Awful weather - typical Brits talk

Woolsery

I think tomatoes are very much a personal thing, Farway, but Sungold does come highly recommended from a range of sources. If you like the Balcony Yellow much more, then the choice in future is obvious. I will give it a whirl too, when we're back to normal growing, that is.

Didn't do much foundation work yesterday, as we were busy plumbing a washing machine into the barn, rather than share our  home machine with ferret bedding! We also spent best part of 3 hours on clearing out the perennial beds now most things have or are going over. Normally, we'd poke in some new plants, annuals and biennials to fill obvious gaps, but it's too dry to expect reasonable rates of survival.

Sorry to hear about the browning white buddleia, but I imagine it was as inevitable as night following day. I have a self seeder by the hedge which has turned out dark, but not as dark as well-established Black Knight, so no obvious fortune to be made there either.

The new neighbours near here are stilll banging-on about the entrance to their 'estate' needing white walls and not the cream ones as refurbished by the Horse Lady and myself about 3 years ago at considerable expense. They don't seem to get it that we own the walls and chose cream because we like it. Meanwhile, the new guys down the public road have raised the pots in which they offer driving advice to motorists, so they now look rather unstable. I've also heard there's a some sort of petition started to get tractors banned from the village. I think the latter may be an exaggeration, but regardless, the realities of country living are clearly hitting home!

Not talking about figs!!!

twopenny

What happened to your fig cuttings that rooted so well Farway?
You are such a wizz with cuttings those rose ones should be a lovely bonus.

I bought a yellow/orange fruiting tomato plant early on, just because. I think it may be sungold and thought I'd put the label in. Maybe it will turn up when they're cleared.
I think it was a yellow cherry tom which seemed like a good idea for one its lovely and sweet but the flavour similar to gardeners delight. I like different flavours.

Yellows make a delicious soup with a bay leaf and a pinch of ginger.

Woolsery, perhaps you should do to the walls what I did to my fence with my ahem, casual neighbour and paint your name on them 
You can paint over it once the point is made.

Farway

Hot & sunny day ahead, so nipped out quick to water the pots down the garden & top up the bird bath, so they can wipe their beaks after pecking my apples

Woolsery, Balcony Yellow toms, They come true from seed so can pop some in post later this year if you want

2P, the figs from cuttings are romping away now I've potted them on and taking a bit of care with them, I'll take a pic later & post it both here & in original thread

The cream wall painting, reminds me somewhere of a dispute which made the papers, some millionaires arguing about colour of houses in a swanky part of London, one decided to paint it bright pink or something like that just to pee the complaining neighbour off, being a millionaire rules & planning laws can be ignored, and any fines paid by the butler from petty cash

Potted on my Cape Primroses I bought in the spring from Dibleys, they're doing well as are the leaf cuttings I took, I'm sourcing cheapo small pots for the cuttings next move on from the rooting trays. Not sure what happens after that because I'd not expected much success TBH.

Another surprise found yesterday while on garden patrol, my Lakemont grape has come back to life and a sturdy shoot is growing onwards & upwards, no chance of fruit this year but If I can train it right maybe next year?

Depending on how I feel, I may pick some riper Thorn Free blackberries later, they are quite nice, but there is a point where they go from OK to yummy followed by squishy manky which happens within a coupe of days, catching them "Just right" is the harder bit

Woolsery

Thanks for the offer of tom seeds Farway; I'll take you up on that.

Farway said:

The cream wall painting, reminds me somewhere of a dispute which made the papers, some millionaires arguing about colour of houses in a swanky part of London, one decided to paint it bright pink or something like that just to pee the complaining neighbour off, being a millionaire rules & planning laws can be ignored, and any fines paid by the butler from petty cash

Another surprise found yesterday while on garden patrol, my Lakemont grape has come back to life and a sturdy shoot is growing onwards & upwards, no chance of fruit this year but If I can train it right maybe next year?

Ah, the stripy house.....The over-entitled woman sued her lawyers after failing to get PP and lost that case as well. What a shame.

https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/negligence-claim-dismissed-in-stripy-mews-house-case-/5105975.article

In the case of Nearby Residents v Woolsery I think the present discussion will pale into insignificance when PP is applied-for on the barn and we assert our right to open up a new field entrance. None of it is terribly controversial, but never underestimate the potential for improvements or development to cause offence!

Like your Lakemont grape, I found a healthy fig I'd written-off this morning. It was hiding under plants I'm keeping for the bank above the streamside area, all of it far too dry to do any planting just now. I've established some Verbena bonariensis and a few foxgloves, but the rest awaits rain. At £18 our Lakemont has been in special measures and planted  near the house, lest we forget!  I'm not expecting anything from it till next year, at the earliest.

