Rain damage

I thought I would share a bit of the damage the rain has done to my garden so far this summer in hopes it might make you feel better about yours.

This is the worst basket ever!  I do one every year and by now it is pretty impressive.  This year the plants are just struggling to just stay alive never mind growing.  They haven't developed that much in a month of being planted.

This is the same north facing side of the house and all this border has been killed by simply being swamped with rain.  Like an idiot I have just replanted it.  Talk about optimist!

As for sweet peas!  If Monty Blooming Don reminds me one more time to remember to keep picking sweet peas so they keep flowering I swear we will be one television less.  I planted these in the greenhouse in March and moved them on in May (?) and outside in June.  They have barely changed since then.  Admittedly they are a small tumbling variety, but if these ever manage tumble I will be astounded.

This makes me so sad.  This is the little Noisette rose on the patio which I just love.  It is usually smothered in roses all summer and smells delicious.  Thanks to the rain the flowers are all rotting in bud.  I did cut them all off yesterday so it looks clean and tidy and there is a promise of a second flush but it won't be anything like as spectacular as it usually is.

Finally on the up side....

..... the lavender has done really well and looks and smells terrific.  Maybe the house protects it from a lot of the rain (?) and it is South facing and surrounded by brick and concrete slabs so does get whatever heat there is.

Nevertheless it does seem odd.  If there's one thing lavender doesn't like it is boggy ground.

I'm not sure if this photo shows clearly what I wanted it to show - maybe I'll do it again in another couple of months and see where its up to.  Meanwhile what I wanted you to see was the tomato plant outside the greenhouse (in the small pot) v. the plants inside the greenhouse.  The inside ones are four times bigger (so far!).  They are all the same tomato, planted at the same time.  I just decided to try one outside to see how it went.  Think I have my answer.  You need cover for decent tomatoes up here or at least a warm, sheltered, sunny spot - which I really don't have.  We seem to be high up in relation of the rest of the houses and catch every wind there is.  It is very nice on a really hot day.  Raucous laughter is heard.

There are some more general photos added to the web album  if you want to check them out.

Here comes the usual appeal....

I started this blog 30 June 2010.  I know that a couple of hundred (plus) people visit it each month.  Please use it to share thoughts, tips, moans.  Even more so if you live and garden in Bury it would be great if you would share anything Bury related - like where the bargains are, plants and places to avoid etc.  That was why I did it.

On that note, just to remind you that the garden trail is this weekend (see the previous post).  I'll be there if the weather is half way decent.

Details of the gardens to visit

I have further details of the Edenfield open gardens.  Talk about efficient - one phone call and a couple of days later I got a leaflet which I've copied here.


If you need each page larger so it is easier to read or you want to print it out, just click on the photo.


Tickets are available from the Edenfield Community Centre, off Exchange Street,  which is circled on the map. 


If we get the weather for it, it should be a great day out.

Remember the sunshine?

You probably won't be able to remember by now but a couple of Sundays ago (17th June) we actually had a fine day and husband, friend and I did a village NGS.  These are great ones to do as you get a full day out and lots of very different gardens.  On this occasion we visited Bretherton (Chorley(ish)) to see five gardens.  Our day included a good pub lunch and, later,  a delightful quintessentially English tea in the church hall.  We even had a trip round the church next door and a natter to some real characters.  A good day was had by all.  Apologies for not sharing this experience in advance with you but it was a last minute decision for us as the sun was actually shining!  Have a look at the web album and you'll get a flavour of the day.  They are open again on 15th July and 2nd September so you don't need to wait for next year to visit them.


Meanwhile to make up for keeping this one to myself let me give you a heads up for two really good ones.



The first one on the 15th July is:


Edenfield and District Horticultural Society
Garden Trail Sunday 15th July 10.30am to 4.00pm Tickets £3.00
 14 Gardens Edenfield Stubbins Chatterton Irwell Vale
Tickets Anne Partington 01706 827012 Lynne Longworth 01706 829062


I rang the Anne Partington number and he (!) is sending me a map which I'll share with you when I get it.  Meanwhile, for sure, one of my favourite gardens is on the trail and you can certainly pick up a ticket there.  I am pretty sure you will be able to start on any garden and do any and all as you like but one not to miss is Lavinia Tod's, 1 School Court, Ramsbottom.


Here's a link to some photos I took in 2010.


