3: Gardening Diaries ...

[alp]

Strange that BBC gives me more rain than the Met office

 

[alp]

You might remember my purchase of flour with Amazon. I am 4 bags fewer with the 16 Rustic Country flour. We have to use it every day and the expiry data is November. I checked the giftcard balance and suddenly saw a £10 gift voucher adding to the gift card balance. I then realised it was related to an application of a certain credit card. I googled and there it said £20 instead of £10. So I emailed the power that be. and lo and behold, they emailed me to say there was a glitch and has now credited my account with £10 more. If you have Amazon gift vouchers from friends for Christmas, please take a print screen as one can't articulate the glitches, like the man explaining a man in poncho running after a horse draped in red in a car accident on a certain TV ad! So much dishonesty!

Blue Bayou

a long awaited hibiscus

Comsos cupcake tall and straggly

A scabious or a knautia. When I bought it, it was dying. Think £1

Yesterday, I saw a struggling bee being cocooned by a spider web and the spider was moving in for the kill, I tried to help free the bee, and part of the web went to the ground. Then I saw another bee in a near dead state. Very sad.

This is another aster, much taller than the ones I bought from Thurrock! Just trying to get flowering!

Gaura has now more flowers

Funny that I prefer the yellow Easter Star to the white and yellow ones. The split at the petal ends makes it more interesting. I still have 2 big clumps of them.

 

[Upsy Daisy]

Morning all

Our forecast still shows some rainfall during the next few days, but when I run the video clip of predicted weather the rain seems to miss us....so it's a guessing game !!
Really need the rain though so fingers are crossed!!!!


Fingers are also crossed that Ladybirds have gone too so I can get back to my borders!! Liked the way the article said ... ' mostly harmless ' .....wish the ones down here knew that as they all seem to bite me!!

Yes definitely @alp, I think all our flowers are at there best now too, the Dahlias in particular have tons of buds. What a strange year it's been!

Sun is out and so must I be too......have a fab day everyone

 

[alp]

Did the ladybird really bite you, @Upsy Daisy ? Please, LADYBIRD, STAY AWAY FROM @alp ! Once I wore a dress to water my plants 6am after spraying myself with Avon mossie spray, the evil mossies kissed me in the most intimate places and 5 months down the road, I am still itchy! They have turned into warts and keep asking to be scratched. I hate being bitten by anything. So please, LADYbirds, stay away from me.

Seeing how the bees die a terrible death, I'd like to kill all the spiders as well. Why don't they trap aphids or flies?

Same here, there are drifts of rain predicted, but they keep missing me. Very frustrating. I am 3 butts down. I will use it all for my hellebores. Any way, the season is nearly over for the year and I think I should be safe. How many Indian Summers can we have. We've already had 2.

I'm pining after a £10.99 gingko .. Off to weed the front again! Never ending job!

 

[Upsy Daisy]

Oh yes @alp they bite me!!
Suppose to get rain here for an hour or so about 10, have to say that it has clouded over a bit now but whether or not they are rain clouds we shall wait and see

I dislike the way things fly about seemingly unable to see me and being unable to steer around me!! Why for goodness sake....!!!!?

Also hate it when ,despite shaking the laundry when removing it from the line, you find Ladybirds and similar in your underwear drawer a few days later

I loved all creatures...big and small, but in they proper place!!
Definitely not my knicker drawer

 

[Upsy Daisy]

The rain this morning didn't arrive but this afternoon's did..Not heavy but steady .
Had an afternoon in the greenhouse and potted up 6 Fuchsia cuttings that I had rooted in water. Chaff was removed from all the Zinnia seeds and checked over the drying out bulbs too

Hope everyone had an enjoyable day too

 

[alp]

We need ladybirds, but I have tons of aphids and they are never there to feast on them. In the end, my fingers did the job today. I'm still itchy wherever I was bitten. Very annoying.

Removed the swing and omg, we couldn't dismantle the bits as they were so stuck on. Now we have to leave it at the back. Another eyesore whilst I tried to tidy up the place.

I have now more space to work on now that the swing is out of the way. The ground was wet this morning, but we have had no rain. You're so lucky to have rain. I am not so panicky, but I am still watering like mad as my garden is so dry.

 

[Upsy Daisy]

I can hear you all snoring.... Wake up!!!!!

