Awful weather - typical Brits talk

in_my_wellies

Woolsery said:

in_my_wellies said:

My brother has returned to the UK after 20+ years. I thought (and so did he until he realised the cost of stamp duty) he would settle near me to help with mum's care but he's now decided on Mid/East Devon which is where I will end up after all. He's found a house in a smallish village off the A377 half way between the north and south coast. Never a gardener I have no idea what he plans to do with the beautiful 0.25 acre. Why do people do that? It will certainly be rewilded very soon

Care to be a little more specific without giving the exact location away or PM?  I happen to know many small villages half way between the coasts and 'just off the A377.' They're definitely not East Devon around there, fortunately. Mid-Devon Council is much easier to deal with!

Anywhere there with a reasonable amount of land is being snapped-up, often without much regard to the soundness of structures or other important factors. A bungalow near me went in no time recently, despite not seeing the sun for best part of half the year. And I really hope it isn't the old thatched toll house....neighbour issues of substantial proportions!!!  

He's looking at North, Mid and East Devon - and Derbyshire, Dorset, Sussex - last week it was Norfolk so who knows really. 
Todays is now marked 'under offer' so someone beat him to it - unless he made a super quick decision which is rather unlikely. It was on the market a long time. He needs big house, small garden. I'm the opposite. 

No gardening here today except uncovering and recovering various tender plants but then I did two hours general weeding and hoeing for my elderly aunt as I now seem to have acquired hers to look after. Being the intelligent and sensible woman that she is when she was diagnosed with macular degeneration about 15 years ago she got rid of all her herbaceous borders and planted shrubs which have now matured into round ball like features which she can feel, smell and slightly see the contrasting colours. All they need is a hoe, feed and yearly or twice yearly cut. Job done. I hope I can be as sensible. 

Woolsery

in_my_wellies said:

Woolsery said:

in_my_wellies said:

My brother has returned to the UK after 20+ years. I thought (and so did he until he realised the cost of stamp duty) he would settle near me to help with mum's care but he's now decided on Mid/East Devon which is where I will end up after all. He's found a house in a smallish village off the A377 half way between the north and south coast. Never a gardener I have no idea what he plans to do with the beautiful 0.25 acre. Why do people do that? It will certainly be rewilded very soon

Care to be a little more specific without giving the exact location away or PM?  I happen to know many small villages half way between the coasts and 'just off the A377.' They're definitely not East Devon around there, fortunately. Mid-Devon Council is much easier to deal with!

Anywhere there with a reasonable amount of land is being snapped-up, often without much regard to the soundness of structures or other important factors. A bungalow near me went in no time recently, despite not seeing the sun for best part of half the year. And I really hope it isn't the old thatched toll house....neighbour issues of substantial proportions!!!  

He's looking at North, Mid and East Devon - and Derbyshire, Dorset, Sussex - last week it was Norfolk so who knows really. 
Todays is now marked 'under offer' so someone beat him to it

Ah, I see. Probably not imminent then. If it was on the market some time it was either hopefully priced or there's a substantial down-side somewhere. Property's been mad around here. I've been helping close friends re-locate, so I've had a specific Rightmove search going for a while. It's been hard to find anything where I could say, "Well, what about this?" with any conviction.

However, we both found a particular property on the same day and their offer's been accepted, so all's well.......except that they'll now be 40miles distant.....up twopenny's way! No more popping in for a cup of tea on Monday morning.

No gardening yesterday. The weather was so warm and sunny I drove to the coast to do the weekly shop and tarried somewhat on the way home! Wandering around all the people in shorts and tee shirts I felt a little over dressed. Judging by their hawthorns and the Alexanders growing beside the A30, they're about 10 days ahead of us here.....but they get more rain!

Farway

Warm but cloudier today, certainly shirt sleeves weather though

Beetroot sown in modules yesterday, I used the mixed colours packet in the hope that at least something would grow. Next are radishes over the weekend, just a pinch to get me going. They were another failure last year so it’s very much sow & hope this year

All this house talk, just hearing on radio that bubble about to burst for some property, cost of fuel, food, heating etc. etc. but depends why one is moving, somewhere to live and settle or speculator?

These days I don’t think I could manage a larger garden so I’d have to settle for a few acres of mixed woodland / orchard gently sloping down to the sea, of course I’d need a quad bike to get around on

Back to reality, my "mini orchard" has blossom ready to pop any minute; one apple has unfurled a few petals and a pear likewise, it’s my new pear, 'Beurre Alexandre Lucas' from T & M on offer last year, I “had” to buy it because the neighbour was hacking away at his Concorde which I need for a pollinator for my not Comice but mis labelled pear, so obviously there was no other choice but to go and buy anther pear

Today’s pic is laurel flower + pollinator, used as hedging and straggly bush near my garage but not my shrub. Has a nice scent BTW

Woolsery

No significant gardening so far.  It was the biennial ceremony of emptying of the septic tanks (plural) today with preparations and process proving more onerous than usual. I always intend to lift covers and prepare everything well in advance, but it inevitably ends in a mad scramble. Fortunately, he was late.  Anyway, goodbye 3000 gallons of nutrient-rich sludge.

I'm sure there is a bubble about to burst, Farway, but 'when?' is the essential thing none of us knows. We were caught-up selling in the last crash, which eventually assisted us to buy at a good price after renting for 9 months, but with steeply falling prices comes a dearth of stock and only people suffering the ravages of the 3 'D's in the market out of sheer necessity. Having said that, it was amusing to receive a flyer from the best rural agency round here this morning, so I've booked a valuation for next week. I have no idea what we're supposedly worth. I want to pick their brains on a number of matters and they still owe me for being underhanded almost 13 years ago. New staff now, but leopards, spots and all that!

goldfinches

Waves madly to all and @in_my_wellies agree about the small house/large garden preference. 

