Awful weather - typical Brits talk

Farway

Late on here, but it was early start this morning, up to the volunteer place with a couple of others, main task was weeding and planting up the front area pots to be presentable come Remembrance Day

All accomplished and the Morries pansies are now in place in pots, I was about five short so next time I'm up Morries I'll get matching six-pack

The other volunteer is going to supply some mini cyclamen that are out now, should look nice mixed in with pansies

All agreed on next year Memorial plot, cleared OK for lavender planting, and other volunteer has fuchsia cuttings coming on

If we can get them going I think fuchsias mixed with lavender will look fine, have to sort out pop bottles for fuchsia root watering, then I can just top up with a hose once a week

Dusty, good news on mower, the bum on seat bit reminds me of someone who could get car going, seems shopping bag on passenger seat = bum, but no seat belt fastened and all sorts of alarms

Come AI & proper EVs it'll probably lock all the doors & give you a lethal injection, drive you directly to jail

YoungBlueEyes said:

Farway what do you plant under your neighbour’s trees? Or have you abandoned that area? 

Area abandoned, actually my shed is there, so the trees help with a bit of shelter and also supply an escape route for cats & foxes that lounge on my hot tin shed roof

2P, love the pony pic, time to dust off the camera and get out there. I was looking for Autumn images while out this morning, but nothing inspiring, so far

I did quite like this hollyhock against the sky, growing in the volunteer border

greenbee

Glorious hollyhock @Farway.

I have't posted for a while as I've been busy getting to grips with the new house and hoping the garden doesn't get too out of control. 

While I was house hunting I stayed with my mum, and after a few weeks of doing her mowing I revised my garden size requirements downwards. So have 3/4 acre rather than 3 or 4 as I'd originally planned. The garden is politely described as a 'blank canvas'. It's north facing, with a wood on the east side. The vendors weren't gardeners, so there's a LOT of lawn, a pretty huge patio (but as it's north facing it needs to be big given the shadow from the house), a few trees and shrubs round the edge. There are some lovely trees and shrubs round the boundary, but they've just been cut as a hedge twice a year so need a lot of work - I hacked my way to the back in one spot to try to clear some space round a tree and discovered there are about 4 layers of planting. Most of the shrubs have become very leggy, quite a few are dead on my side by thriving where they hang over the neighbours' fence! I managed to find a flowering currant today being attacked by eleagnus on both sides - the eleagnus smells fabulous at the moment, but there is a lot of it, so it has had a haircut.

Far too much robinia and laurel, and too much conifer at the front. It's going to take a lot of work to restore it and make the garden more interesting.

Plans so far are to get a greenhouse in (delivery on Oct 10th, installation on Oct 19th), get some tree work done (Nov. - I'm using a tree surgeon I know who doesn't like cutting trees down, so I know he'll work with me to get them all healthy), plan the composting and rainwater harvesting, work out where the veg and soft fruit is going (down the far end with the greenhouse where they'll be south facing), bring my raised planters over so I can have herbs and salad outside the kitchen and plant lots of lavender  round the patio. 

Next door have a similar garden, which was in a similar state when they bought it, and have made it lovely. With a lot less mowing. 


Lots to keep me busy. Including identifying some of the shrubs. 

twopenny

Wow you are busy Greenbee, and so organised!

Wish I could be.

I was somewhere today when I saw this,

Ivy which is rampant and possibily Virginia Creeper which is rampant. Put them together and this is splendid!

It's climbing over a small shed and they seem to be cancelling each other out in the rampant stakes.

Warm and bright so took my friend for a river walk in the moors.......rain, mist for the afternoon, too wet to walk (but we did see the big stag and his hinds) then when we came home road suddenly dry and brightish

Some weird cloud formations though.

Dustyevsky

Ah, I know that spot 2p. I thought maybe a walk through the woods above there after a visit to Greencombe, but we got the timing all wrong this year! Must do better. It’s like my wallflowers, which I was sure I'd read should be sown in August!

Welcome back to the fold, greenbee.Take it from me, you don't want 3 or 4 acres without sheep, or turning most of it into woodland. It's good you are talking with the neighbours, because they will have come across most of the locational quirks already.

Lovely hollyhock, Farway. Maybe I'll shoot my last mystery dahlia against the sky too, but nothing will disguise the fact it's a very ordinary red, and with downward-facing blooms to boot! Next year....

Dull and warm here all day. Mrs Dusty and I began preparations for the totally pointless introduction of chicken flockdown, which is bound to occur soon. We have spent a fortune invested a 4 figure sum in devising a run that will keep them free ranging and happy. Part of it is made from re-purposed aluminium benching from the old polytunnel.

