Awful weather - typical Brits talk

twopenny

Beautiful healthy crowd of Lilly of the Valley Poppy  lucky you.

MIA lately, been chasing windscreen wipers for an out of production car for 2 days and exhausted 

Only gardening was draining the tomato seed pots (again) and I've bought them inside for a last chance.

Torrential rain overnight and wet this morning. Not cold though or windy so that's a blessing.

Still reading and enjoying what you're all up to.

Dustyevsky

pink_poppy said:

Taff, I couldn’t decide if it was a yellow or orange poppy. I still don’t know 🤷‍♀️

Bright photos with real sunshine, pp.  Welsh Poppies come in a gradient of shades from acid yellow through to pillar box red. We remove all the yellow ones to keep the oranges and reds, but there's nothing wrong with the yellows if you've no reds to worry about, or just let nature do its thing.

Also MIA today, (yesterday now) attending a child's funeral up-country. Very sad, but also uplifting. Some achieve in a few years what others never do. I recognised this little girl as a Stoic early on. She was the real deal. I'm still with the L plates.

No work done at Dusty Acres while we were away. After Wednesday night's rain, it was a mudfest. We dry fast, so Friday should be OK.

YoungBlueEyes

Ahh Dusty, there's nothing harder than losing a child. God love her. RIP. 

Did the ponies/cows/throngs of tourists let you through to Beaulieu taff? The black cat isn't the Holey Roamin' Terror - he's a tortoiseshell with a white bib. The black one just uses my garden as a cut through, straight across the middle from fence to fence. S/he doesn't stop if you don't look but if it catches your eye it stands stock still and just stares.... makes me go all wiggly 

I think you're right about the carp compost Farway, I didn't have all this bother last year and it's the same stuff I'm using. Are the cosmos and lavendars still upright?  

You're welcome for the kicking up the bahookie pp. Those bags look good to me (not an expert), you'll be knee-deep in tatties before you know it Beautiful flowers too, I like your poppy no matter what colour it identifies as, and aren't the daisies+diddy blue things cheerful.

I'm not the OP but I love the rambling nonsense varied topics that we talk about on here. Tatty talk and pics is fine by me Less, it's something I'd never do myself so I'm interested in how yous all get on  

2p have you tried asking auld fellahs in Halfords about windscreen wipers? They might be able to suggest an alternative. Or if it's something a bit special - have you any scrappies near you..? What car is it? I'll ask himself and give him chance to say something useful ha haa!

Himself spent all morning sorting his clothes out and came down the stairs with 2 tshirts :rolleyes:  An hour later he was on his was to the charity shop with 9 carrier bags and they were very grateful  

Mild and cloudy here, but no rain forecast. They say. The wind's dropped too so it feels lovely out there. Desperate rain overnight tonight though. Possibly.

ArbitraryRandom

Dusty, please accept my condolences - I agree life should be measured by what you do, not how many times you rode the bus the full circle. 

Just been out and given the garden an early morning water. A few things are showing a bit of shock at having been potted on/out, but that's to be expected and hopefully they'll bounce back. I am already regretting a few of my decisions (I realised a little late that planting perennials in front of annuals would probably make things a little more difficult than they needed to be at harvest/planting time - given I had the beds made so I can't get all the way around them and honestly they're just a little too deep for me to comfortably reach the back without actually sitting on the soil!) But this year is about learning and I'm not moving them again so soon, so I'll manage for now. 

One thing of possible concern is my little cherry tree (Sylvia from T&M), which is yet to break its dormancy. I figured it would be a little shocked to be planted out and then the building work going on, so I wasn't expecting early and vigorous growth  - and it has a reasonable number of buds which don't look damaged/shrivelled - but it's still not leafing out at all. I put poultry manure in the hole when it went in, I'm watering it at least weekly, the roots are mulched, and I've covered the area around the tree with cardboard to help keep the area shaded/weed free, not sure what else I can do to help it establish? 

