Hobbies and Crafts

Just been out there Gill, planted up a small trough with a few crocus and some miniature narcissi and a couple of violas. Then planted a couple of small tubs to go on the gravel in the front garden (if there are no tubs on there the cats think it is a huge litter tray. One tub has green frosted sedge grass, black grass, a few narcissi and a mauve viola and the other has bronze sedge grass and violas. OH has planted a black heuchera (in the ground we lose them in tubs so hope this one survives and a large grass with feathery fronds in a pot. He also has the remainder of the bulbs to plant.

I will let you know when the packet is posted.

I see you managed to pot up your plants Ann, they're going to look lovely. Hope your Heuchera survives now it's in the ground. That's the problem with pots, not all plants like being in them.

Thanks for letting me know when you post the package. I'd like to give it to Sandra so I can see her face when she opens it. It's not the same if she gets the post herself, I'll of missed her reaction then. Daft aren't I? :-) :-)

She's going to be so excited, she doesn't get post very often. It'll be nice to see a smile on her face as we've had a bad year this year, so it'll be lovely for something nice to happen for her. Thank you <3

I've just been looking at my borders in the back garden and have decided to see if I can find a few more Sedums, they are looking lovely and I have some spaces that need filling so they'd look great there. The new border down the bottom has no colour in it at all so they'd look smashing down there too. I just need to know when to stop buying plants though as I'm sure I'll come back with other things to, I'm like a child in a sweet shop where plants are concerned.

Must remember my umbrella, we've had a few sharp showers of rain, don't fancy getting wet.

Sedums are lovely this time of year but tend to look a bit tatty in the summer months, there are some lovely ones around. I tended to think there was just one sort but there is a good variation in the colours of the flowers.

Yes, I won't forget to let you know when I post it. :-D

I didn't go out in the end Ann, we had a massive downpour of rain and I didn't think the umbrella would of been any good as it was bouncing down, so I stayed here in the end. Yes, Sedums don't look their best in the summer, but I have lots of summer plants in pots which I replace the Sedums with. That's the fun of having a pot garden, I can change the borders to match the seasons. I didn't know Sedum flowers were any other colour than pink.....you learn something new every day :-) ;-)

They are different shades of pink Gill but also yellow and white. If you google sedum flower photos you can see

I've just planted a couple of sedums where OH took out the euphorbias. OH is insisting that we had a large sedum in our front garden at our old house and described exactly where it was. I can't for the life of me think what he's got in mind but I lived in that house for 26 years and I am sure I would have noticed if we had a sedum in the front :-S

Our new physocarpus shrub seems to need a lot of water so I am having to keep an eye on it. A couple of times recently I have noticed it really drooping and looking half dead but it perks up again quite quickly after a good watering.

In February someone gave me a couple of small pots of daffodils just coming into bud. After they had bloomed I put them out of sight behind a shrub at the back of the garden and forgot about them. I found them again today and was going to put them in the garden but I couldn't find a spot I liked for them, so I've repotted them into slightly larger pots and they can sit on the patio.

The wrought iron gate that OH painted green doesn't look bad at all. In fact it looks quite upmarket :-D. It's a fairly dark green and it was a proper metal paint. I'm quite happy having the two gates different colours as you can't see both of them at the same time from any point in the house or garden.

I've just Googled Sedum flower colours Ann, there are some really nice ones, I was surprised as I thought they were only pink. I like the lime green one (Sedum Kamtschaticum), it looked a bit like a daffodil.

Pleased to see you are happy with your green gate Vera. We painted our front fence a dark green and when my mum was directing my sister to our house she thought it was black, until they got a bit closer that is. It sounds like you have a very thirsty plant there, good idea to keep an eye on it. Once it's established a bit more you might not have to water it so much and don't forget we're going into the wet season now so that'll help keep it alive. I wonder what the plant was your OH was talking about if it wasn't a Sedum, funny how we remember things differently to others isn't it? Do you have a photo of your garden, maybe that will hold the answer? Your daffodil's are going to look lovely in the pot next spring. When I see them I know spring is here and they're such a cheery colour too.

It's still raining on and off so we won't be doing any gardening, all I've done today is turn one of my pots around as the flowers were going underneath the plant next to it. OH is putting another bolt on our side gate while there's a break in the rain, it warped a bit at the bottom in the heat wave so if there is a bolt there hopefully it'll straighten up in the damp weather.
He can only try.