Now it's drizzling.... Half our log delivery is in the shed and the other half will now need a day or two to dry off again.

Oh, nearly forgot. Having finally exhumed all the inappropriate double-flowered, mystery daffodils in the wild area, won in a raffle a few years ago, what do we win in September's Market raffle? Yes, another 'mystery' net of daffs!

goldfinches

I forgot to say that I took this photo of a plaque with a C.S. Lewis poem on it on Friday, I thought it very suitable for all perennially hopeful gardeners, sorry about having cut a few letters off on the left hand side.

YoungBlueEyes

Sounds like yous have got a good plan for the volunteer patch Farway, lavender and fuschia will look lovely together. And I like your hollyhock too  

Worth getting out then 2p, stag and hinds, and that shed is a beauty! Nice little stream and the horse wash next to it - heaven. Pity about the weather though, sods law that eh. 

Congrats on your new home greenbee, sounds like you've got just the right garden now. Bit of graft in it but less mowing ha haa! And I agree about tapping up the neighbour/s for advice. I'm given to understand it's an endless topic

I really like the plaque poem gf, doesn't that just sum it up? 

Funny I'd be over the moon with more daffs. Maybe I’ll fill my Empty Quarter with em. It’s south facing so a shed wouldn’t be good there. I was talking to my cousin last night and she suggested cordalines/cordalimes...? Properly tough beggars hers are, so either them or I should go get a 5ft cactus she said Then Handsome started barking and barking so I went out and lovely neighbour's there trying to shoo out a hedgehog! Pic in a min. It was a big fat one, nearing a foot long ish. Considering all the noise and the light from her torch while I took a pic it was quite calm. Ran like the wind when we'd got him turned round and left him to it though. It's a wonder with all the cats etc we have knocking about here that it was mooching about. 

Quite a nice morning here. Nothing startling in the sunrise dept but the birds were singing goodo, and I think I heard a blackie but it was a way away. But at least he was there Another nothingy day today - damp and maybe a tiny breeze 'til the rain arrives on the wind mid aft. High humidity all day too. Still so warm - it's 14' out there now and it was 21' yesterday. Didn't feel like it with the damp mind. 

YoungBlueEyes

Hedgehog

Dustyevsky

Cats and dogs don't seriously bother hedgehogs, Bluey. They've only one enemy, apart from humans, and that's badgers. Since the badger culling around here, hedgehogs have done much better. Their natural instinct when disturbed is to stay still and get ready to go into a ball. As you say, when they think it's OK to take off, they can shift!

Cordylines are tough, and so are yuccas and phormiums, but don't plant yuccas if being punctured sooner or later by their spines doesn't appeal! 

Misty, damp morning here, with some unpredicted rain on the way, though the amounts vary according to whom you believe. The drunks say minimal sun and heavy at times, while the liars say light showers and sunshine. Perhaps the liars need to put their girl Marianna on the case....

Not much else to report, so here's a photo of my friend's canna lily, just to remind those of us who didn't get any flowers this year what they look like!

Farway

Dull but dry so far, may rain PM and TBH could do with some, once we got digging a bit yesterday at volunteer spot it was dust dry

Garden sounds promising Greenbee, hard work but at lest you can see next door and know what could be

And GF, that poem is just right, engraved on all our hearts

Not seen hedgehogs here for ages, mind you I'm not out prowling at night so unlikely to see any, probably got more chance of seeing a canna flower than a hedgehog

The Brown Turkey fig I bought on impulse a bit back from Morries, I potted it on and my has it loved that , the leaves are now the size of an open hand, old ones are baby hand, new ones are proper navvy sized

Jobs for the day, if rain holds off I hope to get the clematis passion flower planted at the front and start on the Great Lavender Hunt for next year. 

From a quick read on here, including recent posts, I think it may be a choice between Hidcote & Munstead types because they must love poor, dry soil and neglected conditions, watered only when it rains, with one or none haircut a year

Other suggestions welcome of course, but not the rabbit ears please

YoungBlueEyes

That’s good news Dusty. We’ve no badgers round here (to my knowledge, will check with the Oracle) but I have seen a fox. Only rarely though. I’ll keep my eye out for cordylines now that I’ve got the right spelling ha haa! 

Rabbits ears Farway, are they lambs ears by another name…? I like them myself. Or how about a hebe? I’ve one in my garden that’s just ever so gradually getting bigger - I take no care of it, no watering or trimming or deadheading or nothing. The flowers are a welcome lay different shape too. I’ve a myrtle in a big pot that’s getting the same treatment and it’s happy enough (I think). 

Edit - the hedgehog appeared about 2 hours after sunset, so he probably came here from wherever he lives. My ones in Lincs were in my garden pretty much at sunset and I know they lived close by.