Awful weather - typical Brits talk

YoungBlueEyes

Oh bluddy ell, thanks 2p I didn't think the pic looked like a crocus ha haa! 

Speaking of companies, that reminds me. On one of them shopping channels last night (QCV ...or summat...) they had a garden pack of 60 plants for a few quid, and they were from those T+M people that get mentioned on here. I don't know how the range/prices compare to their catalogue but it's maybe worth a look in case they have 'exclusives' or good prices. I can't remember the details cos I only flick to that channel to avoid ads.twopenny said:

Bit of a sheesh day. Nothing organised, not tempting to head for the hills, wondered about a round country trip of garden centres but that could be fatal  . 

You best get your erse in gear if you're doing the whole country  

pink_poppy

There's snow on the tops here and the windscreen had to be scraped this morning. There's also a ring of ice around one of the utility metal covers - looks like a polo.

I'm definitely feeling a bit 'SAD' at the moment, possibly with a bit of homesickness mixed in...

Farway

Dull & damp, but seems we have breather mid day then it starts again. According to Ventu there is a wiggly set of red blobs & blue pyramids over me and Dusty's area.

DD1 does look happy on the toboggan Dusty, captured just at right moment

twopenny said:

Tell me about it!
I've been for physio, a swim and indulged in all that I'm not supposed to. Tomorrow is another day 
I've made myself sit down in my daylight porch with a book I picked up in a charity shop.
Lost Gardens of Heligan.
Really well written about the discovery and restoration. Definitely recommended.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lost-Gardens-Heligan-Tim-Smit/dp/0575402458

There was a TV series about it, and it will be no surprise when I tell you I have been there. 

I found it impressive knowing how it was so overgrown, but TBH it was not inspiring. It's a long & tiring walk round, up & down valleys. I've photos somewhere, real ones on film, which I'll try & locate

Walking round was quite thirsty work, which I later solved with Rattler cider & Betty Stogs bitter.

Not too far from the Eden project which was why I was in the area, I think Eden gave cut-price entry to Heligan at the time

I had Vinca, I think it was minor, I moved it to the Council verge & I think it still struggles on there

No gardening again. But should the promised bright spell arrive, I may nip squelch out and check how things are doing in the garden.

ArbitraryRandom

Yay replacement hostas have arrived, and the little ID label says they're the right variety (there wasn't a tag with the other ones). Unfortunately, given how long it's taken to sort this out, the new plants are dormant (no leaves), so I can't positively ID them as matching the label. 

I've not had hostas before, so can someone confirm the earliest you can tell the leaf colour/pattern? Do you have to wait for one to start to open, or can you tell from the initial shoots. The leaves are reasonably distinctive with three colours and a flame type pattern. 

Only in case there's another problem and I need to go back to the seller given these are hopefully being shipped off with mum when she visits at Easter. 

Dustyevsky

ArbitraryRandom said:
I've not had hostas before, so can someone confirm the earliest you can tell the leaf colour/pattern? Do you have to wait for one to start to open, or can you tell from the initial shoots. The leaves are reasonably distinctive with three colours and a flame type pattern. 

Only in case there's another problem and I need to go back to the seller given these are hopefully being shipped off with mum when she visits at Easter. 

Easter's at the end of March. Hostas outside here start to open from mid-April onwards, so it's doubtful a positive ID will be possible at Easter. Sorry!   Hopefully, the vendor won't get it wrong twice.

We managed to get the doors on the east end of the polytunnel today, so it's all closed-up tonight for the first time in this incarnation. Looks like rain until midday tomorrow and a return to double figure temperatures after a chilly but calm 7c today. Unfortunately, doors won't make any difference to the noise of heavy rain, so work inside may only be in short bursts tomorrow.

I was splitting another Vinca today. This larger one's called 'Jenny Pym' and I'm going to use it sparingly, to see how it behaves. https://www.bethchatto.co.uk/conditions/plants-for-general-conditions/vinca-difformis-jenny-pym.htm

 The picture shows the original plant from a 1 litre pot cut in half. Each of the halves will make about 3 or 4 divisions to grow on in 9cm pots.

greenbee

We've had lovely weather here, and I decided to start work late to get going on some sorting out. We cleared a sprawling compost heap, built one compost bin and filled it with a mix of stuff from the heap (turf from building the greenhouse, grass clippings etc) and woodchip from the vast pile of shrubs we are working through. We then took down a small dead tree (making more stuff to process) and built another slightly smaller/different style compost bin, and filled that in the same way. Then moved the rest of the compost to make space for a third bin which will be made out of pallets coming over from a friend's house tomorrow. 

