Loved hearing about the Open Gardens and success and disappointments - that's gardening! I've got a few too many weeds at present, and I should also be sweeping up fallen leaves, but am having a slow day today after a bad night's sleep. I have however, been out and watered all the pots, so I'm feeling slightly better about my inaction on outside jobs today.
I've come back from holiday to find that, between the efforts of a neighbour and a thunderstorm, the garden has come on in leaps and bounds. Frustratingly the indoor lemon tree looks like being a casualty, and the chillis have picked up aphids quite badly, but otherwise everything looks amazing. Of course, so do the weeds!
My garden is YELLOW! I had a Mystery Plant self seeded around the flower beds, so I decided to let it grow and see what happened.
What has happened is that it has now flowered, and it's evening primrose, so at the moment when I pull back the bedroom curtains, I'm greeted by a mass of yellow flowers. It's wonderful! (and the ones I actually planted are in there somewhere, too).
We get sporadic eruptions of evening primrose, and we let one or two flower, as they are dramatic. We get quite a few odd plants, e.g., goats beard. We've got the usual notice of the summer inspection, to which all I can say is damn and blast.
Aquilegia is the most common self-seeded flower in my garden, but I do have the odd foxglove, honesty, forget-me-not and hollyhock too. One foxglove seeded itself behind a group of alliums and it looked like I'd done it on purpose.
Very nice, @Graven Image and I too love self seeded plants, always a surprise to see where the seeds land. I have a lovely lavender, which has come through the fence from next door. Nest time I harvest and strip the flowers, I should really offer some to the neighbours.
That really sounds wonderful! Cheery husband has built himself two potato towers, I don't know when they should be harvested, I also think we are going to have a glut because we don't eat a lot of potatoes, so was mystifed at the need to plant them. Perhaps he is planning for the Apocalypse.
I have a small trough of violas which are all blooming at the moment, they look very sweet with their purple and cream faces. Our daphne are in flower too, which I am really enjoying.
Last weekend, I raced outside to do a big lot of leaf sweeping. There was a lot of rain predicted and I could see all the leaves building up around the stormwater drain. I couldn't get them all, but did as much sweeping as I could stand and feel a lot better about it and for doing it. Helped to get my steps up nicely. So a win-win!
The recent hot spell has made it clear which plants will have to go. This is in spite of them being watered (naturally or otherwise), but some are parched, the parsley has bolted, so when we feel up to gardening, we shall take a trip to our favourite cafe/garden centre.
Parsley is a capricious bugger. It will be happy in one spot but refuse obdurately to grow only a couple of feet away. Mine has gone to seed but I usually let it because when the seeds drop it grows back again the next year in the same spot.
Parsley is a capricious bugger. In one spot it grows, a metre in another direction and it turns its toes up. Having found a spot it likes, I always let it go to seed. The seeds fall down and it grows back in the same place the year after.
What a weird year it has been! While parts of my God forsaken country is under a heat dome where I am on the left coast has been unseasonably cool so much so that I've worn a sweatshirt on many walks. I think it was the cooler weather that slowed down the blooming of my Brazilian Walking Iris (Neomarica caerulea).
After a normal initial bloom there had been none for over two weeks. Buts were forming but they never pushed out any color as they always do the day before blooming. Then suddenly there were at least 17 blue/purple bud tips and the next day lots of flower. They didn't look as good the day after but who among us does?
I love that there are plenty of bees around your garden @Boogie. Things are a bit inactive here at present, but I did hear some of the pretty parrots around today, so maybe spring will come early..
We had a lot of rain earlier in the week, so I've finally gone outside to add scraps to the worm farm. That appears to be ticking over nicely and I'll have a good lot of castings for my pots in the spring. I've also earmarked some pots to be planted out into the garden come spring.
Lots of gatekeeper butterflies on our herb beds today, unfortunately we are breaking our backs tidying up before the inspection. So many plants become untidy at this time of year, so you are faced with either binning them or severe pruning. No sign of rain, and getting hotter, so everything is bolting.
I came across a new recipe and was happy to note I had a number of the ingredients growing in my patio garden. They were lemon, tomato, cucumber, onion and mint. It gave me a feeling of satisfaction.
I have heard that parsley only grows well when a woman is in charge of the household.
I've heard the same about rosemary. I've brought a cutting in a pot from a bush in our previous garden; it remains to be seen whether it will flourish here.
I had some parsley in a pot on the ground and noticed that it had some white patches on the leaves. I didn't try to identify what was causing the patches, just used the leaves that appeared to be unaffected. I did move the pot to a sunnier and more elevated position and so far it seems to be looking good.
There hasn't been much hands in the dirt at present as winter has finally arrived. It's very grey and we had some heavy rain at the weekend. I am itching to be outside, but it's quite grey and miserable looking. Maybe in a couple of days' time when the sun shines again.
I still haven't dug up the rogue freesia which escaped the garden bed last spring and is getting quite established right up against the wall of the house where it gets the morning sun. I do have a pot for it, maybe in a few days ....
The ex-rental house we've moved into has a neglected garden.
Drosinas several metres high, big clumps of lomandas, and Brazilian cherries partly cut down through a neighbour's complaint.
I hadn't realised how useful a reciprocating saw could be as a gardening implement!
We took advantage of the slightly cooler weather to go to our garden centre only to find the place is short of living things. Picked up just a couple of herbs and a new hose to replace a four year old one that has split.
The good news is that a friend skilled in electrical stuff has fixed the lights in our water feature, so the garden looks vv pleasant in the evening.
Our parsley is doing surprisingly well here, not ever having had much luck with it before. Everything is looking rather parched, but things are mostly still going, other than my magnolia in the front garden that has well and truly died. Debating what to try and grow there instead.
