need to get.

I picked up the NGS open garden brochure and it's a bit overwhelming. If anybody visits NGS gardens, how do you choose which ones to go to without having pictures of them all? There's only one that's on the doorstep. Ideally I want inspiration for our garden but it's only 8mx8m and I don't think that's the kind of garden that gets featured easily. When 'Garden Answers' talk about a small garden, they usually mean something significantly larger than ours!

Apodemus

Earthed up my potatoes yesterday, using compost that I had made a couple of years back and was keeping in an old wheelie bin.  To my surprise, I came across a germinated seedling deep in the compost.  The seed was still attached and looked like an almond, but in the belief that it was more likely to be a melon or a pumpkin, I've planted it at the end of the potato bed.  Unfortunately, none of these species has the slightest chance of reaching maturity in my climate, but you just feel that, having survived against all odds in the compost, you've got to let it grow on!   It's another reminder, though, that my compost never really gets hot enough to kill weed seeds, so I'm guessing that my "almelonkin" will soon be joined by the nettles and tomatoes, that are probably happily germinating, now that they are out in the daylight. 

Davesnave

DD265 said:

I picked up the NGS open garden brochure and it's a bit overwhelming. If anybody visits NGS gardens, how do you choose which ones to go to without having pictures of them all? There's only one that's on the doorstep. Ideally I want inspiration for our garden but it's only 8mx8m and I don't think that's the kind of garden that gets featured easily.

The NGS Gardens are all on their web site and individual entries usually have 5 or 6 photos to go with descriptions.

Personally, I prefer viewing larger gardens or groups of smaller ones to get maximum bang for my contribution! Most gardens have well defined areas or 'rooms' where conditions are similar, so that helps to narrow the focus when viewing. I will also make a mental note to look at specific things sometimes, like how paths are edged, especially if I've been to a place before.

And with digital photos costing almost nothing, banging off dozens of those can take the place of tedious note writing too!

 With that in mind, here's a Trillium chloropetalum from Greencombe:

Farway

I have garden envy now Phoebe, lovely garden even though I'd struggle these days to get up the top

I'm saying put this BH as well, given the weather forecast and being retired I can pick my moments

DD265, I've read somewhere nectarines are the prima donnas of stoned fruit, vert Goldilocks, conditions have to be "Just Right".

I've given up because even my Apricot turned it's toes up and they are supposed to be tough, but the itch is still there and one may fall into my trolley some day

The replacement pear has been planted, just have to sit & wait now. I got it in before the rain really arrived, so it has been thoroughly watered in

Having rained I completed the muck spreading with the bags i bought a month or so back & was awaiting for the right time, it seems good stuff having been left in the bag a bit longer, smell has gone & is not sloppy. The rhubarb & roses should rocket away with that & the rain

Plus, Merton Thornless blackberry has loads of buds on, they seem to have appeared overnight, with the late Spring I reckon there's a lot of pent up growing to be done

Hardening off continues, I hope to get the runner canes up but the intended planting out I may delay having seen what is mid Atlantic & forecast for arrival on Monday

phoebe1989seb

Thanks everyone 😄

*Parts* of the garden are indeed starting to look quite pretty.....other areas not so much, such as the end with the massive fallen beech tree. That resembles something from the Jurassic period and I keep expecting to see dinosaurs roaming in my rose beds! There was already an even larger fallen beech there when we bought the place - no sooner had we engaged the services of a tree surgeon, than another came down....

Nonetheless, it's a far cry from the barren landscape that faced us three years ago - the one that the EA marketing the cottage referred to as "magical" 🙄 For "magical" read weed-infested, lol!

That trillium looks interesting, Dave - I've only come across the white type previously and my 'clump' of three purchased last spring have so far managed to produce a single flower between them 🙁

I'd love to visit some NGS gardens again. I think the last one we went to was somewhere near Compton Chamberlayne (close to where we used to live in the Nadder Valley) back in 2013! I need to take a look to see what's near us here in Carmarthenshire.

It's sunny here this morning with showers forecast later, but we'll be popping out to the local independent garden centre in a bit on the hunt for that standard bay, before the Claire Austin plant delivery which is scheduled for between 1.56 and 2.56pm. Digging the last of the white bed out will resume after lunch and hopefully the remaining sleepers will go into place tomorrow.

Apodemus

Phoebe, you've given me both garden-envy and DPD-envy.  For us, DPD deliveries get transferred at Perth to another courier for the onward journey, so the one-hour delivery slot is to a place 120 miles away!  DPD told me Wednesday morning this week and it appeared Thursday afternoon!

EDIT:  Actually I should just be grateful I got the goods at all - they had first been despatched on 12th April and went astray in the DPD system, so this was a repeat despatch from the supplier!

goldfinches

DD265 the way my friends and I choose which NGS gardens to visit is by where we can get to, what we want to see and whether there will be home made TEAS. We tend to find that looking at more than two or three in one afternoon leaves us with very muddled impressions so like Davesnave we take lots of photos and then make an album on our laptops later on.
Phoebe gorgeous garden, looks enchanted.

twopenny

Apricots are one of my favourite fruits and I have the hot garden for it. Each year they have lovely small trees in the local garden centre but a guy I've known for years who works there has repeated each year that it's money for kindling because they are too prone to die from bugs. But I'm still desirous of one and balancing whether it's worth the risk.

For finding small gardens I love the local villages open gardens. I took loads of photos when I went round just before moving to get ideas. I'm still bemused by mine though which will be an upcoming thread. The front was easy, I could see it straight away. The back remains a puzzle.

I doubt they will open private gardens again though this year. Who'd want a bunch of strangers in your garden in the middle of a pandemic. It's something I miss greatly.

I did get an idea for my last one from the garden of a large manor that had an open garden. I loved the way they had a seating area off the kitchen door and manufactured my own.