ruminate vb. to chew (the cud)
Nine months on from my last posting on Begonias and it seems a good time to put some notes together by way of an update. My collection has come through another winter and has been added to both by plant purchases and with seed raised plants. Begonia pedatifida ‘Apalala’It is clear that this is a…
Summertime, and the livin' is easy. Which it is, if you're talking about the garden and comparing it to a couple of months ago. The work has been done and now we reap the rewards. Pull a few weeds, water a few pots. Take half a dozen pictures and post them in a blog and…
We had our first two NGS open days for 2024 a week ago and the next two are at the end of this week. It's a while since I did a video of it and I'm a little out of practice but it will give you a good idea of how it's looking. I didn't…
Well, that's it, the longest day has passed. The druids will all have gone home. Summer, on the other hand, hasn't arrived here yet. As I write, it's raining, and the forecast for next week is pretty mixed. I don't really mind; it's good growing weather which isn't stressing the plants or burning my head.…
There's an area at one end of my allotment which has got away from me; it is just a patch of nettles, perhaps 20 x 10 feet in extent. I console myself with the thought that nettles are the food of choice for some of our more prominent butterflies. Sadly there are no caterpillars; there…
The first of our garden open days is now behind us, the second is today. The less said about the first the better. Could have been worse in that it could have been Thursday, when it rained all day. Our first visitors turned up 90 minutes before we were due to open and 90 minutes…
Another Saturday, another six. There's loads happening, finding six things should be a breeze, but we have the garden open next Friday and Saturday so everything is seen half as it looks now and half as I hope or fear it will look in a week's time. I need to geta grip, live in the…
The weather man said earlier that June 1st is the beginning of meteorological summer and just for once the weather itself is in agreement. What the weather man also said was to make the best of it because it's only going to last two or three days then go back to below average temperatures. I…
Every year there is a day that stands out as the pinnacle of the Cactus display in Sue's glasshouse. Some cacti have flowers that last only 24 hours, opening in the evening to be pollinated by moths, then fading through the following day. They tend to be very large and showy flowers, usually faintly but…
I've spent another week almost entirely in the garden or on my allotment. What do I have to show for it? Not as much as I'd like but I do have the sense that it's moving in the right direction. It needs to, our first garden opening is in three weeks time and I reckon…
garden ruminations 