Hobbies and Crafts

I love your red Dragon Ann, I think I said once before, my husband hates "things" in the garden. He only tolerates my flowers because I also grow things to eat.

I just about get away with the bird baths as they are classed as "useful" the other bits, apart from the lady, which he actually bought me one birthday, are too small for him to worry about. In fact he asked about the squirrel the other day. We have had it at least thirty seven years, he only just noticed it !!!!

I completely emptied the conservatory today of summer stuff that has been over wintering in there. It looks like a room to sit in again, but it does have to double as my greenhouse. I just need to give the floor a wash and scrub the window sills.

I just left the cucumbers and tomatoes in there and plant wise, apart from the Ficus an Umbrella plant and a couple of other indoor things, all that is left are my £ shop Tuberoses, Peruvian Daffodils and Freesias, which are all doing really well.

My £ shop Alliums have been lovely but I am not sure about those yellow and blue things I planted a couple of months ago. Any sign of yours ?

I went back to the garden centre and got some Nicotiana, which I managed to get in before the rain. My Aqualegias have been magnificent and are all over the garden. They are just about over now.

This is only the third year I have done the Chelsea Chop, I am not very brave about it and do about a quarter of the stems, just about halving their height. Although they are very tall they have no flower buds as yet. Last year they were still flowering at the end of October but then so were most things.

Will be glad to get back to work tomorrow for a rest. Ten five year olds will be nothing compared to a holiday walking round Edinburgh and sorting out the garden.

M. :-)

No gardening today, it hasn't stopped raining and I have plants bought yesterday to get in. :-)

Yes I am very fond of both the dragon and the large Buddha, luckily OH likes them as well. Can't remember if I have told you this but when she was about 3 little (then) Granddaughter looked at the dragon and then at me and said. 'It is not a REAL lion!' We still chuckle over that.

The blue bulbs from the pound shop are just about showing their tips, although only a few of them. Not looked for the gladiolie lately wonder if they are growing.

I like it when the conservatory goes back to being a summer room again. We do have the greenhouse but a lot of plants get brought on in the conservatory as the greenhouse is not very big.

What a dismal day it has been.

Two wet play times and kids who have just had eleven days off school going stir crazy.

My sister in law popped round early this evening with some Abutilon plants she has grown from seed. She is not sure where she got the seeds, she is a devil for pinching some off plants when she goes to visit gardens.

Anyhow, they are lovely strong healthy looking plants and are full of bud.

I gave her a cup of tea and wished her well and sent her off to cook dinner for her family. I then put the new plants out on the patio.

No sooner had I done that and locked the patio doors than a huge clap of thunder shook the house and we had an almighty hailstorm that sounded like a freight train and lasted about twenty minutes.

I see Maggie had it in Winchester too, so not that far from us.

In the middle of it I dashed back out to rescue my new babies and got soaked through in five seconds flat.

Lovely.........

M. :-(

Well Maryanna the sun is shining here this morning so hope it is also where you are. Not heard of those plants so I shall have to look them up. I looked out in the heavy rain yesterday and could see a snail making its way up the glass of the conservatory to where it could reach a lettuce leaf in a container on the shelf outside. No I let it go I didn't think it was worth getting wet for :-D We didn't have thunder or hail though. Thunderstorms forecast for here on Saturday.

Your garden looks lovely Ann, I've just read back and can see all the hard work you and your OH put into it.

I try not to have to many plants in pots/containers, I see watering them as another job, but I do have all sorts of weird and wonderful garden ornaments, if you can call them that I have a mini Mount Rushmore and a head sadly both are breaking up, a bottom (bum), pink and blue plastic wine glasses hanging from an arch, Christmas tree beads wrapped around branches, I could go on and on and on driftwood, gnomes, Buddhas, fairies one thing I haven't got yet is my first attempt at a mosaic birdbath:-D

Maryanna your sister in law would get on well with my MOG he is a terror for taking seeds from peoples gardens:-| :-| :-|

Lesley x

Lesley, gardens should be fun. I would like yours. :-D

Olanted the rest of the plants we bought on Tuesday yesterday afternoon. It is a nice morning and OH is at golf so I suppose I had better get the gardening gloves on and go and see what is lurking in the greenhouse waiting to be planted. :-D

Have a good gardening day Ann, I think I might get an hour or so to sit in mine before we head back to Somerset.

Not sure I am looking forward to what I might find having just spent a week or more getting this one up to scratch. At least it is a lot smaller and more manageable without so many plants or so much grass.

M. :-)

Just spent an hour out there after walking round the shops for the papers and doing a wash load including a duvet cover thatw as a devil to fight onto the line (no tumble drier.

Hard to understand how you can spend days out there, have an overflowing garden wheelie bin and then spend an hour pulling up grass and weeds.! Now just off to pull some of the salad leaves for lunch sandwiches. :-)

Have a good break in Somerset, hope the garden is manageable.

