Tuesday 29 August 2023

According to Wikipedia, ‘salad days’ is a Shakespearean idiom referring to a period of carefree innocence, idealism, and pleasure associated with youth.  To me it means my home-grown salads, in the kitchen garden and beyond, are ready for picking for carefree, innocent and pleasurable lunches for all ages!  My lettuce Romaine Ballon is ready to ‘cut and come again’, the tomatoes are being harvested a few at a time, the cucumber is nearly ready, the rocket seedlings have just appeared and I even have a single spring onion left among the weeds!

My project this week was to plant my pomegranate tree.  I grew it from seed in 2015 and it has been in a pot ever since.  I’m hoping that, now it is planted, it will thrive and grow into a pretty little tree.  I don’t expect it to fruit in this country but it will make a nice central feature for my lawn.  The first job was to lift the ‘halfpenny’ slab and move it to David’s alpine garden.  Next, I dug out the steel spike which once housed the pole of my rotary clothes line.  More compost was added to the hole and the tree planted and watered in.  Four tree pavers were lifted from around the wild plum tree in the woodland garden and placed round my new planting.  These pavers were slightly realigned after checking from the bedroom window.  Job done.  Grow little tree!  I got slightly side-tracked by the self-sown creeping thyme, found in the pomegranate’s pot and I potted it up to grow on in the kitchen garden.

The recent shower had filled the bird bath in the new cottage garden and made it obvious that the bowl was sloping downhill so I moved it until the water showed me that it was level and I cut off some overhanging lilac and rose stems to accommodate it.

Briony keeps seeing herons and sent this photograph; she texted that her father-in-law had just given her a pot of lavender.  The sprigs are perfect for fragrancing your pillowslips!

Noticed in the garden this week: the holly trees (the female ones) are absolutely laden with berries, still green: there will be plenty for the birds and for Christmas decorations; the honeysuckle, twining round the wisteria arch, is coming into flower; the first Michaelmas daisy is out by the cottage garden gate; ox-eye daisies are flowering again in the kitchen garden’s nectar bar, rosa glauca and rosa rugosa hips are brightening up the long border and the miniature yellow rose that came in a birthday basket of plants, from my Scottish nieces & nephew, is about to burst into bloom in David’s alpine garden.

The ceratostigma plumbaginoides, our hardy version of the plumbago that we see on holidays abroad, is filling its space in the courtyard border with bright blue blossoms as its foliage is turning scarlet.  The Hebe figure looks well in its midst.  She used to be surrounded by the green-leaved and variegated versions of the hebe shrubs that are no more, thanks to last winter’s harsh weather.

Tuesday 22 August 2023

White flowers look better against a blue sky than a greyish white one.  On the other hand, they don’t photograph well in bright sunlight which washes out the detail.  When I first noticed that the clematis armandii was flowering at the top of the two holly trees in the long border, the sun was blazing for my early-morning shot, taken from the bedroom window.  By the time I was up and about, the sky had clouded over for my close-ups down in the garden. This clematis doesn’t seem to realise it’s supposed to flower in March to April!

And still it rains!  It was dry yesterday and on Sunday, though, so maybe the monsoons have finished!  In between the showers I had been clearing the overgrown woodland path, making it a pleasure to walk along again.  Nobody likes pushing their way through sopping wet vegetation! Here is the ‘before’ photo and the two ‘after’ ones. The deep pink ‘bottle brush’ flowers belong to the persicaria amplexicaulis, from Watermark J’s garden.

My daughter WhatsApped two photos: the dazzling orange begonia with the dark foliage that she’d bought (gorgeous!) and a brown edible flower that she’d found in her veggie box, but had been unable to identify.  It is a cornflower in a very unusual colour.  She put it in a vase of water along with some parsley, also in the box, to keep them fresh. 

