Awful weather - typical Brits talk

Dustyevsky

Fun and games last night at the hedgehog feeding station:

Farway

Bit late today, an early start to Morries for some plants. I got there so early the lazy s0ds had not put them out, still in their cages. Had to mooch about in the shop, pork pie check, nope, too dear this week, checked YS reduced section, nuffing worth while.

One cucumber & a portion of Somerset Brie later the plants were loose. Quite a good choice today, and not many dead ones either. I came back with 3 trays of bush fuchsia, 12 in all, 3 for two [£6], and 3 clematis, also 3 for 2, £6. I have decided to let the clematis ramble horizontally over the manhole bush & Pet Poo border, allowing that two will probably go North anyway. At £2 a pop worth a gamble IMO

YBE Glad your ladies courgettes are up the duff Farway, does that make up for the lezbeans? I'm nearly sure I've got nasturiums/nasturtia (?) in my seed library, if I've got any will I send you some?

Thanks for the offer, but problem now solved with the Morries plant haul this morning, made note to self to get seeds next time I spot an offer

Wort ,how’s your Cafe au lait Farway ? Some of my leaves are looking like they have some black bits 🧐They are cracking on, sturdy & staked, seem pest free so far. I need to further tie in this week as they grow. My Bishop ones have buds. But a disaster on Dahlia Nuit d'Ete I had it out hardening off and was moving it ready to plant out when I snapped the stem off at the base 😱. Now I have one tuber and no idea if it will come back or not.

Here's my round courgettes, hopefully impregnated

PS,, jut refreshed, Dusty amazing how fox manages to get in. Camera proving it's worth anyway

twopenny

I can't give you anything as dramatic as Dusty's photos so it's simple does it.

Harvested a dozen small gooseberries from one plant. Other nada. Can't blame them because they suffered before they got a home and then last year's drought. But plants thriving so maybe next year.

Half a dozen tiny broad beans that were infested with blackflies and some surprise purple sprouting which made a meal between them.

I've been watering and feeding one jug at a time and had a failure trying to pull up weeds with my grabber. So more thought on that one.

Then a dead pigeon on my strawberry patch 🥺 managed to scoop it into a bucket and asked nice neighbours son to put it round the back on the municipal compost heap. I tell you, the brain is getting a workout on how to do stuff without bending or lifting. 😏

I have Morrisons Clematis survived I don't know where but they struggle through the undergrowth each year as much as to say 'do something about it '

One had to squeeze through the undergrowth to get seen.

Looks like the purple ones do best. The red and pink seem to have succumbed 😕

Stitches out today. All aides but crutches and grabbers put away 🙂 now 4 weeks of working on recovery.

Sunnyish today but clouded over. Stories of showers tomorrow - maybe.

LessImpecunious

Nice purple clematis 2P, and I like the undergrowth too 🙂

Funny cloud pic Less, it looks at if somebody's taken
against that one particular tree and set it on fire 😄 No Mow May has
been good to you eh, what's growing in your grass? Owt lovely?

Just "weeds" - daisies, white and red clover plus the little yellow trifoliums (and bigger "eggs n bacon" ones in some places, dandelions (though mostly finished flowering now) and two other yellow dandelion-like flowers (Crepis and Hypochaeris I think), plantains, knapweed, wild sorrel and various thistles, plus ragwort, so some I must eliminate before seeding occurs, and some which are a bit (or a lot) thuggish and need to be mowed down (along with the lusher grasses)… Plus lots of "flowering" grasses (as they like to refer to them on gardening progs…), and in some places sedges (which the gardening progs like to lump in with the grasses, annoying pedantic types like myself 😁).

I think they're all (well mostly) lovely as long as they get the occasional chop or at least a nicely mown path through or alongside them, sadly lacking in many places, though I have managed some mowing in the past few days (Sunday written off as our morning walk turned out longer than expected and was unable to do much more than hobble about on return…)

YoungBlueEyes

Morning all, on umm working day 2 of 5 😏

Stitches out already 2p, jeez that came round quick. We’ve the same clematis, a lovely rich colour eh

Dusty will you shrink that hole to keep the foxes out, or leave it be for anyone who needs fed…?