Went out today to look for bathroom stuff but we ended up at a large garden centre for lunch. Of course after eating we just had to have a wander around and I found loads of stuff I wanted but had to keep reminding myself that we only have a small garden now. I was very good and confined myself to some herbs, though I have my eye on some ceramic pots to hang on a dreary stretch of fence..

While looking around we came upon some artificial grass in a nice bright green........and blue and shocking pink and a rather fetching purple! I suppose you could have a "lawn" in multi coloured stripes if you really wanted to be different. Think I'll just stick to the grass that grows and gets full of moss and weeds. :-D

Vera :-D :-D :-D at purple and pink grass. I suppose the green can look realistic but I do prefer the real thing, even if it does need cutting! Herbs are good to buy, which ones did you get? You could even put them in the ceramic pots on the fence. You sound much happier with your garden now :-)

Just got some oregano and a silver leaved thyme today. I've already planted some chives, parsley and a green leaved thyme in a half barrel and wanted to fill that a bit more. I also bought a bay a little while ago and brought a root of Apple mint and a couple of rosemary cuttings from the old place.

Just after we moved in our neighbour had artificial grass laid (green, thank goodness). It looked much too bright in the winter though it's not bad now. Think I'll stick to the real thing.

The barrel should look very nice Vera.
Last Tuesday we went looking for bird tables and saw a couple we liked. One at one G centre and one at another. so, rain forecast today it was a good chance to go out and get one of them as we didn't want to get caught in town in a thunder storm and couldn't do any more in the garden.

We had really heavy rain on the way, went to the first garden centre, had coffee looked at a bird table, decided against that one so drove to the second G centre about 5 miles down the road. Found the bird table we wanted, loaded it into the car (still raining) car refused to start. (We have had a problem with it not starting and management light coming on a couple of times on holiday but it cleared itself and has been fine ever since. As it was intermittent it was difficult to explain to a garage. Called out breakdown, went into their cafe and had a snack lunch (now 12 o'clock. Breakdown promised within one hour. An hour later truck arrives. Car starts first time!!!! But the management light had not gone out so he could hook it up to his machine and tell us what the problem was. something to do with a sensor and something not always seeing it. by then the sun was shining and has been shining since. And we drove home with no problem at all. However, now we have both cars to get to the garage this next weeki, mine for MOT and his to get his sensor sorted. Don't you just love cars?

anyway bird table is in situ and we are very pleased with it, it is solid and well made and should last (I hope so as it cost £70.) I hope the birds appreciate it anyway.

Glad you got your bird table, Ann. I have got a nice tidy patio. Garden not as bad as I expected, a couple of hours work and it looks fine. Nowhere near as big as the other one.

Your herb barrel sounds lovely Vera, the ones I put in last week have really taken off.

Chinese take away and DVD of Philomea tonight.

Oh and maybe a glass or three of plonk.

Have a good evening.

M. :-)

I'm looking for some propagating advice please.

I was in an area behind our garage where we keep the dustbins and a couple of large pots we're not using and I noticed growing through a slat in the fence and a bit over the top there is some jasmine growing through from next door. I'll ask my neighbours but I am sure they won't mind if I take a couple of cuttings from the stuff growing over our fence.

However, having googled and looked in some books I am a bit confused. :-S

Some say propagate by layering (not an option, plant is next door), some say hardwood cuttings in winter and some say semi-ripe cuttings in summer. What would you do? It's an ordinary summer Jasmine with a couple of flowers just open.

Try a soft wood cutting now then, if that doesn't. Take try the hard wood in the winter.

Good thinking Ann. Thanks.

I should have thought of that myself but I think this muggy heat has fried my brains. I'm sitting by a wide open window and there is not a breath of air. I keep waiting for the storm to break but I don't think it is going to.

There is a beautiful Summer Jasmine in the lane which flowered through most of the Winter.

A couple of years ago I took some cuttings. I have a feeling I took a few wisps around late Summer. Some I put in water, something I do a lot and they rooted, I think they were probably soft wood. I put some harder wood ones in a pot with a bit of rooting compound.

I now have a nice healthy plant which this year has got to around four feet tall so far and is growing rapidly.

The only problem is Vera, I don't know which of the cuttings were the ones that took as I gave some away. Sorry !! It could well have been both.

In the past I have grown both Forsythia and Winter Jasmine by just sticking twigs in the ground. I have also layered, inadvertently when pots have been put onto low lying branches and have taken root.

Sorry Vera, haven't really been a lot of use but I think they are quite easy to propagate.

M. . :-S :-)

Thanks Maryanna. The answer seems to be to just have a go and see what happens. Like most of my gardening :-D

I'm fascinated at the moment to see what's coming up in one of my pots. I think I might have mentioned that a while ago I found some little bulbs or offshoots of bulbs that OH had wrapped up earlier and totally forgotten. I stuck them in a pot and nothing much happened for a while. Now 4 of the 7 planted are through and they look like tiny tulip leaves! :-S

If I see one more rabbit in the garden eating my flowers and plants I'm going ..............
.....................cry :-(

Lesley x