It’s a pleasure to sit under the parasol with my book and there is no shortage of colour to gaze upon: white Japanese anemones in the cottage garden, hydrangea by the fish pond and the garlic-flowered chives, self-sown, in the courtyard, growing next to the daisy flowers of the rudbeckia, also self-sown. The rose For Your Eyes Only has begun to flower again in the long border after I dead-headed it; the pelargoniums are putting on a good show in the courtyard and montbretia, originally from my mother’s garden, is everywhere.

I’d taken a photo of my favourite colour combination: pink and orange: the pink of the pelargoniums and fuchsia and the orange montbretia, spiced up with the lilac-coloured buddleia flowers, the white hydrangea and houttuynia and the varying foliage forms and colours.  I realized that the plastic heron had disappeared from view in the undergrowth beneath the cordyline: not much good for keeping the real herons away from my goldfish.  I moved it to the front edge of the pond.

As I was taking yet another bucket of weeds down to the composter, I spotted a purple-blue flower in the long border, almost swamped by weeds and spent vegetation.  I set to work, clearing the surrounding area so that David’s balloon flower (platycodon) could be enjoyed.  I found another red hot poker about to open, the first one having finished flowering and snipped up in my weeding bucket.  At the back of the patch, the brambles were fruiting, not quite ready to be picked, so I plopped a round paver down to act as a harvesting station later on.  The wrought iron obelisk has been inserted as a marker for the platycodon rather than a plant support.

The wildlife that I’ve been seeing in the garden this week, as well as the usual insects and bees, has been brightened up by a long-tailed tit with its chick at the feeding station yesterday morning.  On Sunday afternoon, as I was reading under the parasols, a wood mouse scampered across the courtyard (no photo, this time) and a grasshopper landed on the back of my bench, the latter obliging me by staying there while I grabbed my camera from indoors.  There have been lots of cabbage whites and the odd red admiral butterfly (above right) as well as wood pigeons, seagulls, jackdaws and magpies, a blue tit chick, a great tit and a coal tit.

I’ve enjoyed my first two ripe tomatoes harvested from the two plants that Watermark J gave me.  My own grown-from-seed plum tomato plant, Roma VF, is covered in fruits but they are still green. 

The cucumber is full of bright yellow flowers but the cucumbers themselves are only an inch long so far.

Tuesday 15 August 2023

On Sunday I had an email from Hazel over the road:

‘Totem pole

There’s an interesting tree trunk appeared in the borders between you and next door. Did the tree collapse or have you taken up wood carving?’

Dave-next-door had asked if I minded if he got someone to cut the top of my river birch which was blocking the late afternoon sunshine from their seating area by the house.  It was my favourite tree in the garden but I’d still have it after it was shortened and he was paying!  No.  I didn’t mind.  So after three cancellations because of rainy weather, his tree surgeons came on Saturday to do the deed. 

I was at the bedroom window with my camera, taking first the top of the birch against the sky, then the lower branches cut off to make it easier to remove the top part of the trunk, the tidying away of the wood and foliage by tossing them over the fence before taking them away entirely and finally the hole in the sky! 

Later in the week I asked Dave if it had made a difference and he said it had.  We then got on to the subject of tree sculpture.  After Hazel’s email I thought that if money were no object I’d get someone to carve an owl or something out of the top of my birch stump. Someone local had sculpted old tree trunks in the past.  We remembered a jug pouring water, a raincoat and trilby and a monkey – particularly apt because it was done after a monkey puzzle tree had been cut down (leaving the trunk) from someone’s front garden.  Eventually the sculptures disappeared as the stumps rotted altogether but in the meantime they provided a home for wildlife and a smile for the passer-by.

My daughter-in-law WhatsApped a lovely flower picture for me to identify.  It is one of my favourite weeds and I let it hold sway it in my garden; great hairy willowherb!

