Two things struck me when I compared this picture with the same view a year ago. The first was that the flowers are a couple of weeks ahead of last year. The second was how little the view had changed. I found myself searching for the small differences between the two images. For some reason…
Six on Saturday- 1/7/17
We drove up to Marwood Hill Garden in North Devon today, then on to RHS Rosemoor. So many plants, so little space! Marwood have a National Collection of Astilbes and there are pots of most of them in their plant centre. To come away empty handed would be plain rude. One. Is the box of…
Allotment half term report.
Midsummer seems like an appropriate time to take stock. Most things have done well; I think I have the soil management side of things where I want it. My failures and problems are not soil related: cabbage root fly, not enough water and as of today, mice going for my peas. The one thing that…
Six on Saturday – 24/6/2017
One. Euphorbia lathyrus. This is an annual that seems to pop up in our garden somewhere most years. It has numerous common names, caper spurge being one of the best known but it is also known as mole plant because it supposedly deters moles. Well, I am going to try and collect seed from this…
Six on Saturday: 17/6/2017
One. We're not very good at keeping these going after the first season, so this second year performance is a bonus. Hippeastrum, no idea on variety. Two. Dianthus deltoides is something of a rediscovery for me, after about a 55 year gap. I remember growing it as a child and have come back to it…
Not quite successional cropping
My first plantings of cabbages, brussels sprouts and flower sprouts were wiped out by cabbage root fly, in spite of being treated with nematodes. The other brassicas that were sown a little later I potted on from their modules into 9cm pots and grew them a bit bigger before planting them out today. This time…
Six on Saturday: 10-6-2017
One. A cone from my beautiful Pinus parviflora 'San Bo' that I cut down yesterday. A close up lens and photo stacking creates an opportunity to look closely at something I usually walk past with barely a glance. Two. You can pretty much work out from this picture that you are facing north. Prevailing wind…
Six on Saturday 3/6/2017
1. Conifers. I was going to run with six conifers, on the grounds that a quick tot-up in my head led me to think I had just six in the garden. When I uploade the picures to the computer I quickly saw two more in front of one of the ones I'd snapped, so I…
End of month view – May 2017
Come in, please, I'd be delighted to show you round my garden. Can I suggest you put on over-trousers, there are places where the path gets narrow and it was drizzling earlier, everything's a bit wet. Let's start round here, I'm afraid I didn't get to my poppy in time to stake it. Seemed to…
Not the Chelsea Flower Show
I've been to the CFS a couple of times, exhibited there just once. I enjoyed it, from both perspectives. The older I get though, the less it moves me. I'm happy pootling away in my own garden and on the allotment. I'm interested in what other people like me are up to, somehow Chelsea is…
garden ruminations 