All the watering is done for today. More family are descending so I'd better go and check for hazards, because the kids will find them within minutes if I don't!:#

Farway

Woolsery, tom seeds noted & in planning stage, your internet search skills beat mine, I couldn't find the stripey house, ta for link

Ref PP, saw a case yesterday where PP was refused, so landowner planted Leytlandii and now NIMBYs have lost their view, the lengths some will go to. Sorry, it's a Daily Wail link

Hot, sunny & dry as per usual, up watering volunteer pots early with the hose, and now local water company [Portsmouth] says they are fine & no need to ban hoses in their area, which is good news for me

I may need to water my front pots later, or some of the smaller ones at least

Checked my figs from cuttings in readiness for photos, they are rooting through the drainage holes now so need to pot on sharpish, luckily my not always chatty neighbour was passing by with her dog as I was going out, so I have a rescued large pot she was throwing out, swapped it for one of the old Cape Primrose I split earlier this year that I was taking to volunteer for sale table

Here's the latest pic of one of the fig cuttings I rooted in water last year, soon to be potted on

Woolsery

Farway, your link brought me very close to my old stamping ground, though I'd not have been able to see Solsbury Hill, even if I'd stood on a chair. We were pals with people who lived in Devonshire Road, but I doubt their little bungalow is worth £1m yet, nice though it was. It's amusing how the papers  print the supposed valuation of  a property in stories like that; the implication being greater entitlement comes with the ability to pay more. I think Val has left it a bit late. Ten years ago she could have bought a chain saw and had a dozen of those down before being arrested. (Who arrests a granny with a chain saw?  ) She'd have got a telling off and a community service order at worst and her neighbours would have loved her. 

Strangely, or maybe not, at our first address a mile or two from there, DB and I had a similar problem when the chap at the bottom of our 25' garden planted a dozen Castlewellan Gold. When they reached 5' and hadn't turned into a clipped hedge, we read the runes and decided to sell up before they became too obvious, though I'd also considered sodium chlorate, copper nails etc. As if by divine providence and a reward for choosing that option, a meal out with friends revealed their desire to sell and a deal was done almost before the pudding; the salient fact being theirs was virtually the only 'normal' house with 1/4 acre on our side of the city. It was a badly built-characterless semi, totally out of keeping with its surroundings, but none of that mattered. We stayed there 21 years and loved it. Meanwhile, our old house disappeared behind 18' leylands.

And the punch-line.....the new house was semi-detached to the guy with the leylandii! We still send each other Christmas cards! 

twopenny

30° in the shade at 6pm.
Dropped to 28 now. The house walls are almost too hot to touch.

Dug 4" holes a foot away from my greengage tree and hosed water into them. It just kept going down like a drain.

More things look like they aren't going to make it. The soil has shrunk away from some roots and watering makes it worse.
Waterproofed the pond pot and cut a bung. Made some bases for cane posts to clip foil blankets to to try and keep the heat off the patio but the sun is still too high.

No birds in the garden still. Even bees and butterflies have gone awol. They've found somewhere cooler I'm guessing.

Apodemus

twopenny, that all sounds pretty trying, hope it cooled enough for you overnight.  Meanwhile I was out walking in a misty pine-forest yesterday!  It was a bit warmer than usual and very humid - the midges were fearsome whenever the breeze dropped!

Farway

I think a lot of older established trees will start to suffer down south with this prolonged dry spell & heat, even the weeds have stopped growing around here, I just keep up with watering the pots and the rest has to take its chances, I'm thinking about running a permanent hose down to the bottom of my garden that I can just "plug in" now I have difficulty carrying water down there in any quantity, a job for winter though, which should ensure biblical floods next year

It's baking hot already, so nothing strenuous required, my only job for today, apart from watering, is pot on my rooted figs now I have larger pots from my neighbour

Woolsery

Farway said:

I'm thinking about running a permanent hose down to the bottom of my garden that I can just "plug in" now I have difficulty carrying water down there in any quantity, a job for winter though, which should ensure biblical floods next year

I have a 120m one that goes to the wild bank between stream and woodland, but I've stopped using it. I got a few tough plants established with it earlier in the season, but they're coping now. Not coping are our Alder Buckthorn, one of which is dead and several others may go the same way. That's butterfly food

I water in the mornings now, when I can. On my way the other morning I spotted a large moth which seemed to be unwell. It disappeared later on, so whether a bird had it or it flew off is unclear, but at least I had the presence of mind to get a snap, if not an object in the picture to create a sense of scale.