Awful weather - typical Brits talk

goldfinches

Wow 2p that's gorgeous. I see you've got my favourite campanula at the base of your front wall too, bees love it as well so you might get a few bee bum pics as a bonus.
I'm very envious of all these lovely smelling flowers as the only flowers I can lay claim to at the moment are forget-me-nots and dandelion clocks which I'm frantically trying to remove from my allotment before I become the site pariah for having spread them to all my neighbours. I am making some progress and have planted out my first lot of sweet pea seedlings which survived the night so I have high hopes for sweet smelling bunches to take home soon.

This is today's progress.

twopenny

That's a god bit of clearing Goldie, lovely bit of sage there.
I've just cut mine back for the second time this year and the branches are out to dry in the sun. I'm going to have to see if there's anyone left who cooks who'd like some because I hate throwing it away.

Yes the campanula is rampant! I have to keep scraping it out of the path every few weeks. Al round the house and full of bees.

Have you thought of a long handled trowel? They come with soft padding to save your skin and wrist. Got mine cheap from the local cheapie diy store.
Dandelions = coffee. 

wort

Still not been able to catch up on your posts. 

I have the aquilegia that Dusty sent me and they are in a pot so I don’t lose them, they are growing slowly. 🤞🏻💪🏻
Other than those hopefully white ones, I have random ones seeded all over in flower, dark purple , pink, 2 colour ones , none of which bunch nicely together! 

Farway my lilies got eaten by the lily beetle , twice I spotted it but each time it threw itself off before I could get it.
I picked up a begonia pot from work, it needs a bit of tlc,then hopefully it’s good for the season. Need to check out a bit of colour bedding maybe. 

Remembered to add some feed to the tulip pots this time so hope they are ok for next spring. They are usually just left to sort themselves and have been ok for last few years .

Was gutted to have missed northern lights loads of pics from around my neighborhood 😞

ArbitraryRandom

Good morning all. That looks like a good piece of work Goldfinch. Everything does seem to have gone from 0-100 in no time at all. Must be trying to take advantage of the good weather as everything native will know there's not much of it in a year  

I think the pollen is starting to hit today, my nose is 'tickling' since I woke up. I've got antihistamines somewhere (I buy a 'six month' supply from amazon that then lasts me about three years as I only need them a few weeks of the year). Forecast is still horrible rain tomorrow so there's a few things I want to get done today around meetings. 

Did have a quick look at my fruit trees this morning - only a couple of fruits look set on my larger cherry (hopefully will do better when my baby Sylvia cherry tree is old enough to cross pollinate) and nothing at all took on the pear (but the weather was a bit horrible at flowering time, so not many pollinators around and it got moved a little late when I finally agreed things with the builders).

The apple looks like it's going to have a decent crop (I stopped counting at 30 fruitlets). Reading, I should wait a couple of weeks then thin about half. They're already larger than grapes, so I wonder if I can do something with them - perhaps crush and use to flavour some water? We will have to see  

I hope everyone has a lovely day 

Apple (Greensleeves 2-year M27, planted Jan 2024 from Orange Pippin fruit trees) 


Cherry (Stella, unknown age and rootstock from Tesco, planted Jan 2023)

twopenny

Your cherry looks a lot like mine.
I wonder if it's the change from waterlogged to drought that has sacrificed so many?

Farway

Dull and half expecting it to rain

Up to the volunteer plot this morning, the bendy pair did some weeding and I managed to get the “free” crab apple planted, plus planted out one of the fuchsia cuttings I took earlier this year

Donated the last six of my tomato forest, which went quickly, so a few bob in the collecting tin

My offer T & M seeds have arrived, time permitting I'll start the broad beans on damp kitchen roll, wrong time of year but two chances and you never know

DD came along and did a spot of weeding for me, some pond ivy has gone now, gave her some tom plants, and a rooted fig cutting, plus cosmos seedlings.

The cherry pics look like mine as well, and my apples seem a mixed bag, some have loads, others sparse fruit set. Arbs, thinning apples, supposed t wait until June Drop, when the tree sheds surplus by itself, then it's steel heart time, I've never tasted one of the immature thinnings, but I doubt they have much flavour to impart.

twopenny said:

Dandelions = coffee. 

And wine, hic.

YBE, those honey bells, blow me down we have them popped up in the memorial bit at the volunteer place , we never planted them so must have arrived on the wind, no complaints from us.

YoungBlueEyes

Thanks for all the detail on the male/female flowers folks #ThingsThatIDidn'tKnowIDidn'tKnow

Aww it's a shame your forget-me-nots have to come out gf, they're such a pretty flower. If only they would behave themselves!