I really wanted a yellow sedum but they all seemed to be low growing and I wanted a taller variety so I ended up with the pink “Autumn Joy”. If anyone comes across a tall yellow one I would be pleased to hear about it.

Have you tried looking online Vera for your yellow sedum you could order it from there. I'm not keen on ordering online but have found some websites have phone numbers so you can order things by phone instead. I've done this a few times. If I find one I'll let you know.

I'm catching up with Gardeners world at the moment, I record them and have a few to watch now. Monty Don is doing his own experiment on whether black pots or light coloured ones are the best to use. Apparently you can't recycle black pots so the industry are talking about not producing them anymore. He put the same plants in both black and light coloured pots to see which ones grow better and has used three different plants with different root systems. I guess time will tell which pot is best when he shows us the results next year.

I use black pots as they seem to disappear into the background in my borders, plus they show some of the plants off better, especially the light coloured ones. OH has even sprayed some of my larger pots black for me and I must admit my borders look lovely. When people look at them they don't realise they're made up of pots and that none of the plants are actually in the ground. It's a lot easier to change the look of the borders to as there's no digging involved to move them around. The only problem is the wind can blow the pots over, so we've had to put rocks around the pots to try to keep them upright in bad weather, not that it always works though.

I'm hoping we have at least one dry day this week as the weeds are starting to pop their heads up in the front garden and it's spoiling the look of all our hard work. We have a problem with large established weeds growing down the side of the drive and a few coming through the flags on the drive to, so I'm hoping to scrape them out with a gardening tool I have and fill in the gaps with some dry concrete in the hope it blocks the light and rain out and stops them growing back again. The damp ground will make the concrete set.
I hope it's not to windy though, otherwise I'll concrete myself ;-)

Vera I did check on line and so far have only found the low growing yellow sedums which are pretty but really need to be in rockeries or gravel beds. Will keep looking.

Gill, yes we have been watching the recorded gardeners worlds from when we were away and saw the one on the pots. Interesting. The small ones are a menace though as I am sure theya re breeding in our shed. I was interested to hear that garden centres should be able to send them back but our Wyevale used to collect old pots and stopped doing it, probably because, as one said, people were leaving all sorts of rubbish there. My thought was, if they had the recycling bin somehwere iside the store (most of them are large enough) then people would only recycle what they should.

We have just been recycling rocks round the garden, moving pots that have finished off the gravel bed at the front and putting rocks in their place to keep the cats off. Now I am off to plant up two more bulb pots then it is back to card making. :-) :-D

That is all the bulbs in pots and in the ground now except when we buy tulips in a week or so. And it is so mild that we sat in the garden with our coffee.

Lucky you Ann being able to sit outside and have your coffee. Although it's finally stopped raining here it's far to cold to sit outside today, plus everywhere's wet.

You seem to be getting there with all the sorting and planting. I planted my Tulip bulbs a while back, I just hope the new squirrels I've seen lately don't dig them out of the pots now. We had a gravel bed in the front and the local cats used it as a toilet all the time, needless to say it's been taken away and flagged instead. That's where I put the two new planters we bought and did up. The plants in there are starting to establish themselves now and are looking very pretty. Come the spring the bulbs will come up to, so they should look better then.

We have a garden centre not far from us who have a recycling bin outside, it's where anyone who wants to leave their pots can and also they don't mind if other people take pots to. We often go there for the next size pots we need and leave the smaller ones we don't need anymore that maybe someone else can use. I think the garden centre put their pots there to. It's very useful and everyone is happy with the arrangement. It comes in handy for me with having a pot garden as it's all free too.

Your idea of having the recycling bin inside the store would solve the problems you have. I've never seen any problems with the way they do it around here, but then it's only on a small scale. They've made the recycling area out of pallets and it's not very big, plus it's outside where everyone can see it, right in the middle of the garden centre itself, the staff have a clear view of it so no one can put anything there without being seen.

I tried looking for the Sedum you wanted to Vera and had the same problem as Ann. There must be one out there somewhere, so I'll take another look for you later. What height are you looking for? I was hoping to get a yellow one for myself but would like it about 2 to 3 foot high, is that about the height you'd like?

I gather the packet has not arrived gill. So much for first class post!!

