Awful weather - typical Brits talk

Woolsery

goldfinches said:

@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.

There's also what looks like a hellebore seedling in the bottom right of the grid.

Farway's buddleia looks like it might be 'Pink Delight,' which is a cracker with an AGM if it is.

Yesterday was a little full-on. The digger materialised and so did the baler, so the field was cleared-up just before daughter and SiL arrived with another van load of furniture.

Digger should be doing its thing tonight, after which we can start relocating the polytunnel.

Farway

GF, well spotted & nice pic there, I wonder if that seed came for the pub's hanging basket display last year? Glad you liked the buddleia, as I said it's only a Lidl one, no name, but very floriferous. Not sure about Pink Delight" Woolsery, the flower spikes on this one are more round and "chunky" but that could be just down to growing conditions, poor soil etc.

 I'm hoping to take a pic of a white one in my garden, also unnamed and "gifted" by the Co-op as I parked my car many years ago

It's going to be a hotty today, I have just finished watering the pots at the front, trying to get in while it's still cool enough. It gets so hot at the front once the sun moves round, sheltered and near a building of course, so hot that some leaves on one of the castor oil plants has been scorched, I think the sun's rays may have been magnified by the blooming sap / honey dew dripping off goat willows growing on verge

Managed to continue training in the new shoots of the Merton Thornless blackberry. I have another variety  Thorn Free rooted from branch tip which is ripening but seems much more fruitful than the parent, no complaints but wondering if it's down t position or some genetic change? Final judgement to be made once I'm eating it

Woolsery

It promises to be somewhat cloudy today, which suits me fine! I had a very full-on day yesterday, getting ready for the digger. We continue tonight, but already it looks as if we'll have to remove a large quantity of spare soil or build a mini mountain like the one in 'Close Encounters!'

The only close encounter I've had so far today is with a hot air balloon. I trundled out in my PJs at 06.30, to find a Virgin suspended above me, heading north. That's never happened before here, as they're usually seen several miles distant. We are far more likely to get a helicopter at zero feet popping out of the valley.

Pictures of digger will come later, but meanwhile here's a global warming exclusive especially for Klaus, who wouldn't want you growing it, or indeed, growing anything, if the Netherlands is anything to go by. We used to keep our Acca beside the central heating boiler outlet at our old house, but now we grow it in the open garden and it produces blooms like this:

It's very rare we get any fruit. I might persuade my friend to grow one down by the estuary, where it would at least stand a better chance of being semi-productive. Thinking back, it must've survived winter 2009/10 so not as tender as we supposed.

liberty_lily

That's stunning, Woolsery (but I had to google what it was, lol 😆) I doubt we'd have much success with one here....perhaps if I ever get my ornamental greenhouse 😉🙄

Cooler/cloudy here today, after yesterday's 28°. Despite the sticky heat I managed a spot of garden clearance - moving tree trunks to be cut into logs and some weeding/tidying in a small part of the jungley area. I need to venture further in to investigate how my Crambe Cordifolias are doing. They weren't destined for there, but for the not-quite-white bed where I deemed them too huge (if the one we planted at our previous house was anything to go by!)

Amongst the undergrowth (aka weeds!) I did discover this acanthus (not one of ours which are different types - mollis and morning's candle - and yet to flower)....


And a (cheapie) purple clematis I'd forgotten about, scrambling up the tiny oak tree...

Today I'm clearing the area around my egg chair in readiness for planting ten bamboo plants that were reduced to £10 each at Been and Queued 😉 

Farway

Cloudy here as well, started sunny & hot though, enough to trigger Flying Ant day, or morning at least

I also had to Google Acca, sounds a challenge but lovely. LL, your cheapie purple clematis looks identical to mine, and the name is the same as well

I was up the volunteer border early on, now the car is back I can transport my hose up there so gave all the pots a good flooding. The border served its double purpose over the weekend, it also acts as a crash barrier for those drivers who floor the Go pedal instead of the Stop one. Or leave handbrake off. Someone had gone through & over the border and bonked one of the fence panels out of the slots in the concrete support post

Which is why I chose tough shrubs that can take a bit of bashing. The Rosemary, buddleia and Rosa rugosa will soon regrow, sort of pruning out of season. Fence panel will be down to car insurance or driver [there is CCTV]. The last person who did this gave up driving afterwards as they realised that maybe age, and insurance premiums, had caught up

Yesterday while watering in the back I spotted my first ripe blackberry of the year, Merton Thornless. Plenty more to follow with this heat, but last year they baked on the bush it was so dry, fingers crossed this year

Farway

Dull but warm with very slight possibility of a few drops of rain later

Bearing more bad news this morning.