Next work trip coming up in a couple of weeks. This one back to Cardiff, and I'm actually hoping to meet a friend and have a wander around St Fagans before hoping on the train home, so will try to get some good pictures to share. Might not make it much further than the bakery &nb

pink_poppy

So sorry to hear your sad news, Dusty xx

Dustyevsky

ArbitraryRandom said:

Dusty, please accept my condolences - I agree life should be measured by what you do, not how many times you rode the bus the full circle.

The community she lived in is typical city-edge, mostly modern-looking and anonymous, but the community's strong and the school, faith-based, which has all helped throughout the long battle with cancer. Our family's pretty tight-knit, too. A couple of hundred people  at the service; half of them children and staff from the school. Not your usual stuffy send-off, with vids by the kids, dances etc. It's been a learning experience for everyone.

Builders are back this morning and things should move quite swiftly now. It looks as if we shall be into double figure temperatures for the foreseeable. Apparently, it continued raining here yesterday until 16.00. It wasn't raining so much where we were, but there was a dank mist and the car said it was 6 - 9c in the middle part of the day.

A few days ago I posted a white honesty at Rosemoor, which is a biennial. Not so well known is Lunaria rediviva, the perennial one, though I can never get it to grow as well as the RHS.....and why don't molluscs attack theirs?

-taff

Dusty, i did not know that about welsh poppies, i will need to get lots now and weed the yellow ones out. My condolences too, but lovely that the ceremony wasn't stuffy and daggers looked if a cough is heard. I like your perennial honesty, although to be fair, I'm leaning towrds liking all hings perennial now, just to pay once for something

pp, lovely pics, I'm glad 2p told me it was LotV, I didn't have a clue beyond it reminds me of rubbish presents I used to buy my gran when I was a child.

ybl, don't know about that yet, I'm going on Sunday, will let you know Monday, or Sunday night depending on whether I need to vent with stress Ahh...not the HRT then..I do like that they look at you sometimes and keep looking but stay very still like a kids version of covering your eyes and hoping for the best And I did laugh at your marshalling of your OH.

Arb, honestly, if you need to move the perennials, do it sooner rather than when they're fully established. [unless they're not hardy ..] And we all make mistakes like that, like me not leaving enough room for a wheelbarrow bewteen my old ones, doh!Just give the cherry time, it might be a bit shicked at it's new circumstances..

Thinking about hoiking out a sage bush form th front, it's growing into a rose,[ which micht also need to be moved], and it hasn't flowered for quite a few years. I put some white jasmine in there by the side of the rosemary too and that will probably end up taking over the space but for now, maybe a bit of bronze fennel in there. [I put most of my herbs in the front garden]

Farway

Condolences Dusty.

And now back to building, which I hope gets done, weather seems sort of OK this weekend, except for the torrential rain near Beaulieu as Taff visits GW show

ArbitraryRandom said:

Just been out and given the garden an early morning water. A few things are showing a bit of shock at having been potted on/out, but that's to be expected and hopefully they'll bounce back. I am already regretting a few of my decisions (I realised a little late that planting perennials in front of annuals would probably make things a little more difficult than they needed to be at harvest/planting time - given I had the beds made so I can't get all the way around them and honestly they're just a little too deep for me to comfortably reach the back without actually sitting on the soil!) But this year is about learning and I'm not moving them again so soon, so I'll manage for now. 

One thing of possible concern is my little cherry tree (Sylvia from T&M), which is yet to break its dormancy. I figured it would be a little shocked to be planted out and then the building work going on, so I wasn't expecting early and vigorous growth  - and it has a reasonable number of buds which don't look damaged/shrivelled - but it's still not leafing out at all. I put poultry manure in the hole when it went in, I'm watering it at least weekly, the roots are mulched, and I've covered the area around the tree with cardboard to help keep the area shaded/weed free, not sure what else I can do to help it establish? 

What is this watering idea? Shows how much it varies around the country, doesn't it?

The cherry, they tend to flower before leaf, so leaf is always later, if the buds are OK it'll get there, I expect it's making roots first, often happens, lots of underground activity. 