The second is on the  21st and 22nd July:


Jefferson and Susan's Open Garden 2012

Please find below information on this year's Open Garden
The wonderful Grace O'Malley has agreed to sing for us - not to be missed!
The garden has matured somewhat and we have done new things around the garden particularly the large pond area.
If you would like to help: we are short of all sorts of Homemade Cakes - and Staff to help our guests around the garden,
Please call Jefferson or Susan Conway on 01706 213934. Thanks

Jefferson & Susan’s
Open Garden for Charity
21 & 22 July 12 – 5pm
23 Dalesford Haslingden Rossendale BB4 6QH

We have a young but very interesting garden on many levels
English and Mediterranean Style, Long Borders and Interesting Features.
Japanese Garden, Outdoor Chess, Ponds.
Steel Sculptures and Art Studio.

Special  Singing  Sensation  Grace O’Malley

We are supporting:
Rochdale Hedgehog Rescue - Lancs Air Ambulance & The Smile Train
Please Donate £3.00 pp


Do NOT be fooled by the ordinary aspect at the front of the house when you arrive - the back garden is huge, astonishing and challenging and they have done a fantastic job. Can't wait to see it again this year.  


I have some photos from there taken in 2010, if you need a taster, in my web albums.  

Rain, rain go away....

Discovered a begonia in the hanging basket

I know it is the British disease - complaining about the weather, but really this is beyond a joke.  The rain is bad enough but it is freezing too.  So much for flaming June.


So, yes, not much to write as I haven't actually done any gardening.  I just thought I'd share a bargain, a reminder, some rogues and some photos with you so you know that I am still around.


The bargain -  Thompson and Morgan are offering 36 plug plants six each of six perrrenials for £4.90.  Basically, they promote them as free plants, you just pay the postage, hence the £4.90.  I have sent for them in hopes they will be OK.  I'll put them in the veg plot to grow on for next year and the new border.  That's the plan any way.

First Noisette rose of the year.

The reminder(s) - 15th today so it is my day for flinging (organic) slug pellets around.  I do it 15th of the month from February onwards come rain or shine.  Yes, I know its not so effective if it rains - though the organic ones are better for this - but when would they get done if we waited for sun?  This reminded me to remind you that the garden needs feeding here and there too if you want a good results.  I decided to simplify it by chucking chicken pellets around at the beginning of the season and then handfuls of 7-7-7 National Growmore at the end of every month.  It was far too confusing figuring out who needed what and when.  It is also pretty difficult in a small 'normal' garden to be feeding roses one way and the clematis another when they are planted cheek by jowl.  I need to remember it is a not-very-special garden and certainly not a show garden.  I also tied in my climbing roses - what a job that was.

One of the many ....

The rogues - every year I get a bundle of rogue poppies lifting their heads.  In year one of living here I planted some red oriental poppies in the bottom border (north facing).  Every year since I have pulled them up and even last year dug them up.  The next year they are back in an even bigger spread.  They are beautiful, tough and remarkable things.  The side borders have only ever had white or pink poppies planted.  This year I have the red ones there too.  I am certain oriental poppies are quite difficult to grow from seed and you generally propagate by root cuttings, so for this to have seeded itself somewhere else proves its durability.  I did read somewhere someone had weed killed for twelve years and still has poppies where she doesn't want them.  I will learn to live with them and not notice how the colours clash.  

Foxgloves from nowhere

My other rogues are the masses of foxgloves down the side of the patio which got there - heaven knows how.  Meanwhile in my borders I have just two survivors from many, many plantings each year.  Yup, just the two!


The photos - there are a few here and more in Garden 2012.  .... take a look at the two baskets on the trellis to help fill the space, a pretty little (beesianum) jasmine that's as tough as old boots and my lovely hanging basket, it is doing beautifully.

Cats 2, Me 0

It looks like the cats have won.  I have (sort of) learned to live with cat poo on lawns and in flower borders but I hate the thought of it in the veggie bed.  It probably doesn't do you any harm but I am conscientiously adding organic matter rather than chemical fertilisers, not bug-spraying etc,etc to be as organic as possible - otherwise there doesn't seem a lot of point in growing rather than buying.  As you will have seen I cat defend with string and netting and canes and all-sorts... Somehow one has still managed to use my manicured ground for its toilet.

This is the barrier it managed to cross.  I can only presume it is a triangular shaped cat.  As I said it wins.  I have decided to give up on the veggie bed next summer.  I'll get my other half to rip out the raised bed boxes and I'll plant up another flower border.  I think I am going to have a perfume border.  Every single plant must have a great smell.  I am trying to find a peaceful afternoon/evening to compile a list of plants.  I need a small tree (with strong perfume), a couple of roses (both the same), three shrubs maybe (same family) and some perrenials (probably only three types).  I want to try and stick to a limited range of plants and not have the spotty bits and bobs I have in the rest of the garden.  There's a challenge.  The border is East facing but it does well for the sun most of the day.  Please, please, please send me any suggestions you might have.  I'd like to get this border just right.  Oh, the other constraint is colour - must be cool colours - pinks, whites, creams, lavenders, blues.  All the reds and yellows and oranges and purples are out in the front garden.