We’re still getting a lot of rainy days and some of these photos were taken through the window.  The first honeysuckle flower has appeared on the woodland arch.  It was my son-in-law who spotted it.  He, being taller than me, reaches up to twine the stems around the metalwork of the arch.  The roses are still flowering sporadically; here are the pale pink Queen Elizabeth and the crimson Deep Secret in the front garden and the bright pink rosa rugosa in the long border.  The rosa glauca foliage and hips are making an appearance in the Deep Secret’s photo.  The hydrangea has just begun to flower by the fish pond; although the flowers are white, or rather, the bracts, the tiny flowers in the centre turn pink because my soil is alkaline rather than acid, which would turn the flowers blue.

My project this week, in thirty-minute sessions, when weather permitted, was the tidying up of the old meadow and transforming it into the cottage garden.  Since it contained a lilac, a rose cutting, a couple of peonies and a stand of Japanese anemones it had evolved into more of a cottage garden, in any case, and I already have a meadow swathe in the back lawn and plenty of wild flowers jostling with the garden plants in my borders.  The new cottage garden is weeded and awaits whatever sows itself, unless I find anything suitable to transplant from my courtyard pots.  The silvery leaved phlomis has been cut hard back, but will no doubt regenerate, and the overgrown ‘hedge-cutter’s path’ cleared, ready for cutting the shrubby honeysuckle hedges.  Here is the completed cottage garden and two ‘before’ pictures of the former meadow.

Sunday was fine and while I was having my lunch in the fake conservatory – it was a little too breezy to eat outside: my salad and crisps would have blown away – a peacock butterfly settled just outside the French windows.

My cucumber plants are flowering their heads off in the corner of the courtyard, making a contrasting splash of colour against the magenta buddleia flower spikes, and my latest batch of Cos lettuce seedlings on the bedroom windowsill is ready to be pricked out.

Tuesday 8 August 2023

In a very wet week, Sunday afternoon’s sunshine was the highlight, when I was able to sit in the courtyard with my cup of tea and books under the parasol, the breeze clattering the fronds of David’s trachycarpus fortunei.

The butterflies and bees were out: red admiral on the outside of the French windows, small tortoiseshell on the wall (you can also see what it looks like when its wings are closed), small and large white on buddleia and speckled wood on ivy.

But what on earth was that weird green & brown butterfly fluttering around the turquoise glazed pot?  Zooming in via my camera’s viewfinder I saw it was a bee stuck to a leaf, but on closer inspection, discovered that it was a leaf-cutter bee grasping its section of leaf with which it soon flew off!  I’d never seen that before, merely the circular cuts in leaves after the event.

Although it was another week of torrential rain, I did manage to give the grass its monthly mowing. The back lawn is very squelchy now.  I also sieved compost, pricked out a thinly-sown batch of lettuces and sowed another batch, also thinly.  I don’t want another load of lettuces turning bitter and ending up as compost before I can eat them.  I harvested the last of the potatoes grown from my grandson’s sprouty ones left in his veg rack: 2lbs.  Not a bad haul!  The cucumber has started flowering so I’m looking forward to picking the refreshing fruit of its vine: you can’t beat thinly-sliced, well-salted home-grown cucumber in a sandwich!  I shall make some tzatziki, too.  The spring onions are ready now but I wasn’t so successful with the wild cherries.  I spotted one that the birds had missed and left to go from red to black.  It would be sweet now.  I pulled down the branch to reach it, picked it and dropped into the woodland’s undergrowth never to be found again. Not by me, anyway!  The parsley Giant of Italy was slow to germinate (as is always the case with parsley) but is now growing in its kitchen garden planter.  Hardly giant yet!

The chamaecyparis persifera Boulevard (Alan Titchmarsh calls this conifer ‘unravelled knitting’!) was getting swamped by the raspberry canes and meadowsweet in the fence border so I’ve moved it into the space in the front garden where the red-flowered salvia failed to survive the winter; my snow-in-summer cuttings have been planted in front.  Meanwhile, in the corner, the exotic flowers of the bronze phormium, on their sturdy glaucus stems, are opening splendidly, their colours picked up in the montbretia and the phygelius African Queen blossoms further along.