I came across a friend picking poppy heads from the self-seeding plants near our local station. They were for the wild area of her garden. Not something I've thought of doing.
My six sunflowers have been glorious but have now come to the end of their reign. So I'm going to plant phacelia seeds which will come up quickly and the bees will love.
My garden, particularly at the front, was very pretty in the spring but most of it is over now apart from one nice pink delphinium and it's all looking overgrown and tired. I need to give this issue some thought ahead of next year and get out there on some cooler days (hopefully this week) to trim things down and cut them back.
I definitely want at least one rose, having never had one in any garden I've owned. In my book it (or they) have to have a perfume. Let us know what colours you decide to go for!
I too like David Austin roses. We went to their gardens and asked for advice about a climber for our pergola. The one we have, Paul Noel, has managed to cover the structure in less than four years and the peachy pink flowers are glorious in early June. It flowers on and off after that too. I also like our Dannihue, which is a wonderful orange cream.
My garden is looking rather tired, this weather and no rain for weeks really isn't helping.
My garden's looking very tired too and needs a lot of trimming down and cutting back. We had a trip to the garden centre today and spent some vouchers we'd been given, so I now actually have some shears that cut and a few little plants for summer colour, plus a pot to plant the mint in. I got a little plant of it from the allotments just by us and will be planting it in a big pot to keep it contained. It rather took over a flower bed in our previous garden.
Something is eating all the leaves off of my beans. Not the beans, but the leaves. I have had three meals off of the beans so I pulled them up and am planting some more. Everything else in the garden is doing well.
No hosepipe ban yet, but just one heavy shower in three weeks and none forecast before Sunday. Our garden is paved front and back so we just have to feed and water about 30 plants in pots and planters, which is twenty minutes work of an evening.
We are thinking about a magnolia, which was mother in law’s favourite. We had one, but it suffered in the hot spell in June 2023, so we need to choose carefully.
I carried on working for a year past state pension age, so we put half away and did various projects such as paving the “garden”, which consists of time expired decking and the roughest grassy patch you have seen. We now have a hydrangea bush and plants are all in pots.
Just discharged my duty for the year by "mowing" (that is, tidying up the few long bits) on the allotments. I can now ignore the grass until next year's rota.
Our house is higher than the garden, and there is quite a bit of decking that steps down to a gravel area before the lawn starts. The decking is going rotten, we'd like to have a party but are worried about guests disappearing though it. Also the decking under the pergola at the end of the garden is in a poor state. Our next door neighbour is a landscape gardener and has already done a few bits for us. We just need to go round and see him to discuss plans. We want less decking and more gravel for some more raised beds.
We haven't had rain for weeks, and although some is forecast for Sunday I'll believe it when I see it.
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What has happened is that it has now flowered, and it's evening primrose, so at the moment when I pull back the bedroom curtains, I'm greeted by a mass of yellow flowers. It's wonderful! (and the ones I actually planted are in there somewhere, too).
Annoyingly my sage has snuffed it in the heat, I thought it was like old boots but maybe not. Might use the space for another rose...
I have a small trough of violas which are all blooming at the moment, they look very sweet with their purple and cream faces. Our daphne are in flower too, which I am really enjoying.
Last weekend, I raced outside to do a big lot of leaf sweeping. There was a lot of rain predicted and I could see all the leaves building up around the stormwater drain. I couldn't get them all, but did as much sweeping as I could stand and feel a lot better about it and for doing it. Helped to get my steps up nicely. So a win-win!
Other herbs I do well with - borage, rosemary, thyme,cherville, coriander. But both mint and parsley just bolt.
This lunch time I'm off to the garden centre to look for end of season bargains. Looking forward to it!
After a normal initial bloom there had been none for over two weeks. Buts were forming but they never pushed out any color as they always do the day before blooming. Then suddenly there were at least 17 blue/purple bud tips and the next day lots of flower. They didn't look as good the day after but who among us does?
I grew one for the first time this year. Nice blue color but not so large and showy. Foliage and growth habit were so so.
We had a lot of rain earlier in the week, so I've finally gone outside to add scraps to the worm farm. That appears to be ticking over nicely and I'll have a good lot of castings for my pots in the spring. I've also earmarked some pots to be planted out into the garden come spring.
There hasn't been much hands in the dirt at present as winter has finally arrived. It's very grey and we had some heavy rain at the weekend. I am itching to be outside, but it's quite grey and miserable looking. Maybe in a couple of days' time when the sun shines again.
I still haven't dug up the rogue freesia which escaped the garden bed last spring and is getting quite established right up against the wall of the house where it gets the morning sun. I do have a pot for it, maybe in a few days ....
Drosinas several metres high, big clumps of lomandas, and Brazilian cherries partly cut down through a neighbour's complaint.
I hadn't realised how useful a reciprocating saw could be as a gardening implement!
The good news is that a friend skilled in electrical stuff has fixed the lights in our water feature, so the garden looks vv pleasant in the evening.
I came across a friend picking poppy heads from the self-seeding plants near our local station. They were for the wild area of her garden. Not something I've thought of doing.
My petunias - https://photos.app.goo.gl/dNbH2PRG3dRcmBpdA
I'm planning a rose bed for next year. Four shrub roses and a new climber.
I've got two lists which I'm trying to choose between. One is yellows, peaches and oranges and the other is reds, magenta and white.
David Austin roses are amazing, they arrive very healthy and grow well.
My garden is looking rather tired, this weather and no rain for weeks really isn't helping.
We are thinking about a magnolia, which was mother in law’s favourite. We had one, but it suffered in the hot spell in June 2023, so we need to choose carefully.
More trees, extra flower beds and gravel paths instead of lawn.
It will cost money- so saving up has begun. One tree at a time. ??
We haven't had rain for weeks, and although some is forecast for Sunday I'll believe it when I see it.