In the Garden

Ditto said:
Lovely water lily. I managed to get one to flower once, a lovely yellow, in a discarded bath! I do have one here at Mum's but the pond is tiddy so I get huge shiny leaves but never a flower. I do have a huge frog, dunno if it's the same one but it's there every year. Never see any frog spawn however. I did put some in once but not seen it since.

Next year I shall try a courgette. 🙂 I'm going to try as many new things as possible. Has anybody heard anything about Monty Don? My brother says he's poorly again? :(
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You need a shallow bit for frogs to get in and out. You can get small breeds of water lillies
 
I think it is a mini water lily. The pond is miniscule. 🙂 Maybe that's why I've only got one frog. No room for more. :D
 
This evening I came across a very large hedgehog ambling down the garden path. I only knew it was there as my Chocolate lab started to bark in panic due to the intruder in her garden 🙄 After rescuing her from this ginormous monster we both sat and watched him/her wondering over the garden eating the slugs.
Took ages to persuade Milly to go out for her bedtime wee.
 
I need a slug-eater in my garden! I did see one passing by ages ago. I should have hijacked it. 🙂
 
Has everybody given up for winter? 🙂 I have loads to do but too crook to get out there plus the weather is dire. I am very worried about the Ash Trees. :( I have some in tubs, but I don't know if they're English or not, these have more resistance to the die back apparently.
 
I managed a bit of gardening the last couple of days, but to day we have heavy rain that has not given up yet!
I still have tomatoe plants and cucumber on the go.
 
We’ve picked some green tomatoes and made chutney. Still some on the vine, we’re going to pull it up and hang it upside down in the shed. Apparently they MAY go red! We’ll see. Carrots, turnips and leeks still in the ground, they will be fine. I’ve trimmed my lavender, and dead headed the poppies. The lawn might need another cut before the winter. If the weather picks up that’ll get done before we go on holiday next Friday.
 
eggyg said:
We’ve picked some green tomatoes and made chutney. Still some on the vine, we’re going to pull it up and hang it upside down in the shed. Apparently they MAY go red! We’ll see. Carrots, turnips and leeks still in the ground, they will be fine. I’ve trimmed my lavender, and dead headed the poppies. The lawn might need another cut before the winter. If the weather picks up that’ll get done before we go on holiday next Friday.
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I am not sure mine would this year if I tried that, the varieties I have grown this year have not been keeping very well. My cucumbers are usually finished by now.
 
Ash trees literally grow like weeds in gardens around here.

Coincidentally we're approx 100 yards from the start of Coventry and a suburb called Ash Green .......

Aren't you better off planting them (deciduous trees generally) where they need to be in the spring as the growth spurt gets going rather than risking restricting the roots and getting pot bound?
 
Mollycoddle those Ash Trees! They'll be extinct at this rate like the poor Elms. Are there any Elms left?
 
Ditto said:
Mollycoddle those Ash Trees! They'll be extinct at this rate like the poor Elms. Are there any Elms left?
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You're welcome to them growing between your paving slabs and in every other gap between hard structures with deep foundations around your house Ditto. Sick of pulling the damn things up. They do have to fight with next door's self seeded buddleia convolvulus and Virginia Creeper already though so I don't see them stopping growing along with the dandelions etc any time soon.

If ONLY his clematis montana had survived his hand and come to live here instead.
 
One hedgehog is/was happily wondering around the garden minding his own business just now. I have just had to persuade one naughty lab to come in as she is now fascinated by our lovely little visitor. Must admit it makes a change from being scared stiff by it the first time she met him.

Any bets as to how often she will wake me up for an urgent call of nature in the middle of the night just so she can see her new friend? 🙄:D
 
grovesy said:
You would not say that if they seeded all over your garden.
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They do seed some, I have to pot them up, just got one up from the front but it had sneaked behind a bush and grown to 5feet already!

and in every other gap
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I've had the same trouble with Sycamores in the past. They're the humans of the tree world. Amazing about the Virginia Creeper and the Buddleia, I fight to keep these alive, but Montana grows like a weed at Mums.

in the middle of the night
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Heh! Is it true hedgepigs are full of fleas? I'm always scared of picking them up.
 
Ditto said:
They do seed some, I have to pot them up, just got one up from the front but it had sneaked behind a bush and grown to 5feet already!

I've had the same trouble with Sycamores in the past. They're the humans of the tree world. Amazing about the Virginia Creeper and the Buddleia, I fight to keep these alive, but Montana grows like a weed at Mums.

Heh! Is it true hedgepigs are full of fleas? I'm always scared of picking them up.
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My Virgina Creeper i trim back.
 
Ditto said:
Mollycoddle those Ash Trees! They'll be extinct at this rate like the poor Elms. Are there any Elms left?
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I have quite a few elms on the bankside above my house, probably about 25yrs old, which came away from seeds after the existing elms died, so I think there is hope for the ash longer term but seeing a lot of die back of them here at the moment. Lost quite a few old mature Alder trees in the last couple of years here too. They grow on the swampy ground next to the stream but in recent years it has been drying up in the summer, so I wonder if they are becoming victim to climate change.
 
rebrascora said:
I have quite a few elms on the bankside above my house, probably about 25yrs old,
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Fingers crossed, but we had a small and apparently healthy elm in our last garden, and it got to about 20yrs old, and 20ft high, then suddenly went dead in the top one year, then the next year it died completely. Our tree surgeon said this is a common way for them to go, and we certainly see a lot of dead elms in the copses round here that are a similar height and age.
 
Ditto said:
Heh! Is it true hedgepigs are full of fleas? I'm always scared of picking them up.
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They can have fleas and ticks 🙂 Milly my Lab is always treated with a preventative so she's fine and I have no intention of picking up hedgehog unless it is unwell and needs a vet and I have thick gardening gloves on 🙂
 
My uncle was head herdsman at a large dairy farm 3 miles from Shrewsbury, they had a Springer Spaniel bitch and Auntie Jean wondered why she kept losing the brushes off her vacuum, hand brushes etc then finding them in Tina's bed and they wondered if she was going broody? after which the final straw was her howling in pain down the garden and finding her still trying to pick up and kidnap a poor hedgehog despite the pain.

Many years previously when I was little myself and Michael Bentine used to be on TV with The Bumblies, which were ace, there were 3 of them, they flew round the room and slept on the ceiling, and didn't have names, only numbers so Auntie Jean had made her little boy a Bumbly and it along with Rog's teddy still lived on the top shelf of the wardrobe in what was his bedroom - but by this time he was a sound engineer working for the BBC at Pebble Mill - so she rang him up to see which he'd be willing to donate to Tina. Tina got Bumbly No 1. (Dunno if he really was No 1 TBH but our Rog always reckoned he was!)

Just a daft but true story about a dog and a hedgehog.
 
Ha! That is so funny. 🙂 I liked Michael Bentine, he seemed like a nice bloke.

I managed to get into the garden today because it wasn't raining, such a change. The bed looks very bare now the ground elder is all pulled up. 🙄
 
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