Awful weather - typical Brits talk

liberty_lily

Thanks for the crocosmia recommendation, goldfinches 😀

Another scorcher here, but once again I'm inside where it's pleasantly cool, painting (aka watching the tennis 😉)

Glad you got your hay cut, Woolsery! Farmers here are very busy right now with tractors etc up and down the lane constantly 🙂

My offering today is another rambler (I don't know which one as it was already here 🙄)...We're gradually training it over the 12' high/2' thick wall into the courtyard...

Woolsery

RAS said:

On a different note; if you are after a clematis just a a filler, Aldi have some in stock, in flower so at least you know what you are buying. At £7. Two pink, crimson, dark purple and "blue". Only name I recognise is Hagley Hybrid. The blue/mauve and purple seem to be most popular.

Morrisons were doing them in variety when I was there a week or so ago, all at £2. Small plants of course and recently stocked.....they were still alive! We're still considering where to plant the one we bought at Garden Club a few weeks back, as finding places for roots that enjoy shade and not too dry is rather difficult here.

Another great rose, lily. I'm always glad to see some fine weather around the beginning of July. Pete's never failed to get the hay in, but there's always a first time for it all going wrong.

Guests who were going to camp here this weekend have cried-off, so it's a quiet weekend ahead and the prospect of at least 6 more days of unrelenting heat. Our Lidl still had watering cans at £2.99 today, but I bet they'll all be gone by tomorrow lunchtime!

Farway

Woolsery said:

Farway said:

My intention was getting out there for an early start at Friday feed & water the front pots, but instead I was looking up used cars on PC, and now I'm here browsing

....And back to gardening

I was doing the same as you! Nothing wrong with our car at present, but Dearly Beloved is finding the clutch a pain with her poorly knee, so I'm on the trail of an automatic with a few other essential qualities. I can't see her getting an op any time soon.  I've found one theoretically  'nearby,' but  the Bristol Channel doesn't feature in the distance analysis. Odd, when Goggle has been calculating routes in milliseconds for years now.

Gardening gives plenty of time for contemplation. When I see a black swan event, I don't waste too much time on who's virtue-signalling about the latest thing, but try to imagine what's prompted it. I think something large is about to drop and I might have an inkling of what it is thanks to taking my news from a range of independent sources. If it persists, even the press and the BBC may find out, but there are no appropriate smilies....

I've had similar with the Solent, sometimes I'm told nearest is for instance in Ryde IOW and not Guildford

I think we may be watching similar sources, I feel something is in the wind

Car's back, starter motor was duff, but being sixteen years old I think fair wear & tear covers that

Back to the garden, the sun is scorching already & it's not quite 10AM. I have however already been out watering getting ahead today, I saw on local weather last night this area has only had 1% of our usual rainfall this year, no wonder I'm out there with the hose

Found more woolly aphids, must have missed some first time round because they'd made enough "wool" for a jumper, and they've set up a fresh colony on another tree. I think I got the lot this morning, but will have to check again in a few days

The toms I planted outdoors, left over and take their chances ones, are forming fruits now, I think they are further ahead than I've had outside before, maybe it's an early season this year? Not complaining, normally any I grow outside get blight before they do much else

All the clematis talk, here's my one, name lost, but it's a Lidl one a few years old and has scrambled up & over the mislabelled pear and is making moves into the adjacent pyracantha

liberty_lily

Love your purple clematis, Farway 🙂 Our (potted) similar one bit the dust before we moved here. In truth it lingers on, but never gets beyond a metre high and hasn't flowered for years....

I got my garden efforts out of the way early (for me!) today, starting at 8.30am - only partly because of the incoming heat, but also as a result of having help here with fitting our structural beams at long last 😀 and I wanted to stay out of the way!

These efforts took the form of moving ten potted, clump-forming bamboos from one part of the garden to another as well as sorting/gathering approx fifty potted Hornbeam hedging plants in readiness to plant up. We bought these as bare roots in 2018 so it's about time we got them in the ground!