A tad blustery out there, but I have no complaints considering what has been endured by some of our forum friends.

Sore throat still bad, the accompanying blocked nose and sore eyes are only bad in the evening thankfully, but do have an annoying cough as well

Non gardening day for me as I'm over at my Dad's today to do the housework and laundry

Have a brilliant day !

 

[alp]

Good morning to all. Going to be a windy day, so clutter your pots and stake your plants.

More and more blooms for my happy white aster

Cupcakes really look like a cup now and they are singing

All my osteospermum - shame I lost my violet single (with hundreds of flowers.
Yellow single

Border full of cuttings of my bamboos. Winter is coming and I'm doing my share of mulching and also, this will suppress the heat from the rising and setting sunshine which is on this border the whole day.

A new Salvia Salmon Dance from cuttings

Dyson's Joy

Bog sage

Fragrant rose by my French patio door

Polka

Greatest Joy reserved for the first everi

blooming Peace Lily

 

[alp]

I can hear you all snoring.... Wake up!!!!!

A tad blustery out there, but I have no complaints considering what has been endured by some of our forum friends.

Sore throat still bad, the accompanying blocked nose and sore eyes are only bad in the evening thankfully, but do have an annoying cough as well

Non gardening day for me as I'm over at my Dad's today to do the housework and laundry

Have a brilliant day !

Hope you get better and have a reminiscing day with your dad! Is your other sis going with you? Need to go soon.

 

[Upsy Daisy]

No she didn't even offer....strange! Just me on my own so won't be much reminiscing time, all the cleaning and two loads of laundry to do!!!
Also thinking about taking on my Dad's garden as the gardeners ( who are supposed to be highly trained) aren't much good ,some of the shrubs ,in particular a large Camellia....looked completely hacked .Have to think long and hard though as he has a very large garden, but it upsets me on two counts....the first is see my Dad taken advantage of ,as they have now suggested ( and he's agreed) that they need to come twice a week!!! And secondly my Mum loved and lived for her garden and to see it going downhill is sad. I won't be able to recreate her beautiful work but can hopefully bring it back on track .Decisions, decisions.

 

[alp]

Come on! We are the lucky housewives.2 loads of laundry means chucking things inside the washing machine twice. But still, nice to have someone to do things together! Shame!

Oh, dear! Hacking the camelia! Think you should really look at their credentials. Get a college final year student is better than these charging professional fees. Why not contact Garden rescue to make a low maintenance garden? Cheap and some of the finished work is not bad at all. I think you might as well get your dad to pay you to do it. You and your hubs can do the job and have some spare money to have more BBQs!

Been very busy. Split some more hellebores and put them in pots and buried the pots in the ground. I know it sounds stupid and silly, but that's me or my 2nd name! I need to sort them out so that I can move with them. Been working solid for 3 hours and a half. Been emptying the butts as a lot of rain has been promised on Sunday. Wait! Let's see the latest saga!

Looks good!

Didn't even know I have this double fuchsias with stripes in the middle. After removing the swing, the garden looks bigger and I have found my old friend, delphinium! with shoots being buried; and also have found this fuchsia

My dahlias are still very happy

And another salvia salmon dance from cuttings

Saw Jim preparing Dyson's Joy for winter in the Beechgrove Garden

Bumped into an old friend

Isn't she a beauty!

@Upsy Daisy Take your dad's gardeners' job! Your dad has been too nice!

 

[Upsy Daisy]

It meant two lots of ironing as well...everything had to be done in 5 hours, definitely not an easy housewife job!!

 

[alp]

It meant two lots of ironing as well...everything had to be done in 5 hours, definitely not an easy housewife job!!

Sorry, I don't have the word ironing in my laundry vocabulary. According to an article, if you put 2 ice cubes in the tumble dryer, you can get away with no ironing. That's for winter, of course.

https://lifehacker.com/use-ice-cubes-and-your-dryer-to-steam-out-wrinkles-1551615442

I feel sorry for you. You can't train your dad into wearing clothes not having been ironed. My mum was too busy making money to iron any clothes, so ironing has never been important in my life!

 

[Upsy Daisy]

....no matter how busy we all are in our family we all like to have our things ironed But definitely not duvet covers!!!!, they get folded straight away. Just the way we are all different really isn't it? My mum was always busy, but just as her mum did....she ironed. I've always lead a busy life but just like my mum ....I iron too.