Awful weather - typical Brits talk

YoungBlueEyes

Good to hear Mrs Dusty is on form, in time for the good weather coming. Perfect  

I envy you your verbena 2p. I had one planted and it was doing alright, then lovely neighbour and handsome came round. Handsome thought it was just the very thing to gently snickle out bit by bit... it's still there but it's a bit sorrowful

I have a casualty to report. I bought a hydrangea a few weeks ago and planted it and watered it in a wee bit and it was doing fine. Then yesterday I noticed all the leaves are off it and it's just twiggy stalky bits now! So when I was talking to Cissie last night I mentioned it and apparently it's my own fault. I should have bought proper/specific (?) soil for it and/or it's own feed. I was informed most forthrightly that it was always going to die if I wasn't for treating it properly and did I expect otherwise? Gawd I felt like a small child being told off at school, my heart was racing and everything   Cissie will be 90 in November and I'm racing toward 50, but that didn't matter one bit.

Bright and sunny here but not warm at all, a c-o-l-d wind. Tom forest is refusing to die and is galloping away in the sunshine in the wee front bedroom. There's a couple of charity shops here that'll take them as donations, so that's that one solved   

Dustyevsky

You don't need special soil for most hydrangeas, Blue Eyes. We grew them on very alkaline soil at our last place, and we grow them now on our acid soil here. The only big difference is the colour of the flowers. On alkaline, some that flower bright blue here would go pink. A bit of extra sequestered iron might help in the alkaline environment, but it wouldn't be essential on ordinary, well tilled soil. Only on shallow chalky soil might they struggle to survive.

Farway

Sunny start but cold North wind, or so the TV tells me, not going to try it for myself just yet

I can confirm the death of my first runner beans sowing , the seeds are now blowing bubbles as they decay, very off-putting. Too soon to say if my second sowing in airing cupboard is any better, I have put the emergency seeds of purple podded climbing French beans on high alert for a panic sowing this weekend

Yesterday's gardening consisted of Beechgrove & Gardeners' World on iplayer and now envious of the lady in London growing heirloom toms, some interesting ones shown there

YBE, I never thought hydrangea were that fussy, but I've never grown them. Always fancied one of the large droopy flowered ones after I saw them at Wisley, but no room for such things in my patch

My toms are going well, I need to have a sort out soon and decide what to keep & what can be given away, I want to keep at least one of each variety, but only have room for some in the conservatory, the rest will have to be outside taking their chances with blight

YoungBlueEyes

Thanks Dusty. It's not like I was gonna rush out and buy more stuff for it, I'm for leaving it where it is. Shawshank rules - get busy living or get busy dying

We went to B+Q yesterday for more work trousers for himself. He ended up spending more on half-price bulbs and house plants and stuff than he did on his trousers.... So I've been told to either stop spending or get a job   

YoungBlueEyes

Fingers crossed for your 2nd sowing Farway, do you think they'll be alright? I saw that lady with her toms, I was envious of some of them too!

The label on the hydrangea was so vague I thought even I could manage it. Full sun or part sun/part shade. Soil type could be this that or the other etc. I've not planted anything too near it so its not fighting for goodness. I've been nipping up the weeds from round it for the same reason. It just wanted to die I guess. Or maybe it'll be a Monty Python parrot - just resting ha haa!

twopenny

I wonder if it was one of the new fancy hydrangas? I've been sucked in by the odd beauty only to find it was fussy to the point of extinction

The usual Mop head and lace caps (basically the same) will grow fine. I've always thought they were pretty indesctruble and don't need mollycoddling.

There are some gorgeous ones of the basic varieties now. Bloom when other stuff is fading.

But I think there's some research to be had for this. Which need what type of soil.

Easier still, find a couple of nice ones locally and take some cuttings. Break off a non flowering shoot where it meets the more mature wood. They grow pretty  quickly.

9C, rain, hail, the usual but at least it's not freezing so I can sit and work inside but there won't be any gardening. Savings, house insurance etc etc all needing attention at the same time so no fun to be had.

Just to cheer the day up a little, here are some from late summer that are growing in peaty soil

 

YoungBlueEyes

The bottom one is the colour on my label, it looks fab in real life 😊 I don’t know if it’s a fancy new one, it was £4.50 so I doubt it.

This might be half the trouble - I don’t know what my soil is. I’ve just been buying stuff and planting it in sun/shade as the label says. 

I’ll have to do some research, while it’s Shawshanking… 

ch3shirecat4

saturday the weather = lovely 
sunday = rain 

no shock there! typical uk weather 

YoungBlueEyes

Same here but at least the rain wasn't heavy  

Cold this morning and overnight. Still a bit breezy so it wasn't as hard a frost as it could've been. Himself went to work with a jumper on him! The Oracle has a tree behind her house covered in white blossoms, it looks like snow I don't know what it is, it's more haw/blackthorn-y than apple (they're the only white ones I know ha haa!) 

Gardening today is putting in the bulbs we got at the weekend. Anemones, and ranunculus (?) once they've finished soaking. I got some tin pots to hang on the fence and they're getting begonias put in them. Oh and I need to buy a hoe, there's wee tiny weeds coming up everywhere   And then that's it, no more spending.

Dustyevsky

As some people are aware, I'm well known for espousing those awful conspiracy theories, like “The Titanic was an inside job.”

Well, here's something equally suspicious involving the plagiarising of Colin, a certain supermarket's famous cake. Another supermarket, which must remain nameless, accidentally released this photo today showing their version of Colin clearly wearing a crown and sporting no less than four union jacks. There's no mention on their website of such a confection, so it seems very suspicious indeed.....  

My cake.... sorry....take on this, is that said nameless supermarket is about to use the coronation as a means of transferring vast amounts of wealth to a minority who are already very wealthy. I'm unable to name them for fear of invoking the wrath of the censors, but the likeness is so striking, I'm certain royalties are involved....if you get my drift.

Meanwhile, here at my secret location, the weather looks set fair for today, with no big black clouds coming along suddenly, like they did last night, dumping gallons (remember those?) on me while I took a late evening stroll. That was undoubtedly retaliation for my recent claim that the (redacted) were seeding clouds just before a certain disaster in this area prior to the last coronation. Scary times!