The remaining compost is good, so we plan to weed the beds in the front garden and use it as mulch (this is the only bit of the garden which is going to get 'maintenance' rather than a complete overhaul). 

Some of the woodchip has been bagged up ready to go into a builders' bag tomorrow (coming from the same friend), likewise a lot of the leaves out of the shrub pile which is slowly becoming more manageable. 

Sadly I have a busy day tomorrow - electricians here, cats to vet for post-spay check (and hopefully getting rid of their pet vests as they hate them and claim they can't walk in them), and actual work, so no gardening for me

It's a good think the scaffolding is still up - we put the leaf-guards in the gutters while they were accessible (and cleaned the cement out of the gutters!), and discovered a bit of gable end that still needs a repair - the roofer is coming out on Friday morning. Scaffolders will be here on Saturday. And my mum has bought up the entire remaining stock of the local nursery's un-named snowdrops which I expect to be given on Sunday and will need to plant!

The east side of the garden will work very well as a 'woodland' garden. Partly because it's in shade most of the time, and partly because it has a wood on the other side of the fence. So at least some of the planting can start to be planned. 

ArbitraryRandom

Dustyevsky said:

ArbitraryRandom said:
I've not had hostas before, so can someone confirm the earliest you can tell the leaf colour/pattern? Do you have to wait for one to start to open, or can you tell from the initial shoots. The leaves are reasonably distinctive with three colours and a flame type pattern. 

Only in case there's another problem and I need to go back to the seller given these are hopefully being shipped off with mum when she visits at Easter. 

Easter's at the end of March. Hostas outside here start to open from mid-April onwards, so it's doubtful a positive ID will be possible at Easter. Sorry!   Hopefully, the vendor won't get it wrong twice.

Ah well... these will be in a pot on the windowsill until Easter (I don't want to plant them out just to dig them up for mum to take when they're just sprouting) so maybe we'll be lucky and the inside climate will prompt them to start up a little early. 

Agreed it's not likely the same mistake will be made twice, but it's been quite confusing/a bother as mum took the other plants with her before it was noticed they didn't look anything like the picture online (I just acted as middleman, which is one of the reasons it took so long to sort) - so she's bringing those back with her and we're doing a swop. I don't particularly want to end up with 4 hosta in the garden when all is said and done  

twopenny

Greenbee that was exhausting just reading that! But good weather and achievement is a great boost. 
Abs it will be interesting to see what the hostas do in the warm.

7c and black here. Barely sign of daylight and it's rain all morning like Dusty says.
The rain though should bpitter patter on your poly tunnel though so perhaps bearable.

No plans, walk cancelled. I've had some sort of tummy bug yesterday. Weird as I've not had any bugs for some years. So it's a snuggle down morning instead of up and at em.
Supposed to be sunny spells at the weekend so I'll save my energy  . 

YoungBlueEyes

Fingers crossed for your hostas Arb, maybe being inside will hoof them on a bit and you'll get them ID'd before Easter  

Are you far from home pp? Could you go for a weekend visit to take the edge off it? Homesickness is pure awful, I feel for you  

Dusty can I ask - did you just slice straight through the vinca with that knife? I spend ages trying to do stuff carefully and I'm wondering if I don't need to be... Not recently mind cos I've nothing to interfere with that needs help out there, but in general I mean. 

Nice you made use of the scaffolding gb, yous any further forward with getting shut of it? 

Nothing startling occurring here. No sunsets/sunrises. No gardening done. My phone says it's musical out there - 3' () but it feels alright to me. It also says it's been raining these last hour or so (wrong), and that the "disruptive snow" is on it's way. Doubt it, doesn't smell anything like snow. I fully intended to come on here this morning and not ramble at all and stick to the actual topic of the thread. Because wait til you see the forecast the sobers gave last night - I thought it'd stand alone - it's a new one on me.

YoungBlueEyes

We’re getting 13 mm of whatwhat?! 

That’s either graduate-speak, or some of the drunkards have been sacked and now work for the sobers ha haa!