Awful weather - typical Brits talk

ArbitraryRandom

I spotted the sun came out for a brief visit and (don't tell the boss, I've not quite finished for the day) I took a quick nip outside to see what all the fuss was about. 

Something I didn't spot this morning when I was rushing to do my 'duty' checking for bind weed in the beds, one of my new roses has flowered I wasn't expecting anything from them this year but I'm glad to see it's apparently reasonably happy where it is. This is the dog rose, so hardy/unfussy stock. But such a lovely simple flower. I hope this little bed does okay. I'm catching bind weed come up here as well (under and behind the fence so I'm guessing it's in the neighbours yard. I figured the two 'hedge roses' plus underplanting with mint would swamp it out if anything could. 

Has quite cheered me up after my grey morning :Little things for little minds  

wort

Just run out to mow the grass as it’s been fierce winds and it dried out but dark clouds gathering now.
YBE I thought your pic was of Bellis not eringeron? I may be totally on about something else so ignore me🫣😂 my Eringeron is also known as Mexican fleabane, when I had Bellis it only flowered one year .
My seeds of Tom Thumb antirrinhium have only had 3 germinate from a whole packet. Not sure they will be worth finding a spot for.
I have found a pack of Cosmos seeds I just need to find a spot to plant them out!!! Wondering if I have a pot🧐

Farway

Nice dog rose there Arbs, by coincidence I spotted one on the way home from DS yesterday, a simple rose but a joy.

Could they do for 2P, cheap & thorny?

twopenny said:

I'm going to get rid of the blackberry entirely. It's too vigourous for me to manage and dispose of the bits. So on the lookout for cheap thorny roses to go in their place.

Those cherries look healthy Farway. If my two are still there then they are rubbish obvs.

Anyone know why my strawberries are rock hard? Never had it happen before. They are the ones given by a friend and he's not the most caring of varieties.

My guess on the strawbs is the variety is a commercial one, bred to sit on SM shelves & back of lorries without squidging.

Solution is a near death one going cheap and grow that, but soon it will be strawberry runner time, so maybe folks giving a "good 'un" away near you?

Dustyevsky said:

What do folks think about the 'other' thread, doing more or less what I thought we're doing? My view is they're welcome, and I'll join in too, when they get to Page 900. :

EDIT: Forgot to mention, my task today is  rebuilding part of my new tomato bed. Just finished when Mrs Dusty came in and said, "That's not level." I pretended not to care but the bubble in the spirit level mocked me....                                                                                                                     

I'm reading the other thread and also holding back because I've nothing much to add that is not here

You need a new bubble, yours is probably Imperial, pre Brexit

Stopped raining, I'm off to squeeze my tubers

-taff

I dunno...seems the point of flylady is to do chores in some kind of rigid fashion...I don't want to rigidly garden, i like my omg it's too late to put it in now! sow it now! split it now! harvest it now! panic attack type gardening...And it makes it seem a chore, which it is most definitely not to me.

I think the thread is completely at odds with this one so no need to join in at all Dusty

pink_poppy

Ooh, lovely dog rose, AR - very pretty. Well done with the Aquilegia forest too.

Farway strikes again with the double entendre  

Dusty, that Nymph wotsit you said was growing in a copper... a copper what?? I'm intrigued. And is that really what onions look like when they're growing??

YBE, I'd still like to see a pic of your spring onions  

I don't want to try growing the old packets of peas or sweetcorn, even if I could. It's just one of those daft little keepsakes that makes me smile when I come across them I bet it was lovely to hear your mum again, taff. I've got video footage of my mum and it's lovely to see and hear her again. Same with anything with her writing on  

I was out for a walk last night and saw this lovely plant/bush - can anyone identify it?? It was lovely...


Also this patch of something...
Actually, I might have asked about that last pic before - apologies if I have...

It's lovely and sunny here at the moment - time to get the shades on and go out for a drive.

twopenny

Lovely healthy rose there Arbs

Thats a brilliant idea Farway! I love dog roses. Do you reckon they come from hips if I collect and plant?

I'm going to have to learn to grow from cuttings for everything else.

