Awful weather - typical Brits talk

twopenny

No gardening today apart from a visit to the garden centre, no square pots, no stone pots and a visit to the Morrisons new garden greenhouse where the great plants no longer are so a few bob saved.

Today it rained, cold too and I had a major tooth removal so it's slow for a while.

Thought I'd post my beloved new £2 iris. The others I have in this colourish cost a fortune so feeling smug. There are 2 rhizomes and I'm tempted to put them seperately in front of these two box balls either side of the step and in front of the windows as they show off nicely against the green. But I think that might be greedy and they may suffer from planting out at this time of year.

What do you think?

I could whip another from my bigger clump, slightly different colour come the autumn.

The box balls are going in the ground because they haven't thrived in pots. This is their 2nd.

MovingForwards

Hope your mouth feels better soon @twopenny
The iris is gorgeous!
How long has the box been in the pot and in that time have you scraped any of the soil off and replenished it, or fed it?

twopenny

Thanks MF

Yes to the box. They were in square pots but got too big for them and hard to water so I put them in bigger deeper pots with new John Innes compost and feed occasionally.

The box growing in the ground front and back is flourishing. The problem with these also is that it gets so very hot at the back which is why I part sank these pots.

Davesnave

Here's a picture of the seed mix I received. Considering they are outdated, I expected maybe a few more, especially as the web site says there should be 80.

Davesnave

Sorry to hear some of you have had more windy batterings and extractions. My expensive tooth is holding up so far, but reading around the interweb I see that many people are unable to get treatment at all, even now. We have been so lucky here.

It rained almost non-stop yesterday, so we went to Exeter to order tiles for the conservatory. We'd bought and taken 4 home last time, only to find they were obviously from different batches, but we expected a proper order would guarantee some sort of match, especially at £52/m2.

But no, no guarantee, so it was back to the beginning...... We have some more samples on order and at least they're £12/m2 cheaper.

No more rain forecast for the foreseeable, so I will start planting out courgettes etc. We're selling off the surplus tomatoes @ £1. Here are t'others, planted out. Fruit on a few.

Sorry about grubby floor! Leggy mizuna in trough is for seed! Buckets are cat deterrents!

phoebe1989seb

Stunning iris, twopenny 😄 I love irises but my favourites (germanicas) which we planted by the pond at our last house where they thrived, don't like conditions here sadly. Instead we've tried some sibiricas in the new white bed and at least one has buds so I'm keeping my fingers crossed! Last year we also bought a Berlin Tiger iris which survived the winter but no sign of buds...yet.

We have some large box in the ground and they're doing ok, but we found that the smaller balls/cones didn't (many died - we assumed it was box blight etc, but it appears not) so we transferred the remaining few to a planter and they seem to prefer it there.

It's a real learning curve here after our previous gardens (Hampshire, Essex, Wiltshire and the West Midlands) where most things seemed to grow happily 🙄

twopenny

That's a very classy layout Dave.
No rain forecast for a week but they've been saying that for ages so not sure I believe them. I have to wait for everything to dry out before I can do much. May go to watchet market where there's a very good plant stall. If you're passing on a Wednesday morning it's worth a visit. Wellgrown and unusual plants.

embers123

That looks brilliant Dave!

pink_poppy

Very jealous of all the tomato plants, Dave. I’m hoping next year I can grow some. We have to sort the garden out first as it’s pretty wild in parts.

Welcome MovingForwards, you sound super organised and motivated. Do you fancy a trip to Argyll?!

Hope you’re feeling better today, twopenny.

Brilliant photo of the damselfly, Farway. The only thing I’ve seen in our small pond was a pond skater. I still haven’t spotted any amphibians, just some movement under the water.

Quirky, I love listening to the birds. There’s always a thrush singing away on a morning when I put some food outside. The blackbirds are so bold at the moment, practically coming into the house because they’re so impatient to be fed.

 I spotted 😉 this on a rhubarb leaf earlier. Can anyone identify the ladybird variety??

in_my_wellies

Here are some ladybirds:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2013/jul/22/ladybird-species-harlequin-uk-insects
There are many more varieties than I knew!