Gloriously sunny weather with underlying chill here that has prompted many to don shorts, t-shirts etc and I even saw some of the local college staff with ice cream cones this lunchtime. The local magnolias are looking stunning this week, I think this one is my favourite colour but it's a difficult choice.



There's this one that's stunning.



As well as this one that's especially beautiful this year.



I'm also hoping for better things for the blackthorn blossom this year as last year's pollination was very poor but this year's seems to have timed things better which bodes well for sloe gin. 

Farway

Last really sunny & warm day so they say, change on the way so I’ll make the most of it

Lovely pics GF, beautiful colours on the magnolias, I liked the top deep purple one, more unusual colour

Woolsery ref your nutrient rich sludge. I was listening earlier to farming programme and with price of nitrogen fertiliser rocketing Ukraine etc.  It is getting very close to being cost effective transporting muck from one side of the country to other. Not sure if still available but once upon a time you could buy fully treated sewage sludge, apparently it was “Good Stuff” but maybe rules & squeamish levels have changed?

Today’s sunshine and yesterday’s bin collection means I can get on & get the final branches from my neighbour’s buddleia into my green recycling bin, plus sow some radish seeds

My plum blossom is fully out now, just needs the bumble bees to get cracking

Woolsery

I hope something good is happening to my septic tank sludge, Farway, but getting the company concerned to even put the correct address on the paperwork has proved very difficult over the past few years and the guys they use are pleasant, but equally prone  to flights of fancy, so I trust nothing any of them says! A local farming lady did make a kind offer a few years back, saying,"We'll just suck it out and blast it over the fields like our own if you like!" Unfortunately, she's no longer with us, nor would she have provided paperwork, and the landlady of next door with whom we share this ritual insists on that.

No gardening again yesterday.  Family wanted a meet-up for Mothering Sunday, but it had to be a day early, so we all met at a zoo park I picked not far from where we used to live. Thankfully, the kids and adults loved it, but  I headed off to see a former colleague I'm indebted to for making much of my working life pleasurable. He's now seriously unwell and unable to visit us here.

Being used to this rural area, I'd forgotten just how busy the parts around our old home have become, come rain or shine. Although I was sticking to a country route, traffic was relentless and the roads seemed barely able to cope with all the people escaping two prosperous cities for a few hours of extra-urban pursuits.

Despite the locality being rammed, the M5 presented no major problems, going or returning, so I wonder if the fuel price increases were having some sort of impact or if it's still too early in the year for forays further afield? Clocks changing will now make quite a difference, but I think we're soon heading into a spell of cool stuff and maybe some much-needed rain for garden and wildlife alike.

I am definitely gardening all day today!

Farway

Back again, skipped yesterday after sudden invite over to sons for Mum’s Day etc.

However I managed to squeeze a bit of gardening in while there, planted some of the Shasta daisies I had grown from seed into his grotty patch at the front of his house, the gardening DNA has skipped his genes so anything I put in has to survive or die unaided.

Despite my good advice and offer of help on pruning his Golden Delicious last December / Jan he left it and butchered it the other week, it’ll survive but all the potential fruiting branches have gone. Grrrrr. Still hope for it with a more considered pruning regime come next winter

My seedlings are just showing true leaves peeking out, that’s both the toms & dahliasNow it's just watch & wait really

The pear blossom is open but somehow I’ve hurt my foot and not able to even hobble down the garden to take a photo just now but it is on the must do list

Woolsery

Actually gardened yesterday at last! Dearly Beloved's mobility has worsened, so I'm stepping in to do more of the weeding, admittedly at the expense of planting, but the weather isn't great for that just now.

As far as pruning goes, I'm like your son at present, Farway, but we'll still get more apples than we can use. I may have found someone to take our surplus this autumn, but it depends how fussy they are about varieties when making their cider. 

phoebe1989seb

Stunning magnolia pics, GF!

Our Stellata Leonard Messel (that has been moved several times and is now in its final resting place!) is full of flowers, but the Susan is way behind. We're looking to add another magnolia - I'd love a Grandiflora, but will probably end up with a Soulangeana. Whatever we ultimately choose, I want to invest in a large tree as there's a huge space to fill...plus I'm impatient 🙄

With DH's help I did get the area cleared and the Amelanchier planted the other evening. Hopefully that will settle well now it's in the ground, as it's been sitting around in its pot for about eight months.

Although we spent much of the weekend outside, the weather being lovely, not a lot of gardening was achieved as we were concentrating on clearing the partially-open-to-the-walled-courtyard outbuilding - taking down a 'wall' (just some timbers with T&G attached, put up by the POs to divide the space) in there. It currently has - mostly old - decking that needs to come up as it's a haven for rodents...grrrr! The plan is to replace this with the stone flags we originally purchased for the bathroom, then - when our plans for that room changed - were laid (but not mortared in) as a patio in the main garden. We have 12 sq m which is just about enough 🤞

We did manage a quick trip to an independent garden centre where we bought absolutely nothing, their magnolias all being titchy specimens. I was tempted by the Fritillaria Imperialis, but held back from making a purchase. En route home DH needed to pop into Been & Queued, so I wandered round the garden dept where I found some Vinca Minor Gertrude Jekyll which I've been meaning to get for a while. The temptation was too much so those came home with us 😁

It's definitely cooler today, but still sunny, so after lunch I'll be outside moving some Tellima plants - a rare remnant of the PO's attempt at gardening 🙄 - that are in the way of a planned path.