Awful weather - typical Brits talk

Farway

Dull with that drizzle type of rain here. Leaves are quickly going from the trees now with more bare wood than leaves showing

Black_Cat2 said:

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?

There are three of us involved now. It is just a strip adjacent to the car park, so gets trodden on and generally abused.

The soil is poor, clay with stones and car park run off

Over the years I've tried various options, wild flowers was one, but came up against "They're weeds" folk who think borders must be red pelagoniums geraniums on parade

Someone else planted fibrous begonias, also on parade, but thought his effort stopped there and some minion would do the rest of the care required, like watering / weeding

In the end for a couple of years no one did anything, it was just left to it's own devices, but I used to chuck some Love in a mist or sunflower seeds down to show it was not just a strip of soil

In late 2018 it was dug over by another local volunteer group, not sure how to phrase it, fit but need guidance in life?

They basically removed every living thing, including some herbaceous perennials, like Red Hot pokers & lupins. 

I decided the final solution would be shrubs that would stand abuse, neglect, no water, no pruning and flower at the appropriate time

To this end I began collecting likely ones from choice garden suppliers like Poundland, Home bargains, with some near dead twigs reduced to 50p from Wilko

I did splurge out on Sambacus Nigra "Black Lace" & a Lilac. [£3.50 each I think]

They were potted on 2018 and kept at home summer 2019 with planning to plant out Autumn / Winter 2019

Winter 2019 was rain, rain & rain, the border became a puddled clay pond so cunning plan put back to Spring 2020

Come Spring, three of us, a married couple [he digs, she loves weeding] plus me with a bad back,  planted out the pot grown shrubs

Then came Coronavirus & lockdown. We are in the "vulnerable" group so border was left to to get on with it through out the dry summer

We started again May / June 2020 some had died but the majority had survived the drought

Here's where we started in Spring 2020, some the shrubs are in, "Black Lace" just beyond the white bells

And this was June when we came back after lock down, one Ribes survivor to right

I'll continue this tale tomorrow

Black_Cat2

Enjoying reading it F, look forward to reading more... 

[Deleted User]

Farway said:

Dull with that drizzle type of rain here. Leaves are quickly going from the trees now with more bare wood than leaves showing

Black_Cat2 said:

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?

There are three of us involved now. It is just a strip adjacent to the car park, so gets trodden on and generally abused.

The soil is poor, clay with stones and car park run off

Over the years I've tried various options, wild flowers was one, but came up against "They're weeds" folk who think borders must be red pelagoniums geraniums on parade

Someone else planted fibrous begonias, also on parade, but thought his effort stopped there and some minion would do the rest of the care required, like watering / weeding

In the end for a couple of years no one did anything, it was just left to it's own devices, but I used to chuck some Love in a mist or sunflower seeds down to show it was not just a strip of soil

In late 2018 it was dug over by another local volunteer group, not sure how to phrase it, fit but need guidance in life?

They basically removed every living thing, including some herbaceous perennials, like Red Hot pokers & lupins. 

I decided the final solution would be shrubs that would stand abuse, neglect, no water, no pruning and flower at the appropriate time

To this end I began collecting likely ones from choice garden suppliers like Poundland, Home bargains, with some near dead twigs reduced to 50p from Wilko

I did splurge out on Sambacus Nigra "Black Lace" & a Lilac. [£3.50 each I think]

They were potted on 2018 and kept at home summer 2019 with planning to plant out Autumn / Winter 2019

Winter 2019 was rain, rain & rain, the border became a puddled clay pond so cunning plan put back to Spring 2020

Come Spring, three of us, a married couple [he digs, she loves weeding] plus me with a bad back,  planted out the pot grown shrubs

Then came Coronavirus & lockdown. We are in the "vulnerable" group so border was left to to get on with it through out the dry summer

We started again May / June 2020 some had died but the majority had survived the drought

Here's where we started in Spring 2020, some the shrubs are in, "Black Lace" just beyond the white bells

And this was June when we came back after lock down, one Ribes survivor to right

I'll continue this tale tomorrow

Absolute favourite of mine, i have 4 here 😍😍😍 


By the way, why don't you like the word Pelargonium ?

Farway

[Deleted User] said:

By the way, why don't you like the word Pelargonium ?

Couldn't remember how to spell it, plus my spell check as you type turned it's toes up at it as well & CBA to look it up

Dull day again, not raining yet but looking like any time now

The quietly stocking up for CV & Brexit may pay off again going by this morning's news, could be bad for some with darker days and not really sitting in the sunshine weather

I'll continue planning & dreaming of next year's super crops, my mind wanders off to a "Core Blimey" apple, not just the name but sounds like a good 'un

Continuing the Border tale

Adjacent to the border are protected oaks, beyond the trees is an area that has been used to dump grass cuttings and general plant debris.

