Hobbies and Crafts

I don’t know if you remember but around September time last year we took out a witch hazel and planted a physocarpus shrub. I’m pleased to report that it has its first flower :-D

We went to Anglesey Abbey again today. We go fairly frequently as we like the gardens and the walks there. It does get busy sometimes but it's OK if you give the school holidays a miss and go midweek and not at the weekend. We went into the formal garden there and the whole area was just planted with white and orange tulips. It looked wonderful. The only other person there was a gardener and we got talking to him. He was telling us that they dug 4,500 holes and put two bulbs in each hole so 9,000 tulips got planted in that one area. Apparently when the tulips have gone over they will all be taken up and other stuff planted there for the summer. I was very taken with the orange ones. They were quite tall but very erect, not flopping over at all. I asked how they kept them like it and he said it was a variety bred to be like that. I forgot to ask him the name, but he said the bulbs they take up will probably be sold in their plant shop so I will have to go back later in the year and look for them.

We did have a look at the plant store and I bought a Fluffy Thunderclouds plant (Thalictrum Aquilegiifolium - I copied that from the label). Then on the way home we stopped at a Wyevale garden centre and I bought a pretty pale yellow Margeurite daisy plant and a tray of bizzy lizzies.

That’s the one Anne. Calabrachoa or Million Bells. It certainly looks a pretty little plant

Are they million bells Vera or the new name for them something like calab........?

Everything is looking nice and green now, though I don’t seem to have had much time to do anything in the garden. I did manage to plant up a couple of troughs with penstemon cuttings and they look strong and healthy.

I need to buy just a couple more plants for the garden. I bought some more for all my troughs. I have some perennials and some evergreens in several but I like to put colourful annuals in the rest. I’ve got geranium cuttings to put into some of them and I normally fill the other gaps with annual begonias and busy lizzies but I felt like a change this year. In Homebase I got a pack of 24 stocks for £6 and I also got a pack of 6 trailing plants with a pretty little flower. I can’t remember the name but I believe they are a mini petunia. I’m not a lover of petunias but these are really pretty. I got white ones.

Probably are Vera??

The two troughs I sowed with wildflowers now have lots of green shoots showing through. They’ve germinated very quickly. It’ll be a while before I know what the flowers are and they will need thinning out a bit but I am pleased something is coming up. Of course, they could all be weeds, lol.

Difficult Vera when trying to reduce the use of plastic, we have a similar problem with hanging baskets that need replacing. So expensive

Mine isn’t too bad re cleaning tools but he does lose them!

I’ve been trying to make the most of the weather this week and get some work done in the garden and it is looking a lot tidier and fresher.

Down one long side of the house I’ve got 9 large terracotta pots, containing hostas which are just starting to show. When I had a look I found OH had been round there and sprinkled slug bait over the pots. I know he is trying to be helpful but he hadn’t even noticed that the compost levels had dropped quite a bit and there were some exposed roots, or that half the pots were full of moss. So I went to get a trowel and found it caked with dried mud even though I had cleaned it before putting it away when I last used it :-|. Is it just my OH or is it just a man thing generally? He isn’t lazy so why am I the head tool cleaner and pot washer :-P. OK, moan over.

While seeing to the hostas I noticed several of the pots are flaking and losing bits of terracotta. We’ve had them years so they don’t owe us anything but those very large ones are expensive to replace. I don’t want to change them for cheap plastic ones as they won’t look as good. Perhaps they will last another year.

I should keep a very close eye on him Ann ;-). With a bit of luck the washing machine will come soon and that will keep him out of mischief for a while.

My OH decided to divide the hostas this morning. Luckily he mentioned that was his plan as he was going out of the back door so I managed to grab him and we had a “conversation”. We discussed which ones he was going to divide and what he was going to do with the bits he took up and the fact that HE WAS NOT GOING TO TOUCH MY MINI HOSTAS IN THE TROUGHS. He seems to have been a good boy so far so he gets a gold star.

He also took out from the pond the frogspawn that had turned to mush and gave the pond a bit of a clean. He said there were 3 frogs in it so maybe they will produce some more frogspawn.

