Awful weather - typical Brits talk

goldfinches

F- how exciting and clever you for having managed to keep them all this time. I'm sure mine would have ended up in a bowl of soup by mistake if I'd saved any in the fridge.
Though you've reminded me I collected lots of love-in-a-mist, hollyhock and foxglove seeds last year and carefully put them in several jars so I must see if I can find them and start scattering them around the various bare spots I pass every day.
The ground is completely waterlogged here and the ducks have moved off the river because its running too fast for them at the moment.
I'm also going to do the Birdwatch and like imw am still deciding which hour to choose and where to watch. For the first time this year I was able to hang a feeder from an open window frame yesterday over lunchtime and lured some blue tits away from the garden feeders so if this warmth keeps up I might be able to watch from my sitting room rather than muffled up on a bench in the cold.
Tessellation for me is a fascination that grew out of patchwork pattern designs, the tile work of Al Andalus in Granada, Lisbon and Sintra, paving and brick patterns, embroidery stitch patterns, geometry, technical drawing, Escher's engravings, Kaffe Fassett's knitting patterns and classic animation drawings. At least those are all areas that to me seem to be related to it in various ways as are the patterns that occur in sunflower seed heads etc. so I tend to think of it as applied maths and rather fun too.

[Deleted User]

Morning Campers 🖐 
The rain's still being thrown out of the sky here, so much standing water around that small rivers and lakes are forming everywhere you look 😕
Around the town, when it's in the gutters, it makes hard work for pedestrians who have to leap to safety every time a car passes, less agile get drenched each time 😕 

I found some Dierama 'blackbird' this week, one of my favourite perennials, they love my sandy soil and i bought 3 more plants to add to that section of the garden which will make a gorgeous show of dark pink and purple through the summer.
Callistemon - found C violaceus this week too - they grow very well here, too, and this will make a gorgeous addition to the ones i already have here ..... chuffed to bits with my haul 🌱🌺 

Now i have to wait until i can get out there and plant them, patience is not my virtue 😬🙄

Farway

It's tipping down here as well, a good day for looking out the window I think

goldfinches said:

F- how exciting and clever you for having managed to keep them all this time. I'm sure mine would have ended up in a bowl of soup by mistake if I'd saved any in the fridge.
Though you've reminded me I collected lots of love-in-a-mist, hollyhock and foxglove seeds last year and carefully put them in several jars so I must see if I can find them and start scattering them around the various bare spots I pass every day.

I love scattering seeds on bare patches, it just seems "right", my usual donation is teasels & evening primroses, but foxgloves & buddlia have also been involved

Should my rose seeds grow I may sneakily add some to the space near my garage block

in_my_wellies

Still raining here too, cloudy and dull and not looking to brighten up any time soon. I shall do the garden birdwatch late this afternoon and hope the usual tribe of tits and blackbirds come to visit. I see goldfinches in the trees but they rarely if ever visit the niger feeder. 

Goldfinches - Thanks for the link to the tessellations. I wasted far too much time looking at those! I've also done some patchwork but I'm too impatient so only basic squares (machined, sorry ) and nothing I'm proud of. 

Faraway - I've dampened my rose seeds, which might have dried out, thanks for the photo. 

Davesnave

Rivers are out here, and with more H2O on the way it's not looking good. Although  we have a stream, the house isn't capable of being flooded, fortunately.

I'm wondering how our neighbours at the bottom of the slope are doing after being flooded a few weeks ago. One is spending over £3k on works to alleviate the surface water issues and I see another has been laying pipes in the garden. He was quizzing me about "Where the water from your barn roof goes." The answer probably didn't make him happy, but he has the option of installing a drain for me as an alternative to the soak-away. It's only 80m to the stream. OTOH, if we all did that, someone else downstream would just receive it more quickly and all at once!

Scattering seed is impractical for me unless they're very small. I did the damp sand throwing thing at the road hedge a few years ago and had success with foxgloves, but most other things were probably consumed! There are just 4 honesty plants due to perform this year out of thousands sown.

I'm trying to jump a stage with the extra Rosa rugosa I want. Neighbour has them all around her manege and some must need 'management.'

Farway

Dave, ever helpful I see with Rosa pruning , very neighbourly

Farway

Dull with frost to start the day

I have found a packet of nasturtium seeds, in a sealed foil packet but I've no idea what type they are, except mixed nasturtiums

I'll use them but will have to be wary in case they are the trailing ones and will romp away.

I already have that type, which self seed with no complaints from me, but I try and keep the smaller bush type well away to stop cross fertilisation

I've just checked the rose seeds in airing cupboard and can clearly see at least two have white root showing now , not sufficient to get a decent photo yet

I've taken them out of the zip lock bag because they look a bit too wet, hate them to damp off at this stage

Davesnave

Farway said:

Dave, ever helpful I see with Rosa pruning , very neighbourly

Not that sort of pruning!   We get on well, so I'd ask. The plants invade her track, so have to be constrained at intervals.

It's been snowing here, so that will now turn to rain, but the rivers have fallen back. No panic.We have very reactive rivers here, quite different from those on chalk or the larger ones in the Midlands.

The rubbish weather has enabled me to finish all my trellis work on schedule. I'll put a photo up when the last panel goes in, though they're all in temporary positions until we get some calm conditions to set them all at the correct height etc.

Apodemus

Still no let-up on the snow and ice here, so no gardening progress.  More snow last night made a mockery of my good work yesterday clearing the previous night's snowfall off the road. And -5C when I went out to get the paper this morning, so its going nowhere anytime soon.  However, it was a bright clear day today, with the hills looking stunning in the sunshine and if you stood and faced the sun you could convince yourself that there was some warmth.

Last weekend I potted up some of the garlic that I harvested in October.  Normally I would have harvested and re-planted it in August, so I am badly out of synch this year.  But I reckoned that if I got it going in the porch in January, I might manage to give it a start and get it planted out under cloches in February.  Its coming away great in the pots and I am now wondering if it is going to be too far on, long before it gets into the ground!  But it is a very forgiving plant and the one thing that seems to do well here regardless of the abuse it gets from me! 

Davesnave

It was still drizzling, but we put the last panel in. Will adjust them, finalise height of posts and add post caps etc another day (month!)

Next week, it's concreting the conservatory floor.....possibly.