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…
Six on Saturday – 27/5/2017
One) I know it's only an optical illusion, but plants are set off better by moist dark soil than pale dry stuff. After last night's deluge, which combined the most sustained lightning I have seen in my life with rain akin to the tropical downpours I've seen in Australia, moist and dark wasn't a problem.…
Six on Saturday – 20/5/2017
One. I was going to start with a picture of dead cabbages, the rootfly having munched their way through two rows. But it was raining and going up the allotment in the rain to take a picture of dead cabbages didn't do it for me. Two. Papaver bracteata. Every year this monster astonishes me anew.…
Six on Saturday 13/5/2017
Six on Saturday, or SOS; appropriate because my allotment seems to be constantly under assault by pests. Gooseberry sawfly is far worse than I've had before, I squash hundreds, the next day they're all back again. And I thought the slugs had been chewing my cabbages, turns out it's rootfly. Nematodes will be ordered and…
garden ruminations 