O!Oh. We are waiting in for a new washing machine to be delivered, no idea when they will be here. OH is now killing time wandering round the garden with secateurs in his pocket. I feel I should be following him!! :-D :-D

Lol the natural look will probably be lovely Vera. I will be interested to know how well the wild flowers grow in the troughs.

Gill, as Ann says, make sure your mouth feels better before you start gardening again.

It’s a nice day but very windy and quite cold so I probably won’t do much in the garden today.

When we were given our bee box it came with a packet of bee friendly wildflower seeds. I don’t have a handy place in the garden to sow them so yesterday I sowed them into a couple of troughs and stood them on a pebbled area up against the fence. I’ll be interested in seeing what comes up, if anything does. Quite a few of the seeds looked as if they might be poppies. That won’t please OH as we’ll end up with poppies everywhere.

By the way, I have given up on the idea of a colour scheme. I’ll go for the natural look
;-)

Gill you are probably right to wait until the abcess is clear before doing gardening. for one thing when you have an abcess and bend over the abcess (or where it was) huts as the blood rushes to it.

OH has been keeping on top of the gardening when he was not playing golf but he is back playing again now so he has fewer days to get out there.

I have potted on 20 small basket plants this morning, they will go in baskets in 2-3 weeks when they have grown a bit more.

I haven't been on here for ages, there's been so much going on here especially this past week I don't know if I'm coming or going. Hopefully this week will be a lot calmer and I can get back into my routine again.

I know it's not funny Vera but I had a little smile when I read your post about the conversation you had with your OH. I hope your colour scheme is okay and all the plants aren't harmed with being moved around. Ann's probably right and if it looks great he'll take the credit for it......men lol :-D :-D

I've been taking a look around our front and back garden and noticed the jobs are starting to mount up, so we'll be tackling those very soon. I've had an abscess on my tooth so I don't think doing the gardens is a good idea until I've finished my antibiotics, only a couple of days worth left to take so not to long before I can make a start on the gardens. I need to re-pot quite a few plants as they are out growing the one's they're in, so plenty to keep me busy for a while.

Vera, don’t you know men don’t recognise the importance of colour schemes?? and when it all looks great he will say he knew the colours would work.

Himself took out the lavender and planted the campanula and found he had a couple more than he needed. Of course, being the man he is it didn’t cross his mind to ask me what I wanted done with them.

Me: So what have you done with them?
Him: Put them in that little patch beside the tree
Me: But there’s a sedum in there
Him: Oh, I moved that
Me: Where have you moved it to?
Him: Over the back by that other one.
Me: There isn’t any room there
Him: I made room

At that point I decided to give up while I was still sane. I think I would rather not know how he has made room but all this moving stuff around is making a nonsense of my colour schemes :-|

This afternoon I repotted a Chilean Guava plant. It was hard work as it had filled its middling sized pot and I had to force it out and get it into a large pot and then fill in with plenty of compost round it. If I had used a bit of common sense I would have put the large pot in position first and filled it with the compost and plant in situ but I didn’t think of that so I had to get this large pot on to a small trolley and wheel it across the garden to where I wanted it to be so my back is aching a bit tonight. Still, that’s another job out of the way :-)

Campanula will look lovely there I am sure. Vera, keep Mr chop pit away from them though. It certainly sounds as if you are going to be busy in the garden again this year. It is what keeps us going isn’t it?

We decided to replace the lavender round the tree with campanula. I’ve already got some blue clumps and white clumps in the garden and they do really well. They are tough, evergreen and bloom well so I think they will look OK round the tree. I found some with mauve coloured flowers so just the right colour to replace the lavender. They were on offer, 4 pots for £10 so we got a dozen pots. My vouchers paid for 8 so it just cost me £10.

OH divided the Japanese anemones as they were spreading a bit too much. We need to do the hostas when they start to show a bit and maybe the asters as well.

And I thought we had designed a low maintenance garden ;-)

Have you spent them yet Vera? Lavender is strange, some of it is so hardy it seeds itself all over the place and lasts years. One of ours is over 20 years old and sends me loads of seedlings. Others I plant don't last a year. Must be the very old varieties that last I think.

I have put photos of Hidcote garden thatw e visited yesterday on my blog, plus photos of Gosport and Lee on Solent and Portsmouth Gunwharf Quays.