No not today Ann, we'll keep an eye out tomorrow and let you know as soon as it arrives. I've been checking the post on and off all day as well.

Thanks for looking for a taller yellow sedum ladies. I had looked online but fresh eyes sometimes see things I miss. I am now thinking of a low growing one in one place and looking for a different plant altogether for the other two or three spots I want to fill.

I’m at a bit of a loose end at the moment as far as the garden is concerned. It’s a shame not to make use of the good weather we are having today but there isn’t much I can do right now. A lot of plants will need cutting right down for the winter or lifting and putting in the mini greenhouse and the conservatory, but it’s a bit early to do that yet, particularly as it is still warm.

I did pot up some rooted lavender cuttings into individual pots so I’ll have some replacement plants if we lose any (or Mr Scissorhands gets at them again ;-) )

We also had all the paving back and front cleaned today. I hadn’t realised how dirty it was. It looks good at the moment but I don’t suppose it will stay like that for long.

I had another look for you Vera but again couldn't find a taller yellow Sedum anywhere. The smaller one should still look nice. What type of plants are you thinking of putting in the few gaps you have? Yes, I think it's that time of year, especially with it still being quite warm where there isn't much that can be done. I am the same, although I did notice that the squirrels did try and take my bulbs out of some of my pots so I've now covered them up with some wooden frames covered in nylon netting we made last year and popped a small brick on top to weight them down. Hopefully the few bulbs that are left will stay safe now.

Good idea to take some cutting Vera, I'm the same with my Salvia's as they're not to keen on the cold weather and I have to many to put in the greenhouse. I've managed to get one in there though and taken lots of cutting which are safe on my kitchen window sill. I'll pot those into larger pots in the spring.

I bought my OH a power washer for his birthday and he was going to clean all our paving once the front garden was finished but it started raining and got very windy so it didn't get done in the end. He'll probably do it early next year now. We used to borrow my mum's and your right Vera they don't stay clean for very long, but do look good while they are clean and it makes all the difference.

A bit of a damp morning here it looks like we've had quite a bit of rain throughout the night, but after looking at the weather forecast it's supposed to be dry for the rest of the day. I've just watered my plants in the greenhouse the rest have been watered courtesy of "Mother Nature".

I bought a couple of Schizostylis "Pink Princess" yesterday to put down in the bottom border.. I have a few of them in the side border and they look lovely but with not having any colour in the new border down the bottom I thought I'd buy some more. I had intended on buying a few more Sedums but the ones they had didn't look up to much so I didn't bother in the end.

We took Sandra to see the Giant in New Brighton yesterday, she really enjoyed herself. Most of the Giants are in Liverpool and this was the first time they had one nearer us, so as a surprise we took her. Then when we came home the card making things Ann sent for her (another surprise) had arrived, she went through it all in a very excited state and made a few cards. So all in all she had a great day. It was nice to see a smile on her face as we've had a bit of a year this year which has made her feel a bit down. She's a lot happier now :-)

As I didn't recognize the latin name Gill I looked it up, so for anyone else who doesn't know.

This is the Kaffir lily

By evening the flowers close and nod again like a ballerina taking an encore. This sequence is repeated over several weeks. These South African flowers, members of the Iris family, are commonly known as Kaffir lilies. They grow naturally in wetter parts on the eastern side of the Cape, in stream beds and cliff edges, where summers are warm and wet and winters cold and dry. The South African terrain is mountainous and rugged. But the soil in the valleys, although poor, is ideal for bulbous and rhizomatous plants. Rainfall is heaviest closest to the coast, but much sparser inland. The flora is especially rich because the area escaped glaciation and the Cape region can boast 9,000 species in contrast to Britain's 1,500.

In South Africa, schizostylis keeps its linear grass-green leaves throughout the year. But in most British gardens schizostylis dies back and then reappears in late spring, so marking its position is a good idea. I have grown it in the heart of England successfully, but hardiness could be a problem in cold, wet gardens. This adaptable plant can be treated like an agapanthus, however, and potted up and then bedded out in summer. But do water regularly.

Good to have a day out Gill and great that Sandra had an exciting day. So pleased the craft bits helped to cheer her up too. She will be off making her Christmas cards now. Next time I get overwhelmed with stuff I will certainly think of Sandra.

Very damp here so no gardening today. :-(