FWIW the ash tree in front of my house is still bare branches, some saying about Ash being out? FIO Here the Oak is out before Ash, so in for a splash.

YoungBlueEyes said:

I think you're right about the carp compost Farway, I didn't have all this bother last year and it's the same stuff I'm using. Are the cosmos and lavendars still upright?  

2p have you tried asking auld fellahs in Halfords about windscreen wipers? They might be able to suggest an alternative. Or if it's something a bit special - have you any scrappies near you..? What car is it? I'll ask himself and give him chance to say something useful ha haa!

Cosmos & lavender still there, as are the four surviving marigolds. If it stops raining long enough, and I can sort out the tubs for tomatoes, I'll put a marigold in the tubs, not as companion planting, just for somewhere for them to go & a bit of colour. The original intention was battalions of marigolds, not just the few snipers I finished up with.

2P, wipers, scrappie is good idea, or is just the rubber blades? Years back you could buy replacement rubber bits but given today economics I expect you have to buy a new car, or a pack of twenty-four wipers.

Nice bright pics PP, like the forget-me-nots & daises, as someone pointed out the other week, wild flowers are lovely if we care to look.

Envious of the Lily of the V, another one I fail with. 

They always remind me of visiting an “Aunt” in Reading with my Mum & Nan. Her rope tiled path was edged with them, and then it was time for broken biscuits from Huntley & Palmer factory, a real treat because it was still food rationing. I think most of Reading must have lived on those , we always came home with a bag full as well.

Good news on the T & M apple tree

I have arranged to have the correct product, Appple (Malus) Golden Delicious 1 Bare Root, to be sent to you. We will get this despatched as soon as possible and will let you know by email once the package has left us.
There is no need to return the incorrect product to us, please keep it with our compliments, we hope that you can make use of it.

A good result, mistake put right, plus now my Volunteer spot gets a sneaky crab apple

I'll pot it up later this morning, until a suitable sneaky time for planting arises

Toms & geraniums out and hardening off again, there was even a glimpse of sun

ArbitraryRandom

Thanks both. I just feel a bit sorry for it as it's only a yearling, so it looks like a stick shoved in the ground. 

-taff, the issue is I need to actually figure out what space things need for the growing season, how much I can actually fit into the space and what I need to be able to reach (and how often) to stop from flowering etc vs what can be more or less left alone once it's in - so I need to have proper rethink/rejig for next year. 

I got thrown completely out of whack by impulse buying those onions and not thinking about the spacing requirements. 

Which is something that I've often wondered about... why is the recommended distance between rows different from the recommended space between plants? The advice is the same for raised beds as it is in the ground, so it's not for a path...

For example google says onions: 2–4in apart, in rows 10–12in apart (or what I did, multi-sown 4 in a clump 6 inches apart with rows ~12 inches apart). My brain would much prefer a grid with all plants ~6 inches apart (which would give the same square 'footage' per plant I think...

greenbee

2p - I got my replacement wiper blades on Amazon in the end. But it's a current model (mind you, it took ages to check for the right part).

My asparagus crowns aren't looking very happy. I suspect they might have dried out while they were waiting to be planted (clearly not after they were planted, as it's mostly been soggy). I'll see how many survive this year, and replace those that don't. At least the bed will be ready next year.

This weekend is forecast to be soggy, so lots of greenhouse-focused work is planned (along with packing stuff up indoors in preparation for the next round of building work). The garage attic is currently being emptied of toy-train set-up and boarding to allow for woodworm treatment (thankfully I'm not doing it). The materials should come in handy for other things. Once the poor guy doing the work confirms that it is empty, I'll book the pest control people in.

Given the amount of stuff I need to move for building work, I'm hoping it can be done soon and I can then clear out the garage (as well as the workshop) to use to store furniture for a couple of weeks. I don't really want to store it in there while the treatment is being done. And the cats and I have to move out for the day, but I think we'll be OK in the main house - if the bats are OK, then I think we're safe