Awful weather - typical Brits talk

Apodemus

Black_Cat2 said:

I have a little scruffy patch of nettles I've let grow under my rhoderdendrum (probably spelt wrong) as I remember Monty (swoon) saying they are great for caterpillars. 

Yes, I have more nettles and brambles than is good for the garden, simply to feed the caterpillars, but I curse them every time I cut the grass in shorts! I left a couple of plants one year and now they are rampant and beyond any sort of control, even if I wanted to.

Black_Cat2

Jealous of your brambles A but don't fancy being attacked when doing gardening lol.  Your local birds must love the blackberries?

Talking of dangerous gardening I swear a wasps nest I have been avoiding in one spot in my garden is still active 🙄

Apodemus

Black_Cat2 said:

Jealous of your brambles A but don't fancy being attacked when doing gardening lol.  Your local birds must love the blackberries?

Talking of dangerous gardening I swear a wasps nest I have been avoiding in one spot in my garden is still active 🙄

The birds are too fat after eating all my gooseberries, strawberries, redcurrants and raspberries! Just wish they'd show the same amount of interest in the snails! And I've just finished hand-pruning a big holly bush (4m diameter and 4m high), taking every stem back to the berries so that the redwings can get easy access over the winter. I've also been planting blackthorn into the hedge in the ultimate hope of getting some sloes in a year or three - whoever comes after me into this garden is really going to hate me!

 We had three wasps nests this year - one in a bush, one in the garage roof and one in the house roof. We evicted the one in the bush, as it was right on the patio and easily brushed against if you leant back in the chair. But strangely the two others died off on their own in August. The one in the house roof must have been pretty big, judging by the numbers coming and going, but one day I noticed that the entry had changed to a lower junction between slates and there were wasp grubs loose on the outside of the slates. After that, numbers slowly died down and after a week or two there was no more sign of occupation. While I am secretly glad that they are gone, I do wonder what went wrong to kill off two nests over the space of a month.

Davesnave

We have the ground nesting wasps here and occasional hornets, but neither is much of a problem. Haven't found any nests this year.

Another dreich morning. At least we had some sunshine before the heavens opened yesterday and it was quite pretty for a while en-route to the big shop. 

Quietly topping up the reserves for another !!!!!!-up  lockdown or a hard Brexit, or both. Don't want to eat the sheep prematurely!

Farway

Also raining here

I'm quite fortunate on nettles / brambles because my garage is in a block away from the house and there is a spare bit of land adjacent. Left over I assume because not big enough to squeeze even a tiny house in at that time

I encourage brambles there, for pies, bees & security, nettles also grow there, and someone struck "Dark Knight" buddlia cuttings in there a few years ago  to encourage butterflies & discourage tipping

My buddlias self seed and I let them get on with it, hoping one will become a real stunner.

One has potential with dense flowers the rest are bog standard grow out of a chimney pot variety

There's a ground nesting wasp nests near my volunteer border, still active but out of the way so I've just put a notice up to beware of it, it's where people wouldn't normally be unless up to no good, but in this lawyered up age where even burglars can sue you if they trip over your carpet [ok made that up] a charity can't be too carefu 

Also quietly topping up but at least next time round the shops will have systems in place but still can't fix stupid

Black_Cat2

Wasps are definitely still active.  Hoping they move along or whatever they do soon.  I've been avoiding them since I first came across the nest hole and got stung, bless, they aren't a problem otherwise but I do want to get into that patch of the border to clear away some died off long stringy things (can't remember what they're called lol).  Wouldn't cope with three nests A, maybe two dying off was a blessing but yes a mystery as well.

Not sending any crap weather to you today/tomorrow D.  I think you could do with a break so I've asked the gods to send you some dry/sunny weather tomorrow 🤞

Sounds like your volunteer border keeps you busy F.  How many peeps are involved in keeping it in good order and what do you grow?

Not sure where C is, guess got lost up the M5 lol 😸

[Deleted User]

Black_Cat2 said:

Jealous of your brambles A but don't fancy being attacked when doing gardening lol.  Your local birds must love the blackberries?

Talking of dangerous gardening I swear a wasps nest I have been avoiding in one spot in my garden is still active 🙄

I have experience, unfortunately, of wasps nests too 🤨 
Scratched out some silicone around a upvc window and in through the cavity up  into the loft 😯 
In a friends house i saw them going into an airbrick .... sure enough, they were up in the loft ...... ain't nature clever 🤔😏

[Deleted User]

Davesnave said:

We have the ground nesting wasps here and occasional hornets, but neither is much of a problem. Haven't found any nests this year.

Another dreich morning. At least we had some sunshine before the heavens opened yesterday and it was quite pretty for a while en-route to the big shop. 

Quietly topping up the reserves for another !!!!!!-up  lockdown or a hard Brexit, or both. Don't want to eat the sheep prematurely!

Lovely capture there, D.

Yeh, leave the sheep for another few months please 😆😋

[Deleted User]

Black_Cat2 said:

Wasps are definitely still active.  Hoping they move along or whatever they do soon.  I've been avoiding them since I first came across the nest hole and got stung, bless, they aren't a problem otherwise but I do want to get into that patch of the border to clear away some died off long stringy things (can't remember what they're called lol).  Wouldn't cope with three nests A, maybe two dying off was a blessing but yes a mystery as well.

Not sending any crap weather to you today/tomorrow D.  I think you could do with a break so I've asked the gods to send you some dry/sunny weather tomorrow 🤞

Sounds like your volunteer border keeps you busy F.  How many peeps are involved in keeping it in good order and what do you grow?

Not sure where C is, guess got lost up the M5 lol 😸

😆😋 i'm here BC 🖐 
Had a busy couple of days so not been here as much !
Yep, went up the wotsit on Tuesday, today i'm local to home and a quietish day.
Rain, rain, rain, and a bit more rain lately, temps go up and down like a fiddlers elbow too - i do wish we have consistency in patterns and temps instead of the variation hour by hour 🙄😣

Davesnave

Catsacor said:

Davesnave said:

We have the ground nesting wasps here and occasional hornets, but neither is much of a problem. Haven't found any nests this year.

Another dreich morning. At least we had some sunshine before the heavens opened yesterday and it was quite pretty for a while en-route to the big shop. 

Quietly topping up the reserves for another !!!!!!-up  lockdown or a hard Brexit, or both. Don't want to eat the sheep prematurely!

Lovely capture there, D.
Yeh, leave the sheep for another few months please 😆😋

Surrounded by views like that, I don't have to do much to get good pictures. I usually carry a pocket camera for practical reasons, because my phone is so old fashioned. However, it gets a signal here, whereas smart phones often don't pick up  texts. Not much good if you're banking and the code you need comes through tomorrow!

We have 1/2 a lamb already, but it's in someone else's freezer until we eat ours down a bit more. It's like the oil, where we filled the tank, but at double the price it is currently. Got that wrong!

Grey misty rain again currently. Visited dentist yesterday, so feel slightly better, but she's no fun now in all that PPE!