Awful weather - typical Brits talk

YoungBlueEyes

Queer plants (laundry peg for scale) 

Also the cherry tree at the end of my road. Hope yous can see it through all the dark and gloom we had yesterday, as per the drunkards 🧐

wort

Would lov e a Tom plant Blue, I never had much luck with eatables, not so much green thumb as withering thumb. 

The Acer is in at the front, east facing but hiding slightY behind the other shrub, so fingers crossed. Took out a sad skimmia,nothing more than a stick , the one opposite is much happier.
The weather looks promising at the moment, and the drunkards forcast is light winds ,light cloud, but the clouds showing black from 10 am ? 🤔
love blossom trees ,so many different shapes and sizes ,the road I grew up in had them down both sides ,stunning, may need to walk by and check them out. 

@Farway how are your fig trees doing? Handy tip on GW with the plastic bags.

Farway

Dull and cold this morning, but weekend is supposed to be much better. If it is, there's a good chance my Judas tree will flower, it always looks good against next door's white pear blossom

wort said:

@Farway how are your fig trees doing? Handy tip on GW with the plastic bags.

Yep, saw that and have added it to my good idea list, I was thinking of using zip lock bags when it gets close to time.

I was hanging on with fig update because there is something odd and maybe exciting going on, my young cuttings seem to have embryo figs growing on the main stem, but it's too soon to say. I say odd because it was only a couple of years ago they were just cuttings I was rooting in water. Once I'm sure, I will post update pics

What is sure, proper Sod's Law, is the older large potted fig I moved into the conservatory last year to ensure I got some figs does not have any on it so far , leaves the size of your hand but zilch figs

YBE, Apple pruning, leave them alone, don't fiddle now, curb your desires for tidying them up. RAS is the expert, but it will vary depending on the tree, and nothing before July generally.

Rule of thumb, prune for shape in winter, for fruit in late summer. If you hack away without due regard, you are removing next year's crumbles

You may need to spread the pruning over a couple of years, it's taken three to get my old apple to where I want it, with the last big branch was removed this winter

Tomatoes, now more small plum from Asda have germinated , I had given up & sowed some more, now I have five! Gawd!

What I do like is the mixed coleus have popped up this morning, on the window sill & I was beginning to wonder about them

Runner update, it may be that I have germination after my first lot went mouldy, just in time because I've found some old [2017] self saved climbing black French seeds, which I may sow as belt and old braces

Dustyevsky

A guess at the 'queer plants' (can we say that on here? ) might be Centaurea or Echium. Need a close up, rather than a clothes peg, or even both.

No weather here today. Steady, modest wind from a useless direction, cloud, little chance of rain and an even temperature of 10c.

The 'disorganised ban of rain' overnight didn't reach here, but I'm not surprised. I was once briefly in a disorganised band whose small brass section came from South Wales. Persuading them to come over the Severn Bridge was sometimes impossible. We needed two repertoires; one with, and one without, which was highly inefficient. Fortunately, I preferred without, as I was never a big fan of American groups like Blood Sweat & Tears or Chicago, especially when played with a Welsh accent!

Edit: Just managed to shoot piccie of male and female Siskins and they are both facing the right way! . This will appear here later; probably much later, as I need to fire up my computer with the photo program on it to do the tweaking, especially in todays murky light.

pink_poppy

What a beautiful garden, wort.

Yep, that is definitely a forest of toms, YBE.

 I moved a couple of clumps of my rhubarb the other day after watching some YouTube videos. Fingers crossed. I didn’t have any mulch (can I buy mulch from somewhere or is it dead leaves and things from the garden??) anyway I just covered it in the fluffy compost, leaving the top bit uncovered.

We have two trees nearby that are starting to blossom. I was told one is a crab apple, but when I took some pics yesterday, they both look very similar, although at different stages. The only slight difference I could see was the leaves on one are more jaggy...

YoungBlueEyes

A quick post before I take lovely neighbour and handsome out for lunch. 

Thanks for the apple pruning tips Farway, I’m not for attempting anything this year cos they’re only just in the ground. It was more so I knew what I should do when I’m meant to do it  

Heres a couple of closeups of my queer (I’m not ‘woke’) sproutings. With a £1 coin cos that makes more sense! 

Dustyevsky

Might be Oenothera biennis (Evening Primrose) or what I said earlier. It's still not close enough to see things like whether the leaves are hairy. Not sure why your photos don't expand when I right-click and then left click. Poppy's do; they turn into pictures big enough to cover a bloomin' billboard! Those were lovely apple blossoms BTW , and far ahead of most here. 

Had a good day, taming the place, which was in danger of getting away from me. Still need another + a bonfire day before we'll look half-decent.

Off to get that bird photo now...........

wort

The drunkards got it wrong and it’s been mainly sunny here today ,though I wouldn’t of cast a clout. As they saying goes.
Thank you for your kind words , I am more of a stick it in and see type gardener ,so guess I’ve been lucky so far.
My grandad tended bowling greens and then a football ground , both grandads were gardeners, as are some of my sisters, strange how the bug bites some but not others.
Fingers crossed for the figs Farway.

Dustyevsky

Right, here are the Siskins. They're not rare, but certainly not so common around these parts. Apparently they hang out with Lesser Redpolls, like the one I snapped the other day.

And here is the first photo I took.Our Robin decided to photobomb it... 

pink_poppy

Dustyevsky said:

Not sure why your photos don't expand when I right-click and then left click. Poppy's do; they turn into pictures big enough to cover a bloomin' billboard! Those were lovely apple blossoms BTW , and far ahead of most here. 

I have absolutely no idea why my photos do that 😂

Can anyone tell me what they do with their amaryllis when the flowers have died?? I love the architectural look of the leaves - to be honest the flowers (4 trumpets) weren’t that nice, so I’m not bothered about keeping the bulb in the right conditions for next year.

Bright and sunny again today, but with a nippy wind when in the shade. Rain forecast for tomorrow ☔️