Awful weather - typical Brits talk

Dustyevsky

YoungBlueEyes said:

.... if the Common Vetch runs away with itself it'll take over my grass entirely

The vetch is everywhere around me and in our fields. It's a good, natural nitrogen fixer, being a pea.

Mrs Dusty is another Merton Thornless devotee. I bought a pot last winter and got 3 of them out of it. The lead shoot was dead, but it was sprouting merrily from below. The place where I want them is unavailable at present, so I'll have to find a temporary spot.

Not a lot to report, except that it was blooming cold this morning. We are prepping for new chickens today. The grass in the orchard where they'll go eventually is 2' tall, so that's a brush cutter job. The silencer fell off that years ago, so everyone will know what I'm doing! 

Here's my picture of campion in one of the nearby hedges. It was only my point 'n shoot potato, so not great resolution.

YoungBlueEyes

@RAS by "variegated tree" do you mean the thing at the bottom of pic 2? If so, I'll pull it up when I'm gardening later

Ooh I'm liking the Red Campion, I think that's the pink thing that grows mad on the roadsides round here. Tall and attractive, it grows in with the cow parsley. Along with all the daisies and buttercups on the verges. It's all so cheerful  

Farway, if you can get to B+Q they sell small tubs of ready-mixed concrete. They do small bags of mix-it-yourself stuff too, about the size of a pint pot. And as for your porcupiney thornless blackberry, well people that either don't grow stuff properly or label things incorrectly should be shot. I'll volunteer for the job, it'll give me practice for the squirrels

I got a squirrel proof bird feeder yesterday, which is so far holding up to it's name. It's only been up for about 12 hours like, but I'm hopeful. It's best bladdy work cos it was a bit spendy!

Good to hear Mrs Dusty is properly up and about. I imagine she be issuing orders pointing out all the jobs the need doing now rather than the stuff you've been actually doing ha haa!

Gardening today, well weeding really. If it gets any cooler here I'll have to put socks on! Temps are in double figures, but not far in, and overcast with the NE breeze is here to stay, it feels like.

RAS

YBE, yes, the thing in photo 2. Unless you fancy a 40 footer? More that right now it should be possible to extract root and all if you grasp it close to the ground. Much easier that trying to grub out a pencil thick stub if the roots and base are left intact.

YoungBlueEyes

I'll do it today

RAS

I've spent time on the last three months' volunteer days removing lots of tree seedlings from plant beds. And more time shifting them from my own garden. Last year was a "mast year" and some of the parks have be solid seedling rather than grass.

Although yesterday was more conventional weeding. Some people get so disheartened when weeds grow in space previously cleared. But I'm more worried about the ground that grows little or nothing, as it's not going to grow your chosen plants either.

Farway

Dull start but sun due later, and still a cold wind.

The weather folks reckon at least another week of sunshine around here, the plants are loving it though, and I think I spotted "something" sprouting in a pot, I was beginning to think it was another Norwegian offering, possibly it's a posh & expensive canna or maybe a long awaited posh dahlia tuber. I'll check later, Luckily I did label it

And, I have identified as Honesty as the mystery plant that sprouted in conservatory, I'd forgotten that one. Trouble is the space I had for it is now swamped by other plants, I'll have to ferret around

Nice pic of the Red Campion Dusty, I can imagine them in those Devon hedgerows, foxgloves to follow? I have some self sown foxgloves, repotted, that I have to get planted once I find the right spot for

Only job for the day is mix Blood, fish & bone into the dying back daff pots at the front, I was waiting for my Asda delivery for the BFB, daft as sounds it is it's the cheapest BFB around here

YoungBlueEyes

RAS said:

Some people get so disheartened when weeds grow in space previously cleared. But I'm more worried about the ground that grows little or nothing, as it's not going to grow your chosen plants either.

<snip>

I like that sentiment. I'll bear it in mind when I'm tackling my eleventy squillion weeds....

Good luck with your posh and expensives Farway

Black_Cat2

LessImpecunious said:

pink_poppy said:
This is a photo of some of the carp the previous owners left behind... please can anyone suggest something else I can try?? 

Looks like a ready-made gravel garden! - just add plants

You sure there's not a body buried under all that crap? 😹

Dustyevsky

Black_Cat2 said:

LessImpecunious said:

pink_poppy said:
This is a photo of some of the carp the previous owners left behind... please can anyone suggest something else I can try?? 

Looks like a ready-made gravel garden! - just add plants

You sure there's not a body buried under all that crap? 😹

Looks like the results of riddling to me. The up-side is the absence of these stones in the areas of the garden they were removed from.

OT:more boring wall-to-wall sunshine here. I'm creocoting a chicken ark, but in these safety-conscious days there's not much to inhale. Not like the time when the factory was closed and I was given a bucket of trichloroethylene to clean the machinery!

YoungBlueEyes

My diggery-pokery tool is useless at pulling up anything with weak roots, the body of the plant just slides right through the tines! Grrr. But it is good for digging and poking  

I used it to get this up - 

I’ve a lot of mare’s tails in my soil which have I’ve weed-killered, but this is from a new patch on the other side of the garden. So I diggery-pokery’d the soil round it, and look at the size of the root! Not the clearest of pics but the green bit is at the fingertip end. I’ll use the chemicals when more come up, but jeez that was satisfying 😊

Aye creosote doesn’t smell as good as it used to eh