Building work done, lunch eaten, Pimms at the ready - it's scorchio now, so off to watch the Wimbledon ladies final on TV in a mo 😉

I thought I should post something white and frilly in honour of the Wimbledon ladies, so it's Leucanthemum Superbum Crazy Daisy from me...

goldfinches

Lovely photos everybody. I agree with @Farway that it is an early season this year, I noticed a few days ago that the sloes are beginning to turn purple very early and took this snap to remind me to keep an eye on them so that I don't miss the right moment to pick them for bottling.


I also spotted lots of baby fish in the stream and managed to catch this much larger fish on camera (4 to 5 o'clock from sycamore leaf). I look every day but hadn't seen any movements for a few weeks so am pleased the adults are back and that the eggs have hatched successfully.

Woolsery

liberty_lily said:

I thought I should post something white and frilly in honour of the Wimbledon ladies, so it's Leucanthemum Superbum Crazy Daisy from me...

I like Crazy Daisy. She can be grown cheaply from seed, so it's not so galling when she disappears. I like the bee or hoverfly too, though I'm not seeing many of them here at present. We started the year well with butterflies and bees, but even the Teucrium is hardly being visited.   I hope it's not all those celebrities I've seen munching bugs. Oh yes, they do it all the time y'now!

https://bugible.com/2021/04/15/celebrities-who-eat-bugs/

I can't help wondering if there's a connection between the angry Dutch farmers, Angelina Jolie tucking into a spider and Welsh schoolchildren trialling insects in their school dinners. Could it be we are being primed for the demise of the beefburger and shepherd's pie? I loved the way some 'violent farmers' had the crowd turn on them, drew their batons and retreated into a police van! Fancy, agents provocateurs used to sway opinions. Couldn't happen here of course!

Pete hasn't been protesting; he's having a great hay harvest and the silage has also done well this year. So far, no one has suggested he goes over to mealworm production and I don't think they'd better....Hay will be baled tomorrow.

The heat was pretty full-on today, but apart from the hours between 13.30 and 16.00 I continued digging and improving beds for the squash. Eventually they might become asparagus beds, but right now ours squash need to go somewhere! Still no sign of the digger.

Our Bottle Brush bush is looking magnificent just now. First a close-up. Later I'll photograph the whole thing.

PS. Nice camouflaged fish, goldfinches. Another smaller one to it's right?

goldfinches

@Woolsery - good spot, where do you buy your specs? Lovely bottlebrush, glorious colour.

Woolsery

goldfinches said:

@Woolsery - good spot, where do you buy your specs? .

I've fished since the age of seven. I'm not 100% sure on that one, but it's common for fish to hang out together, facing the same way.

Farway

Starting to bake already, I think I'll get a can of water into the potted grape and apple down the bottom of the garden before the heat gets going, watered them yesterday but can never over do it this weather, and top up the bird bath while I'm at it

Early flying lesson for a snail spotted scouting my climbing beans ahead of the herd of his mates, no idea why but one of the dwarf French beans in a tub has given up, wilted & died overnight, very odd. Not too worried because these beans were very much a poke seeds in and hope crop

Great daisy picture there LL, and love your bottle brush Woolsery, I had one for years grown from a bit that stuck to my pocket when walking round the municipal glasshouse in Oldham, which as it happens was me doing conservation ahead of it being fashionable because the glasshouse & plants are long gone now, unfortunately so has my B brush :':smile: 

GF, those sloes look far better than my plums, I keep looking but however I squint they are still rubbish this year

Pic for today is the Lidl buddleia growing in the car park volunteer border

goldfinches

@Farway - that is a wonderful buddleia.

My contribution for today is this petunia growing inside a drain on the corner outside a pub in the centre of town which I spotted coming out of the supermarket. Amazing what grows where when you start looking.