My apple looks like yours Arb, but I'm in for even fewer cherries I only saw the one flower and I think the weather took it before the bees got to it. I was thinking of thinning out the applelets cos I hardly think they'll have room to grow soon, but I'll leave them alone and just stop looking at them if that's the right answer.  Fingers crossed my honeybells spread like the wind too then, I didn't realise they did that. They're filling a nice time gap between daffs/tulips etc being gone and before the roses/salvias/big daisy wosnames/hot lips come fully out. Useful  

I've got plenty done out there today cos have yous seen the forecast for tomorrow/thurs   The way the drunkards put it would put the fear of god up ye! I got the recommended compost (thanks again Farway), so all diddy things that haven't turned their toes up in disgust at the old stuff have been replanted in the good stuff (thanks Less). I've snipped the dead ends of living stuff, got some bits planted out properly, tied some gangly stuff up so it'll survive tomorrow and titivated in general. I did come back from Aldi with a couple of new things (a very happy looking orange-y geum that's the same colour as the top I'm wearing so that was a sign, and an ameria because it has different leaves to anything else I've got. Only £2.99 each, I'm quietly hopeful - 



Also turned a couple more bits and pieces this morning <giggle>  (£ coin for scale)



On tomorrow's To Do list is find something to do with the immature apple drops, there must be something.... 

Edit - Happy International Tea Day everyone! 

-taff

Yes I meant your honeybells YBE, and I saw some briefly in one of the chelsea garden shots, so you're bang on trend and now I have to go to aldi to get yet another geum [ possibly] I do want the tangerine one, I've decided I'll put them all together in one place to wow me with flowers next year. I will move what appears to be a dwarf choisy which will make more room for a swathe of them.

I did like your finds..A friend and I used to go to a victorian tip and dig for bottles and china, she used to make mosaics with them. Red letter day one day, found a piece of clarice cliff, but sadly, just the very middle of the plate, but happily, it said clarice cliff on it, so I think that's currently on her kitchen wall..

And when we went to Blenheim palace I discovered their tea, if I was to buy some , is 43 quid for 100 teabags...it was very very good tea, but not going to buy it at that price. OH did say, get a box, because I spend that on a good rum and there aren't eighty shots in a bottle of that! more like eight!

2P, they look lovely, and again with the wailing and gnashing...obviously I don't have the right conditions here yet, right conditions being no blummin slugs. I saw them all congregated on my scabious too..

GF, blimey, lot of work! but aren't they called Leisure Gardens now? Doesn't that mean you can say you're growing natives for wildlife?  

I have a lot of little applets on mine too, first time ever, no idea what type though, I lost the sticker thing, but they are reddish purple, is that the colour they all are or does it point to the colour of the final apple?

No gardening done today, had a diabetic start up course or something which over ran [while I was thinking, stop asking questions, I need a pee and I'm ravenous!] I did learn some stuff though, finally found out why I'm taking one tablet I'm taking that the doc bloke didn't tell me why, he just said it'd be good for me...

And my Aleppo peppers have finally popped up, three of them so mollycoddling all the way for them...

-taff

And yes Dusty, it was a cirsium, they're all over Chelsea...do the plant sellers get a heads up from designers before the show about what's going to be popular?

Dustyevsky

Gosh! Can't keep up now! I have all sorts of photos that aren't getting shared, but I'd better comment on a few other things first, so....My olives were in pots for years, and they were fine ....Erigeron karvinskianus in my experience is quite difficult from seed, but it spreads itself around that way, coming up in the most in hospitable places. It's infuriating. The seed of  Honeybells is probably moved round by birds or other animals. We have a couple behind the barn in a place full of rubble, where the grandchildren muck around, They are easy from seed, but take a few years to do anything interesting that way. I have no idea what our apples are doing BUT...I have a tomato!!! It's about 1cm in diameter and on a Veranda Red. There have also been a few small courgettes too, without any of that male/female nonsense, but I pulled them off. Even if the plants are identifying as adults, they're still only teenagers.

Lots going on here. Yesterday evening, our gardening group went to a local nursery to peruse their wares and consume lots of tea and cake. I managed to resist most of the cake, but somehow 4 new plants came home wth us. Here's Mrs Dusty trying to escape the clutches of some expensive thalictrums...

It was tough! As you can see, the others were all laying into Victoria sponge at this point, and it was touch & go whether I'd have to turn on the sprinkler valve.

Anyway, here's the description of one plant she's holding, and how could anyone not buy it?

OT: Sunny & warm here, but we were in Zummerzet this afternoon, and on our return we'd  just missed a thunderstorm and torrential rain. Think they're getting it currently down the Drunks way. Serves them right!