Making the Best of It... (Was 'Blog from an Untidy Garden')

[tonyg]

Tony first of all belated happy birthday. I bet my garden is untidier than yours at the moment. I have pots everywhere, even blown into the pond. Branches leaves, fir cones in their hundreds all over the grass. Scared to look and see if my polytunnel is still there. What I was thinking is if you have the time to sit under the stars you are must be up to date with everything so do you fancy coming up here to help tidy my garden.

Angie

HA HA HA HA HA    It was too dark for weeding ... I should show you the really ugly corners! 
Hope your garden survives the gales, a bad time of year for such high winds.

[tonyg]

Found time tonight to put the green builders bags and the horse manure to good use.  With our major reworking of the garden still far from finished these 'miniature gardens' have superior compost, and have absorbed some of the 'spare' garden soil.  I am now wondering if I could use one for alpines or for a temporary bulb bed.  Hmmm .....

And then there is my best present  Jacinta says she'll never do anything so complex (on such a small weave) again - a labour of love  
(It was completed a (long!) while ago but to be presented with it framed, so perfect, was a great treat.)

[Lesley Cox]

The crocus embroidery is a real treasure and will no doubt become a family heirloom. You lucky man!

[angie]

Somebody loves you a lot. I used to do embroidery and cross stitch, they took hours and hours to do, then you had the expense of the framing. My friend that went back to America left me two large boxes of threads  beads and patterns, don't no if I will ever get around to do anything with them. to much hard work.

Like Lesley said it will be lovely to pass the embroidery down the family.

Angie

[tonyg]

It rained today, just a little.  Before the big event I found time to plant up the Birthday trough.  My first thoughts had been to use slate for the hard landscaping but I don't have enough decent pieces for this job.  However I do have a surplus of tufa pieces of various sizes reclaimed from plantings made many years ago.  The compost I used is my standard alpine mix of John Innes No 3 with added gritty sand.  I experimented with the larger pieces of tufa until I found an arrangement that pleased me.  The pieces are buried to at least half their depth for better stability and water retention.  As I continued to fill with compost I used gritty sand across the gaps, washed down with successive waterings to help bed the whole thing together.

[tonyg]

After ensuring that the tufa was well bedded in (several waterings plus more sand and compost) I tried out various planting schemes before the actual planting was done.  The eagle eyed will notice that not all the plants ended up in the places shown in the 'test' picture!  To try and get a uniform finish, a top dressing of stone to match the tufa was needed.  I was able to reclaim lots of small pieces of tufa and lost of 'dust' which combined with some pale limestone chippings that I have used in the past to give me a nice mixed size top dressing.

[tonyg]

I will report back on the progress of the plants over the coming seasons.  The most risky planting is this Androsace cylindrica seedling (2010 sown) in a rather large hole in the tufa.  The hole was made by the person who gave me the tufa and is bigger than I would have chosen, however with the angle the rock is set at it creates a East facing cave which should be a suitable niche for this androsace ... if I can keep it watered enough for the plant to properly establish.  The only plant in flower is Campanula choruhensis with large white bells.  The plant has a second basal growth so although the flowering one will likely die off the plant should persist.  I hope that the Townsendia exscapa will do well, I had a good crop of seedlings from my own seed last year. 
The finished planting is pleasing to my eye  ... how many of the plants will stand the test of time?

[angie]

Very nice. The tufa looks really good.  I like how the trough had happy birthday on it. Hope your Townsendia do well. I took seed from my Townsendia today. I hope I get it to germinate.

Angie

[Luc Gilgemyn]

A job well done Tony ! 
The trough looks very nice !  Just worried that the Campanula choruhensis will outgrow it's allowed space... 

[tonyg]

A job well done Tony ! 
The trough looks very nice !  Just worried that the Campanula choruhensis will outgrow it's allowed space... 

Thanks Luc - hopefully the campanula will grow out over the sides, if it becomes a weed I will treat it like a weed

[tonyg]

A short half term trip to Wales where we met up with all my siblings (and my mum!) who presented me with a final birthday present.  This one will last a long time
The Talyllyn Railway was celebrating 60 years of preservation with an all-night-steam.  We enjoyed the sunset trains and Yes, we were still on the train at midnight .... when it started to lash down with rain and blow a gale.  We were under canvas this holiday   Highlight on the plant front was finding Dactylorhiza in the woods at Dolgoch (most plants in a marshy area just at the woodland margin) where I have walked for the last 40 years without ever seeing them!
Back home the 'meadow' part of the front garden looked good.  I have now weeded out most of the grass, it is too much of a weed to let it seed into the slate.  The aetheonema grandiflorum need cutting back now the flowers have finished which will make it look tidier.  Many of the small plants I put in last year are still small, we have had virtually no rain since the winter.  Clarkia amoena arrived as wild seed years ago.  A biennial (annual if sown in spring) it self sows like a weed when allowed to but kept to a small area makes a colourful spectacle in mid summer.  I just have to remember to weed it out before all the seed is shed.

[Lesley Cox]

A wonderful present Tony, but I don't like the sound of that "final." Maybe just something smaller next year, like socks.

[tonyg]

A wonderful present Tony, but I don't like the sound of that "final." Maybe just something smaller next year, like socks.

[tonyg]

Its been a hectic few weeks here.  Finally getting enough rain, so the weeds are doing well!  A quick makeover in the garden railway sleeper bed has seen an old helianthemum finally removed.  I have cut it back in the past to keep it in check but despite the extensive display of flowers each spring I have removed it to make way for a couple of low growing Daphne.

The Norfolk AGS decided to have a small display at the Royal Norfolk Show recently.  Allotted a 3feet square base we elected to show troughs and containers.  Norman, our trough man came up with an empty light weight (plastic) trough which I offered to plant up.  To keep it to a manageable weight I packed the bottom of the trough with empty plastic boxes and pieces of polystyrene, covered with an old compost sack.  This left around 4 inches of usable depth.  Most of the plants were seedlings and cuttings but I had to dig a few from the garden to bulk up the display.  I showed some pics of planting the tufa in a recent tufa thread.

On the building day Norman supplied a few nice plants - in flower! - to bulk up the display.  It took three of us about three hours to put it all together, including a quick trip to a local business park for black paper and a few other essentials.  A borrowed staple gun made easy work of covering the woodwork.  The team was Norman Read, TG and Ian Black.

The display was well received and a large quantity of publicity material and AGS 'Easy' leaflets was taken from the (unmanned) display table.  I'll let you know if any new members turn up at local meetings!

[tonyg]

A few weeks ago I was bemoaning the lack of rain  Campanula cochlearifolia in the slate dressed raised bed was 'done to a crisp'.  Well, here it is after a few weeks of regular rain.  It's a tough thing, clearly loving the slate top dressing, still wandering on amongst the stones, just as it does in nature.

I still have to return Normans trough and plants ... I am enjoying the flowers on this Jovibarba

As soon as the marjoram in the garden starts to flower we have Gatekeepers aplenty on sunny days.