In the last couple of weeks since I last wrote we have had some wonderful sunny days.  This was truly great, other than I managed to kill every single little seedling in my greenhouse.  No excuse, I just didn't check it in two days at one point and when I got back in they had all completely fried.  So much for doing my own hanging basket plants this year.  I managed to save about nine tomato plants and six trailing sweet peas.  Six other trays of seedlings all got chucked on the garden.


This meant a quick reccy to see what I could get cheaply for the baskets and borders.  I did well at places like B&Q, Aldi etc but I must confess to breaking down and spending twenty-five pounds on the main hanging basket from Heaton Park.  I bought one from there in 2010 but last year their stuff was awful.  They are back on form this year and I'd recommend them and the Hidden Gem little café (in one of the glass houses).

This photo is to show you how I get hanging baskets home.  It is balanced in a bucket, in a bag and in the foot-well in the back of the car with the passenger seat shoved forward.  I then sit and hang on to it all the way home.  Bit of a fiddle but it does the job and I always get everything back in one piece.  The irony here was, having done all that, its first night in situ was very windy and it snapped of bits and bobs all over as it spun against the wall.  It is recovering just fine but I cursed at the time.

Signs of life

Hardly worth saying how miserable the weather has been and how it has kept me out of the garden.  I'm sure you all feel the same.  We did grab a couple of hours at the weekend for some tidying up and weeding and generally having a sort out.  


I have planted the dwarf runner beans and dwarf French beans in the legumes square alongside the dwarf peas.  I also rigged up the cat defence which I hope will double up as support for the plants if/when the grow tall enough to grab on to the string.


I am writing this on Tuesday 15th May and we are threatened with a frost tonight!!!!  Sadly they will have to take their chances as I can't cloche them (!) and don't have fleece or anything light enough to throw over the flimsy string and cane construction.  Hey ho... wonder what will be there tomorrow.

Finally there is a glimmer of the first early potatoes.   First might be accurate but early - I think not!  My sister in the Cotswolds is earthing up her spuds.  Envy, envy.


I don't know if you can tell but I've raised the cat defender a few inches above the box to give the spuds some room to grow.  If I just remove it at this stage every cat in the neighbourhood (and that's four regulars in the immediate vicinity) will trot over to try out the newly constructed cat loos.

I've planted a few spare beans and peas in the square foot bed and put in four squares of seeds - salad leaves, radishes and beetroots.     




The back four squares are untouched as yet.  I have two thoughts - one - don't bother as they are a pain to reach when harvesting and/or leave them in case I see some bargain veggie plants - unspecified variety as yet.


We'll see what happens.

My fourth and final veggie square with the rhubarb.  The seedlings at the front are salad leaves, not weeds.  The two big tubs - far too much soil for what is growing in them - have American land cress and parsley.  Not a sign of life from the parsley - which doesn't surprise me as I've never yet managed to grow any from seed, but the good old reliable land cress is on its way.


They are planted in tubs to lift them up for some light otherwise the rhubarb drowns out everything else.


I've got the usual huge holes appearing on the rhubarb leaves which I assume is down to slugs. So much for rhubarb leaves being poisonous.  Not enough, obviously.


I wonder how many of you went to the Malvern Spring Show last week/weekend?   It is certainly one of the best in the year but I'm afraid I gave it a miss  as I probably will with most of the others.  They are lovely to look round if the weather is good but usually awful traffic jams, rotten parking, expensive entry.  I have got to the stage of thinking there's nothing much I want from them any more.  Inspiration for a bog standard back garden falls on stony ground (pun intended), I don't need exciting or particular plants and I am weak for gadgets and gizmos so could do without being tempted.  Basically I think having done the shows for years I have come to a stopping place.  Don't let me deter anyone else, for all the opposite reasons. Enjoy

Post script from the 27th

This is the lowest point in our garden and it is always pretty much a swamp throughout the winter.  We are on clay and not exactly free-draining.  We excavated channels and filled them with grit but it didn't make a scrap of difference; so now we just live with the black lagoon.  Sometimes the water backs up and lies on the surface of the lawn for a while.  This is the worst we have ever seen. This last week It filled up to the top of the edging strip of wood and overflowed down the back.