Other flowers that I snapped this week:

Another self-sown corn daisy, this one growing in a crack in the courtyard paving amongst a tangle of meadow cranesbill and houttuynia; rudbeckia, also self-sown in the courtyard paving; Black Knight in the fence border, the last buddleia to open; the tall tansy has been battered down by the rain but it’s so cheery I’ve left it there; it’s growing further up amongst the raspberries: it is their companion plant.  The Japanese anemone (anemone x hybrida Whirlwind) has begun to flower where I planted it along the edge of the old meadow.  I need to sort that bed out.  It has evolved into a cottage garden, with its lilac tree, rose and peonies.  That’s what I shall call it, henceforth!

Tuesday 1 August 2023

The garden’s sopping wet and overrun with bindweed.  Their large white flowers may look beautiful but their wandering stems strangle everything they come into contact with, wrapping the plants up into unsightly bundles so I’ve spent much of the week pulling out armfuls of the menace!  If only I’d started earlier when the shoots were small and easier to pull up, especially before they’d twined round the thorny roses and brambles!  I need my leather gardening gauntlets for that.  Possibly chainmail!

I’m enjoying the roses, themselves, though, currently the pink Queen Elizabeth (with insect!) in the old meadow and the crimson Deep Secret in the front garden.  I’m picking them constantly for the house, often while they’re still in bud.  The champagne flute contains Queen Elizabeth buds and frilly white sweet peas.  I think that’s the last of the sweet peas this year.  To the fully-open Just Joey rose I’ve added stems of a purple cotinus, berried sweet amber and silvery phlomis.

I was pleased to see an orange hawkweed and a corn marigold in the lawn’s meadow swathe in the back garden.  Lots of clover too.  I’ll be mowing the lawns soon: their August cut. I’ve been doing a lot of clipping lately between showers. The garden waste bin is full of these prunings as well as the bindweed, with another two trug tubs full in the garage.  I clipped the viburnum tinus Gwenllion into a lollipop to free up the crocosmia Lucifer, which promptly fell over without its support!  But, a bonus, I spotted the nearby red hot poker on its sturdier stem.

The herbs are flowering, mainly white: oregano, winter savory and garlic-flowered chives; pink-flowered golden marjoram and the lavender, too.  The Katy apples are the size of crab apples (‘They should be much bigger, by now,’ says my son-in-law) and the tomatoes are swelling though stubbornly green.  My latest batch of Cos lettuces, sown a week ago, thinly, this time – I’m having to compost my earlier crops which have gone bitter before I could eat them – are almost ready to prick out. 

I’m still enjoying my home-grown potatoes: such a versatile vegetable!  Here’s my potato salad.  Cut potatoes into smallish pieces, skin on, and cook them in a jug of water with a pinch of salt in the microwave on high until the point of a knife will easily go through.  Run under cold water and drain.  When cool, mix with mayonnaise, a little mustard and chopped spring onion and parsley (both home-grown in my case!).  Tasty!

More buddleias are opening but not attracting many butterflies.  Too rainy, I suppose, despite the intervening bursts of sunshine.  I’ve glimpsed cabbage whites, a red admiral and a speckled wood this week.  I have five different shades of buddleia flowers altogether but I’m still waiting for the darkest of them all to blossom: Black Knight.  The repeat-flowering lilac, syringa Josée has come into bloom again; the persicaria amplexicaulis is flowering in the shady end of the long border and the purple loosestrife is still brightening up the sunny part.

On Sunday, when it looked like rain (again), I thought I’d better get in a half-hour of tidying up the frog pond which was covered in duckweed.  I pulled out weedy grass, spent alchemilla mollis stems and other bits growing over the water before I could see to dredge out the duckweed.  It looks so much better for the moment but I know the duckweed with be back with a vengeance!