That’s a bu99er about your snapped dahlia Farway, will it produce another spike do you think? Or come back next year? 🤞🏻

That’s a good haul you got for not mowing Less, I got a couple of red poppies and a few stalks of grass got tall and seedy and that’s all I got *sigh * I’m with you on the sedge too, if I know that then they sure as ship know that so what they saying it for?! Grrr.

See if you can keep hold of a bit of that wind wort - it’s still as a statue here this morning, all clammy and muggy and urgh 🙁

We were in Lidl the other day (looking for plain full fat natural yoghurt. Why don’t Aldi do any fgs?) and they had some plants outside - the pics don’t do them justice, the colours were subtle and delicate and lovely -

OT 13’c here currently and a high of 21’ to come, they say. And cloudy with it, not a ray of sunshine to be had, possibly. Warming up again too these next few days 😣

twopenny

 * I’m with you on the sedge too, if I know that then they sure as ship know that so what they saying it for?!

Because they think it's too much for our tiny brains to manage 😵‍💫

Bluey, Have you got a photo over your desk of the treat this extra work/pay/time in lieu is paying for?

You stare hard at it when gritted teeth aren't enough. Saves a fortune on dental bills 🤣

Dustyevsky

2p: I can't give you anything as dramatic as Dusty's photos so it's simple does it.

Most of my photos aren't dramatic. 🙂 The dragonfly picture was mainly luck. Without a 18x zoom lens and a very bright day, it would have been impossible. As for the night vision automatic camera, it's just that; automatic. No human input needed, beyond setting it up, which is down to Mrs Dusty. 😇 I just download the images.

Bluey : Dusty, will you shrink that hole to keep the foxes out, or leave it be for anyone who needs fed…?

Mrs Dusty put our hole shrinking contraption back last night. It foiled the fox, but we shall have to add some steel rods to stop it moving things, once it's had time to think through a strategy.

Here we are….fox has a go, but fails. 😜

Hedgehog has no problem. He's inside the box. 🙂

Oh dear there was more here, but I followed Farway's link to the snapped dahlia and when I returned it was gorn. 😰

I'll maybe post again later…..Gotta get going. Wind good for bonfire and no rain till after midday.

Farway

Sunny & warm, no rain due, Dusty's rain all goes Northwards once he is wet enough. Which is mixed blessings. I think I'll be back to watering by Friday, I need to give the dahlias a feed anyway

YBE That’s a bu99er about your snapped dahlia Farway, will it produce another spike do you think? Or come back next year? 🤞🏻Don't know, it was "only" £3 so not a big loss. If I'd been at a Lidl I think I'd have grabbed some of those lovely dahlias as subs for my snapped one.

Must be true that purple clematis are bruisers, my Morries one that is thriving from a few years back is also purple

Managed to plant out the new fuchsias & one clematis yesterday before my back said Stop. If they grow I think they'll look good. I don't expect them to survive winter & vine weevils, but at £6 I can live with that, and you never know, they may pull through.

Only job for today, back permitting, is tie in the Cafe Au Lait dahlias and try to plant a Japanese Japonica in the Pet Poo border. It's "Try" because the ground is like concrete and my back may not allow me to give it a good forking.

The T & M offer seeds arrived, tempted to add a few white foxglove seeds pinches to the Forking area in pet poo border

Spotted a beetroot coming up, as planned, in my Right Wing flower baskets. No sign yet of the white Alyssum, which is worrying as they are normally like weeds

Spotted these near my garage yesterday on way to Morries. it's just a bit of ground I drive over as I park, not cultivated or pampered. I'll try to spread the seeds about once they set

Guest hover fly photobomb

twopenny

Grey and cloudy with useless dribbles of rain. But warm.

Unfortunately today I've had a visitor. Despite vaseline a grey squirrel gets up the pole easily and trying to destroy the bird feeders. It's looking thin and was happy to let it clear up underneath but this is a step too far so I've had to remove them.

Little birds sitting on the pole looking bewildered

What is the little blue flower behind the pretty poppy Farway? Looks interesting.

middlewife

Pesky squirrels, 2p; we had to put a cone on our feeder to stop them as our garden is quite narrow and they could launch themselves from surrounding fences; it's now precisely in the middle, 6 inches either way and they can manage the leap. It took about a week of them trying and failing before they gave ujp, now they just clean up the crumbs from when the magpies have been swinging on the fatballs; we have a resident woodpecker family now and the mum brings the juvenile to teach them how to use the peanut feeder - simple pleasures….