It was not intended as a compost heap, more of a dumping ground for plant materials because our waste is classified as Commercial and plant / garden debris is not allowed

Here's a picture of the border in July 2020 showing the trees and extreme left you can just see the dumping ground, old bramble prunings etc

Although not a compost heap in the traditional sense it was my intention to use the rotted down grass cuttings etc as a mulch over 2019 winter. allowing the worms [if any] to do the rest, but weather & corona virus intervened

By June / July some top soil became available from a nearby house having a conservatory built, we jumped at this, both for soil improvement and raising the bed levels

With the top soil came a free surplus bird bath, duly installed in our border

In July 2020 the use of the "compost" at last came to fruition, with the one fit digging member shifting it & forking into the open spaces within the border

There was loads of it, far more then I had thought, and it was surprisingly "good stuff" despite all compost "rules" having been broken, being 99% green grass cuttings and never turned, mixed, layered, watered etc, just left to get on with it for years

Here's a picture, July 2020, of the compost being opened up & shifted.

To the left is the hedge boundary of the property, our wasp nest is under this hedge

Black_Cat2

Hiya all, had a really rubbish day weather wise here in Somerset.  Rained continually from 2am (woke me up) along with gale force winds.  Had a look out and about when it became light and luckily no fence or plant casualties, lots of fallen leaves though 🍂

Loving your continuing progress F, ty.  What are you going to do on that patch by the hedge/wasp nest?  Are you composting that to grow anything in particular? 

[Deleted User]

Morning Campers 🖐
Yup, torrential rain and localised flooding here, in this part of Somerset, too - i am sooooo sick of it 🌧🌧🌧☔☔☔

Thursday's bringing a different element of gloom now (for us self employed), for a month, so that's jolly, isn't it 😰☹

Davesnave

I suppose it depends on what you do in a self -employed capacity, Catsacor. I'd hope those providing essential services will be unaffected, especially my dentist, who has  me booked in for a session in 3 weeks. She can't deal with many larger fillings until she kits-up with special PPE for the water-whirly drill, so she saves them for certain days. With one of my teeth, it's touch and go if it will survive that long as it is.....

Still, look on the bright side, one can still meet another person in an outdoor space .....though whether the back of a car counts as 'outdoor' is unclear. Yeah, I know what you're thinking , but fish & chips always tastes better in the car!

EDIT: Had a look around the river cams and no flooding this side of Exmoor.

Black_Cat2

Davesnave said:

Still, look on the bright side, one can still meet another person in an outdoor space .....though whether the back of a car counts as 'outdoor' is unclear. Yeah, I know what you're thinking , but fish & chips always tastes better in the car!

😹😹😹

[Deleted User]

Davesnave said:

I suppose it depends on what you do in a self -employed capacity, Catsacor. I'd hope those providing essential services will be unaffected, especially my dentist, who has  me booked in for a session in 3 weeks. She can't deal with many larger fillings until she kits-up with special PPE for the water-whirly drill, so she saves them for certain days. With one of my teeth, it's touch and go if it will survive that long as it is.....

Still, look on the bright side, one can still meet another person in an outdoor space .....though whether the back of a car counts as 'outdoor' is unclear. Yeah, I know what you're thinking , but fish & chips always tastes better in the car!

EDIT: Had a look around the river cams and no flooding this side of Exmoor.

You little devil, D, you certainly know how to live 

Farway

Blimey, just looking at the times of your postings, you lot are up early!

Rain & windy earlier but now sun's out it's looking pleasant, not that I'm up to much, may collect the bean pods when I'm emptying the tea leaves onto the garden but that will be it

Yep, had me as well Dave   Odd rules meet one person in outdoor space but not a garden?

Black_Cat2 said:

Loving your continuing progress F, ty.  What are you going to do on that patch by the hedge/wasp nest?  Are you composting that to grow anything in particular? 

Nothing in particular was planned, the compost would just be used a top dressing when large enough heap accumulated

Before yesterday's CV announcement the idea of chicken mesh fencing it in as a corral for the soon to be fallen oak leaves was mooted, but not an easy job for people with bad backs, bending problems and the like, could've managed as joint social distanced effort but now unlikely, too near a main road and Stasi eyes

Which may mean the leaves will, as in previous years, just go to waste.

The "Tidy Brigade" used to sweep them up, into bin bags and slowly drip feed bags into the waste bin

Thinking this year was if we gave them somewhere specifically nominated to put the leaves the TB would see this as "Tidy"

Have to wait & see early next week

Border saga part 3

By August we were getting on top of the border which was visibly settling in and growing with our attention, weeding, hoeing and watering, including seeds sprinkled about in May /June.

We had also planted perennials, from our own gardens, either cuttings, seeds or divisions

Some examples are Fuchsia, "Hot Lips" sage, Shasta daisy, plus kitchen herbs, sage, thyme, rosemary, fennel

The kitchen on site provides hot lunches and the herbs will be useful there as well as easy bee friendly border plants in their own right

Some of the seed successes were "Shoo fly" and Sunflower, both high visual impact and some quick colour to show to casual observers something was happening

By September the weekly work and watering was no longer needed, apart from the occasional hoeing, or squirt of systemic weedkiller on any new bramble shoot

This was the scene late August