OPINIONS

 

Cut that tree down, trim that hedge, organise more and pop goes the wild garden (or is wild garden and excuse for doing nowt much?)

And autumn approaches - hips on the roses, some small and some more luxurious. 

Some flowers are flourishing late in the year but we are still waiting for the Michaelmas daisies.

The sedum line the paving by the house, the blue clematis released to flower by the removal of the bay tree.

But someone is right as I cannot do it all any longer, brain is fading, body shot at, and someone else is fed up doing all the weeding, seeing the ravages of slug snail, mouse, pigeon and - well you get the idea.

We have lit our first wood burner of the year end as the weather cools. Plants have arrived - tulips from Sarah Raven and some ranunculi and hollyhocks from Farmer Gracey.

They need to be planted.

Down in the veg beds are moribund redcurrants  (they only feed the birds anyway), asparagus going brown and wispy, and one cannot eat the holes in the Cavolo Nero. 

The gardener sweeps around with his strimmer but wet grass does not mow easily.

Algae is back on the pond, the Tutsan is berried up ready to seed all over the place and the ash trees behind the bottom shed have the plague (and are just next door).

So on we go, and on and on and on . . . . . 

THERMOSTAT UP AGAIN?

Not for long. It is August and struggling to 13C!

The Hydrangea Annabelle is heavy with rain and bent to the ground, the agapanthus are going over, we do have the odd flower on the big magnolia but the old Rosa rubrifolia has been blown sideways.

One thing about the Hydrangea is it does make a good toupee.

Yellow daisies come and go - the helianthemum on the right is just coming out.

Down at the pond R has coerced the gardener into the waders and he has cleared out a lot of the plants in the water, leaving them on the side so the bugs etc can climb back in.

He has also trimmed part of the lower garden though I have to say that despite all efforts the wild flower meadow is more of a bog with yellow pea in it. Where has all the yellow rattle gone?

Still the gunnera flourishes and we have our dragonflies patrolling their flight paths. This, I think, is a Migrant Hawker.

No video this week - left the camera by the pond and the wind blew a bladed of grass black and forth across. There were 546 short videos of the grass moving.

I have trimmed the beech hedge and pulled some of the creeping thistle from the manure heap. One thing that spreads all over the place is the Tutsan.

A very good spreader though is the marjoram. And useful in the kitchen too. The insects love it.  

And for some reason known only to itself the rhododendron has begun to flower again.

What should I end with - how about an evening pint of cider by the sea.

ROASTING COLD

 

The EU says that last month was the hottest on record then the BBC weather lady said that the weather will continue sun autumnal fashion!

So to cheer me up here are some roses.

Let us go down to the pond, a point of disagreement. R wants nice sky reflections in the water. I want a wild natural habitat. So I put up an image looking back from the pond past the strimmed banking.

Around the pond are mimulus, loosestrife and candelabra primulas - but all yellow.

And also a pink spirea and a wild one - the meadow sweet. R does not like the pink. Then there is the gunnera thriving by the hedge,

Of course other things are doing well like the campanula hidden in the weeds.

Just looked out and it is pouring down AGAIN!

Sometimes there comes a combination which surprises me. Here is my small dwarf white lavender infiltrated with the weed herb robert. But I rather like the colour combination.

And so to a pic of the wisteria we were given and we were sure it was moribund and flowers on our small eucryophia - first for a few years.

It is thundering now, time for a second helping of yesterday's egg curry.

Just looked on my Flickr photo site and here is the most visited image!

24,784 times.

SPRING?

He asks as the hail hits the paving. Yes we did see our first swallow today and the ospreys at Foulshaw have an egg but the wind is cold and it has been so wet.

We also saw a tree creeper on the cherry.

The eucalyptus has shed its lower bark into a neat heap.

And we have had a harlequin ladybird, spectabilis, here - it is an invader and sadly eats other ladybirds.

Seedlings are everywhere, carpeting the path to the pond, even a sycamore behind the wiper on R's car.

The young trees have interesting colours in the fresh leaves. Have to pull them up or they would take over. Also have to deflower the rhubarb (if that is the right expression?)

We did wonder if we were going to get no cowslips but they are coming late. The Stonefield Castle rhododendron flower has lost its pink and is now white.

As one walks the woodland there is a wonderful scent and it is our rhododendron we bought in Matlock Bath some years ago.

And the Rambling Rector by the old well is out of control - will need hard pruning after it has flowered.

There is other blossom besides the cherries - greengage, damson and pear for example -

Down by the pond, still spawnless, the iris leaves and ferns give good vertical shape and the kingcups are flowering.

Elsewhere Tom's flowering currant is great and there are forget-me-nots sown all over the place.

There are also wild flowers like the cuckoo pint, bluebell and dog violet by the wood.

Sarah Raven's tulips are coming into flower in a pot outside the kitchen and I have put in the first sweet peas after loads of well rotted horse manure - hungry plants. I have also potted up five hollyhocks that arrived today in the post. Not had a lot of success with these before but here goes. So lawn, well some of it, had its first scalping . Spring is coming and the sun was warm on my back today, just a pity about the chilly breeze.