Awful weather - typical Brits talk

-taff

Is it wetter on the one side or is the soil better?

twopenny

Oh Taff, I've put in sand, grit, different varieties.

Just as I get my hopes up the leaves turn grey in one spot and the whole plant within a week.

But I saw one that Monty had where the same happened and he said 'virus' but not if it's in the soil or airborne or whatever.

The first one was nursery grown and when sick I dug it up and potted it and it sort of recovered.

The second and third from Morries (like the flourishing one) died and I replanted the recovered one. That went the same way. But everything else is fine. The flourishing one is only a foot away.

One on the right is doubling in size each year. The gap is where I can't grow one..............hopeful that if I change the soil, grit, stone (Ihave enough of that!) and sand and the rooted offshoot of the good one may work.

It is shaded and cool but in summer bone dry and the garden is hot.

But there are patches where things aren't growing and there was no garden there before so something the builders have dumped?

goldfinches

@twopenny - I sympathise over your difficulties with fetching the cushion in the loft. I had to take the dragonfly photo bent double rather than crouched because if I'd crouched I'd have had to stay like that for the rest of the day, iffy joints are a real pest aren't they. I used my mobile and held it very near, I was lucky the insect was having a rest, normally they zoom around so quickly I can't snap them at all.

I was having a look at a hazel to see if there were any nuts worth foraging and noticed that it's flowering again, is this because of the peculiar weather or have I never noticed the autumnal flowers before?

-taff

2p, it might well be where something has been dumped. we found all sorts when we dug out the back of our garden, breezeblocks, car exhausts, metal rods, plastic bags etc. There may ne something like a plastic bag that's keeping the water level high there or something like that.

YoungBlueEyes

That's a lovely view out your back door 2p, and all the flowers still going It doesn't sound like it'd be something airborne if the other one is a foot away, so I'd guess soil too. See how many tree roots and iron bars and plastic bags and engine blocks and cats' ...messages...  you can dig up (ha haa), and start from fresh. Or, presuming the good one is virus-resistant, could you halve it and transplant into the hole?
Actually there's a question - is there anything you can do/sprinkle/pour on soil to clean it? Is that A Thing?

Funny you should say about autumnal flowering gf. There's a house at the end of my road that has a huge beautiful fuschia come tumbling out all over the fence in spring, and when I walked past it the other day it was flowering again. Smaller paler flowers, but I don't remember that happening last year... I'll get a pic later.

Is dgd drying out Farway? Hopefully she didn't suffer any damage? They had a piece on it on the news last night, jeez they got it bad up there like.

Up early this morning, it was so warm here last night. Still mild and lovely out there now, if a bit humid. The drunkards have given cloud 'til lunch ish then beautiful sunshine again with the breeze properly picking up mid aft. I found another bag of bulbs yesterday so I've them to get in. I need to keep my ear out for the door though, I'm sure I must be due a snap inspection coffee and catchup with the Oracle about now...  

Dustyevsky

goldfinches said:

I was having a look at a hazel to see if there were any nuts worth foraging and noticed that it's flowering again, is this because of the peculiar weather or have I never noticed the autumnal flowers before?

You wouldn't have found any hazelnuts, gf. That's a Witch Hazel; a  different plant from our native hazel and a lot more expensive too! Think £30-40 for a good one.  Yours is early into flower, rather than having another go:

https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/witch-hazel

On the subject of second flowering, we noticed our Japanese Water Iris were in bud again yesterday, but it remains to be seen whether they'll give a repeat performance.

A quiet, misty morning again here, apart from the recycling guys who made lots of noise around 7. Looks like another day of fair weather so I'll pay a visit to the thatchers' yard and give their bindweed some 'medicine.' I have permission.  It's just beginning to creep through onto our plot and it's one weed I won't tolerate. Looks pretty climbing up their barn, though!

Dustyevsky

YoungBlueEyes said:

Funny you should say about autumnal flowering gf. There's a house at the end of my road that has a huge beautiful fuschia come tumbling out all over the fence in spring, and when I walked past it the other day it was flowering again. Smaller paler flowers, but I don't remember that happening last year... I'll get a pic later.

I took a picture of a fuchsia on that last coast walk, as  I'd not seen any attractive wild flowers on the salt-blasted headlands. The camera was having an off day, though, and with so many drooping bells to choose from, it couldn't decide where to focus!

ArbitraryRandom

Talking of hazel - my grandparents had a hazel that produced nuts, but it was a twisted type and never grew larger than a bush (without to my recollection any significant pruning - nan would take the occasional branch for a flower arrangement). 

Any idea what variety it might have been? 

Dustyevsky

ArbitraryRandom said:

Talking of hazel - my grandparents had a hazel that produced nuts, but it was a twisted type and never grew larger than a bush (without to my recollection any significant pruning - nan would take the occasional branch for a flower arrangement). 

Any idea what variety it might have been? 

Just an ordinary hazel, I think, with a bit grafted on with the contortion genes. Some of us need contortions to get any jeans on..... but I digress. For some reason, they don't seem to go above 3m or so. Maybe it's all that wiggling about!  We inherited one here. I hate the things, so used it for chainsaw practice. Ever since, it's annoyed me by throwing up straight shoots, despite my best attempts to poison it. It would've gone via digger long ago, but a straight line drawn from where the electricity enters our property to the point where it enters the house, passes right underneath it!

Farway

Dull start but due to brighten up later.

YoungBlueEyes said:

Is dgd drying out Farway? Hopefully she didn't suffer any damage? They had a piece on it on the news last night, jeez they got it bad up there like.

Still raining up there today, she sent a video of Dess waterfall near her, normally a pretty one, but now it's a raging torrent, and you'd be a goner if you fell in, luckily where she is old house been there years so sturdy enough for even Scottish weather

Nice pic from your door 2P, like others I suspect the soil, but find rosemary is "odd" and seems very picky, some just die anyway, presumably they're Norwegian ones

Dustyevsky said:

A quiet, misty morning again here, apart from the recycling guys who made lots of noise around 7.

Mine were here around 0830, but my garden waste bin is still full, hope they have not missed me off again , a right PIA if they have because bin's full & I would like to get some buddleia in there before weather changes

ArbitraryRandom said:

Talking of hazel - my grandparents had a hazel that produced nuts, but it was a twisted type and never grew larger than a bush (without to my recollection any significant pruning - nan would take the occasional branch for a flower arrangement). 

Any idea what variety it might have been? 

No expert but corkscrew hazel comes in many varieties, and a lot are grafted, so maybe like apples it depends on root stock? Just looking though and there does seem to be a lot of choice, very tempting, but I'd never see a nut before squirrels had them. The catkins would be nice, and I know hazelnuts grow well here, thanks Mr Squirrel

Nice to see the autumnal out of season flowers, I thought I was dreaming, but I have more blossom on my Judas tree, I'll try for a photo but will need to use a telephoto lens because it's high up the tree