 On my quick check this morning, discovered some of the figs that were browning, and I thought ripening are in fact dying, and what’s worse I've no idea why. Not being native or requiring pollination, it's unlikely to be pest or disease, but could be wrong on that.

Maybe the figgy equivalent of June Drop? I picked five off this morning, they just come off easily and some are shrivelled, never had that before. There are some normal looking ones left, so fingers crossed for them

On a brighter note, I have baby French beans on my "bung the plants in here 'cos I've no more space" tub, I'll have to keep up the watering now but first HG beans for two years so looking forward to them at least

Today it's Lucifer's turn in the spotlight

Woolsery

Good angle on an old friend, Farway.

It's bright but cloudy here with a stiff breeze and I'm not feeling my best, so I cancelled a planned plant-sharing visit to my friend who's caring for someone with lowered immunity, just in case. I don't think it's anything much, other than a busy schedule catching-up with me. Our digger chap was here till 9pm last night and we were making decisions 'on the hoof' which is always stressful. There's a mountain of soil we need to relocate, 'lose' or store and we'll get a dumper in for that tomorrow evening when we decide where it's all going!

Here's a picture of progress so far:

The picture doesn't convey the difference in soil levels very well, but on the far side where we haven't yet pulled out all the  loose material, the drop to base level is about 0.75m. there's a similar drop of about 0.5m beyond the far side of the polytunnel so we're just widening the existing terrace. Because the pathway is well above the new location, we've decided to shift the entrance back one bay to allow a sloped path down, so now the frame sections to be re-located will be the 4 bays between the arrows. We can keep the existing foundation tubes and just dig out pits for 4 new ones. As we're on sub-soil now and each one has to be 0.8m deep I'm glad the digger will do that. Last time, I dug 16 of them by hand and I was 12 years younger!

We'll store the 3 redundant frame hoops until we know where to erect them for a fruit cage, probably cut down a bit as they're over 3.5m high. The reduced polytunnel will end up 28' long and 24' wide, so almost square and much of the area where it sits currently will become  part of a new track to the field.

That's enough for today!

Farway

I'm worn out just reading your post Woolsery, sounds hot & hard work even with a digger to help

More sun & heat today, I've already watered the back pots using a hose, and topped up the bird bath with fresh water, first visitor was a wasp, mmmn, not sure if it was what I intended

Not much else garden wise today, I'm a hospital taxi for a friend around lunchtime so open-ended when that will finish

My tree lilies are just opening, camera is ready. These are very heavily scented and should fill the air in this warm weather

Woolsery

Farway said:

I'm worn out just reading your post Woolsery, sounds hot & hard work even with a digger to help

What was hot and hard was shifting a load of stuff before the second night's digging after it became apparent we'd run out of room for the spoil heap. I was planning to build another deep bed and growing more veg south of the existing ones, but that space is now filled with a heap as tall as me!

Farway

Sun's out & warm already, just completed my Friday feed & water the pots at the front, looking good out there now and for once the season's weather has been kind and not fried, drowned, rotted, eaten or blown down and many other problems that have cursed them in some previous years

Nothing else planned for the garden today except possibly hose watering some pots at the back, plus I have added cutting back geraniums ;Cranes bills] to my list, not only to tidy but maybe a second flush?

The tree lilies have opened up magnificently, over nine inches across, from Wilkinson's maybe four or more years ago, this year is their best yet, perhaps it's taken this long to settle in? There are now "babies" growing as well and forming a nice tropical looking clump.

Here's one