"I hope you get to waft one day"  explain please - was that Wort? or Taff? I can't turn the page.

It sounds interesting.

I got some temporary free wood to block the under fence wire and rat run. I've nailed some trellis on the badger run fence to tie the poundland roses on. One has an amazing scent - so back to learning about rose cuttings. I've only had them die before they root or once potted.

But no info now as it's hot and dry so it's something for the autumn.

Went looking for climbing roses cheap but no luck.

Some lovely half price pots at the GC. Soooo tempting but I resisted

Turned out nice again.....hot but cloudy and wind.

-taff

Wafting with your flowy dress, wide brimmed hat and shades

lovely rose too arb

Dustyevsky

-taff said:

I dunno...seems the point of flylady is to do chores in some kind of rigid fashion...I don't want to rigidly garden, i like my omg it's too late to put it in now! sow it now! split it now! harvest it now! panic attack type gardening...And it makes it seem a chore, which it is most definitely not to me.

I think the thread is completely at odds with this one so no need to join in at all Dusty

I'm all for live and let live.  This thread is so random, I can see why it might scare people a little, but we don't eat newbies. In fact, we don't have any 'policy' at all. If someone wants to come here and discuss how their rigid garden regime has been disrupted by the weather, falling down the stairs, or seeing something distressing in the tea leaves, that's surely OK?

But yeah, I'm in the panic attack gardening league's first division too, and always will be while we have lots of garden and our bodies aren't responding as they once did! The trick is to hang onto the successes. OK the astrantia border is a total mess, but the herb garden's lovely, and we have real honey bees in there now. I wonder where they've come from?

Regarding being older and having spiritual thoughts, like pensions, they're considerably more interesting than when you're young. Even then, though, I felt the answer to life, the universe, and everything, must be so complex, it's unknowable. We just have to muddle along....rather like gardening!

Farway said:

Dustyevsky said: 

EDIT: Forgot to mention, my task today is  rebuilding part of my new tomato bed. Just finished when Mrs Dusty came in and said, "That's not level." I pretended not to care but the bubble in the spirit level mocked me....                                                                                                                     

You need a new bubble, yours is probably Imperial, pre Brexit

I think it may have Chinese air in it. Enough said. Anyway, I've sorted the tomato bed now. It's level at both ends, but the middle's still a bit suspect. Picture soon. I'm going for comfrey + Hugelkultur.

goldfinches

I'm also reading the other thread when I have the time but I'm very patchy because I barely have time to keep up with this one.

I've finally received the tomato seedlings I bought at rather inflated expense from T&M and one pack of three were on their last legs so I've complained to the courier firm and told T&M I won't buy anything else from them unless they change their delivery firm and unsubbed from their emails. Anyway, I'm cosseting the toms on the window ledge and have put a snapped off side shoot into water with rooting compound so fingers crossed. 

It's raining like billyo here and did this morning as well so I hope I chucked around sufficient blue pellets to keep the slugs amused and when is someone going to turn the water off.

Meanwhile, here's someone I spotted on my walk (geddit!).



Apologies for the poor focus, the leaves were lashing around rather.

Ybe - I've been doing some volunteer spotting for the National Hedgehog Monitoring Programme, and although I haven't seen everywhere in the UK, based on the bits I have seen, if you have a hog, treasure it because they are vanishingly rare. I've looked at nearly 4,000 camera sequences and the number of times there has been a hog in the frame are fewer than 15 and only 2 or 3 of those were wild areas all the rest were suburban gardens. On the other hand if you fancied a pheasant you'd be spoilt for choice, I reckon we should all try to eat more pheasant, muntjac, fallow, roe, grey squirrel, rabbit and pigeon to give the rest of our wildlife a fighting chance at survival. Why doesn't some enterprising landowner start selling muntjac safaris to chinese tourists, they'd look good taxidermied and displayed in a glass case.

Sorry for the rant, rain is making me twitchy. I'm off to bed, night all.

LessImpecunious

Talking of other threads I was surprised no-one (I'm looking at you Dusty) jumped into the pond one (so to speak) when the discussion turned to the relative merits of depth versus circumference...