Awful weather - typical Brits talk

Farway

Some lovely photos as usual, and as stated YBE, your fuchsia, it'll come good. Best left alone over winter so the old twigs help to protect any new growth. Come Spring, you can just let it get on with it or prune & tidy it a bit. 

I have one near the front path which I will have to trim back soon because the wet soggy leaves are a lurking wet leg, and no. not the singers from the Isle of Wight

It's wet sort of, not raining but that damp drizzle which makes Christmas shopping such a pleasure [sarc]

Form duly completed for a freebie tree on the bit of council green opposite me, doubt much will happen until after the hols now. 

What killed the previous one was someone had ring barked it, no idea who or why, it was not in anyones way or obstructing anything. At the time, there were younger kids living here, so my assumption is one of them just playing about. 

I can't really moan because it's Karma catching me up after all these years. I remember ring barking an elm branch with my Scouts' sheath knife way back in the distant past when the cricket match I was watching from up the tree became even more boring.

Just checked on Google Earth and looks like the Cricket ground trees are still there, and part of a Botanic gardens

If the drizzle ever eases, I still have to move my posh dahlia to a more sheltered spot.

 Looking up alliums I may have missed the boat, seems should've been planted a month or so back. If my Morries has fresh plants in, like YBEs, I'll see what is around next week and take a chance if there are any.

LessImpecunious

Pink - or perhaps closer to purple (at least in my photo) - sky in Wales again, tonight (c. 4.15pm)...

YoungBlueEyes

That's a bu99er about the free tree wort, but you never think of these things at the time eh. 

Fish + chips then is it for christmas dinner pp ha haa! The germans do their christmas on christmas eve and they mostly have a big fish (carp/pike is it? I can't remember where I've got that from though) so you'd be more authentic than the date shifting meal swopping we all do now. Fingers crossed your weather lifts.

I've not been in a gc for a bit but I expect mine are full of festive and really very tasteful old toot as well Dusty. I think my one's very dear but then I spose I've not much of a benchmark to compare prices cos I'm only new at this really. Come the New Year I need to find a nursery I think.

So which tree did you go for Farway? I checked my council and they don't do it, sadly. You up a tree ring barking it made me giggle, were you a little s0d when you were younger then? 

Ooh Less that's a colour! It feels very calm and still and ...eerie. Did it last long? Do they know what causes it?

Dry and windy here today, so far. I've got a wash on (on a sunday!) cos that humidity has dropped and it's almost pleasant and mild out there now.

Dustyevsky

Great photo Less. I like the outline of that birch juxtaposed with the evergreen. Having Oogled, it seems pink or purple evening skies are a regularly reported thing every few years in Wales, and probably elsewhere too.

Great news! The hedgecutter man cometh, at last, only 5 weeks after we agreed to see him "at the weekend." He's currently cutting Horsey's place next door, and then it's us. We're getting him to give the troublesome elm hedge a right good seeing-to. I'm fed-up with it being 10' high and bare in parts at the base, so after he's had a go, I'll be chainsawing the tougher bits and then adding hornbeam at the bare points in the New Year.

Nothing else to report. It's quiet, grey weather again. Yesterday, I managed to transplant some seedling foxgloves in the 'wrong' places, to new homes in the bank overlooking the stream. They don't like disturbance, but I think I'll get away with it.

As it's a bit grim out there, here's a jolly mahonia, looking good since last month.

wort

A nice bright day so far, so another load of washing in, yesterdays was almost dry when I brought it in.
I am definitely going to do some garden tidying today , as soon as I’ve finished my cuppa.

pink_poppy

I have no idea what ring barking is, Farway.

What a beautiful pic, Less. Is that your garden (I think I can see a whirly). If so, wow.

We have fish fingers in the freezer, YBE (I do love a fish finger butty) so we could have them on Christmas Day if all else fails   

That's a lovely pic of the Mahonia, Dusty - I'd love one of those.

Well, the forecast is correct and we have heavy rain today. Truly miserable out there. I'm feeling a little hungover delicate (work Christmas meal last night) so a quiet day ahead. Christmas tree lights are on because it's so dingy and I think I'll light the fire (feels a bit chilly at 12.8 degrees and zero chance of any free solar heat today)...

pink_poppy

Envious of your weather, wort, especially being able to hang washing outside   

Farway

I have the same weather as Dusty, grey, dry & dull

Before I forget, regarding Garlic Chives, they were on GW winter special, part 2. About 45 minutes in, those of us growing them are in illustrious company, Raymond Blanc grows them at Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons. Used in his café [ho ho] and grown along with pot marigolds & something else as edible & organic pest control.

Looking at the website I see they run gardening schools, now that would be a course to go on if stinking rich, especially if grub included

Worth watching GW just for the manoir bit, and now they are starting with an orchard. A lot could be learnt from there, I suspect.

https://www.raymondblanc.com/experiences/le-manoir-aux-quatsaisons/

With the dull day no gardening even though I really should clear up the dying sedum foliage, I can't keep saying it's for insects much longer

pink_poppy said:

I have no idea what ring barking is, Farway.

I expect it's on YT somewhere, but it is a method of restricting the growth of a tree / branch by removing a ring / circle of bark about an inch wide around the trunk of a tree. The trick is to leave enough bark as "bridge" to keep feeding the rest of the tree beyond the cut bit. Like putting the tree on a diet

If you complete the circle and remove all bark around a tree trunk it will kill the tree because nutrients go up the bark, so the tree dies

Once ring barked it's done, no return

YoungBlueEyes

Sunny and breezy and a grand drying day altogether, as my granny used to say (sorry pp ) We often have fish finger sandwiches here, with salad cream yummy yum yum. Himself drowns his in brown sauce, but he's a wrong'un.
Ring barking (we used to call it griddling) is making a cut the whole way round a trunk, then another one below it, and peeling off the bark that's in between the two slashes. Itms? So the actual trunk is exposed and dies of cold or fright or dehydration or summat. (Granda always said the tree would die cos we'd let the faeries out, but that's maybe not what Farway was meaning.) 

Woohoo for hedgeman Dusty! I like your mahonia too, it looks like standing-up laburnum to me. Lovely creamy colour eh.

wort

Managed 2 hours in the garden but the green bin is full now, and I am starting to feel my back 😫 I shall just have lunch then cover the garden furniture which I hadn’t done up to now !! 

It makes a change us oop north having the good weather doesn’t it YBE.
I need son in law to sort out my wooden arbour that is slowly falling over, and put me a new washing pole in .