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

[Maggi Young]

Choice is yours, Tony - I can rename this thread  if you wish  when you've decided what to do.   

[tonyg]

Choice is yours, Tony - I can rename this thread  if you wish  when you've decided what to do.   

OK - Can we rename it 'Making the Best of It.  (Was Blog from an Untidy Garden)'  and maybe we'll remove the bit in brackets later?

[Maggi Young]

A new name for Tony's blog: Making the Best of It...  (Was 'Blog from an Untidy Garden')

[Matt T]

Looking forward to hearing more on this thread about how you've been making the best of it, Tony.

[Tim Ingram]

Actually Tony I don't know if I've ever seen a garden really worth its salt that wasn't 'untidy' - it seems the default situation! Of course it depends on how you define the word 'untidy'... parts of our garden are effectively reverting to wilderness! I would like to have them more under control but time will tell

[tonyg]

Over the last three years I have been keeping a daily photo diary, well almost daily!  One picture a day, some words and the chance to share comments with others.  One photo a day was about all I could manage, with very limited spare time.  It's been good therapy, I base the journal around the garden and it's plants but often stray far from my chosen subject!  I've made a few new friends, even stayed for a few days with one who lives on the edge of the Swiss Alps    I've kept in touch with the forum and maybe now I can renew some friendships here.

The untidy garden is still untidy ... worse perhaps than it was.    I will try to show both the good and the bad bits but I suspect there will be plenty of macro shots with soft. out of focus background 

To start, as the autumn bulb season gets underway, here are two from the open garden.  Acis autumnale, been in flower for a few weeks now, and coming to the end of it;s display and Colchicum macrophyllum, just opening it's first flowers.

[tonyg]

Actually Tony I don't know if I've ever seen a garden really worth its salt that wasn't 'untidy' - it seems the default situation! Of course it depends on how you define the word 'untidy'... parts of our garden are effectively reverting to wilderness! I would like to have them more under control but time will tell

Ah. I have seen your garden Tim ... but you have not seen mine.  There's no comparison 
I'm hoping to see things improve as I am likely to be out at work a lot less for the foreseeable future .... hoping!

[tonyg]

A perfect late summer day with blue skies throughout.  Colour and interest in the garden comes in small packages right now but there's a fair bit of it.  Much of interest grows in the sunny raised bed pictured below. 

Scilla scilloides has been brightening it's corner for a while now - looks like I should get some seed off it later.
Sternbergia .... lutea? does well in this bed.  It's got a very sandy top layer as the 'fill' came from a sand bed I made when the children were small (Ruth now 18).
Pulsatilla caucasica is a tiny gem.  This flower, perhaps 3cm across, is smaller than those produced in spring but just as beautiful.  A small group of plants have settled into the bed nicely, sadly not producing any seed this year.

[angie]

Time for a fresh start! 

In the two and a half years since I last posted here a lot has happened.  Most of it has not involved tidying the garden 

Family health problems have limited my gardening time ... and my forum time ... however I am entering a new era and have decided to make a fresh start.  So a new Blog will follow soon, shall I call it 'Making the Best of It' ?

Two and a half years, can't believe that. Looking forward to reading the thread again, I too haven't had the same time to read all the goings on with the forum, I do try and catch up but its impossible. Glad you had a nice day mine wasn't so good, just so much cloud coming from the North Sea.

Angie 

[tonyg]

First bulbs to flower in pots are Colchicum.
Colchicum montanum which will flower from bone dry conditions without roots, triggered by temperature drop or perhaps day length changes.  This dark pink form is from seed I collected in the Pyrenees narly 20 years ago.
Colchicum alpinum is equally small but in this case hails from the Alps.  I saw thousands in flower in meadows around Saas Fee at the start of August 2010. 

[tonyg]

I'm still wading through my onion mire, in it's 3rd year of salvage operations. Tony, I'd like to hear about how you're making the best of it.

Photo showing a small portion of my allium garden (approx 60' x 60', or 20m x 20m), that had become swallowed up in aggressive field grasses and various other horrible weeds during a time of particular work craziness (illness included), where I gave up and "lost the garden".  I am still in process of spading through every inch of the garden in a major make-over, my goal is to finish it next year, this photo from mid August 2015.

Good luck Mark.. I have seen you at work elsewhere I think!  You have a lot more garden to sort .... hopefully you have a lot more time than I have 

[tonyg]

Bulb repotting on the home straight now after many and lengthy interruptions.  While sitting on the patio bench with a barrow of compost and a tray of pots this afternoon, a shaft of sunlight from between the clouds lit up the often shady west facing side of the garden.  Cyclamen hederifolium, planted over 20 years ago and now rather overgrown, flowers resolutely nonetheless.  The sun also caught new growth on a grey-leaved form of Clematis orientalis that I raised from SRGC seed so long ago I cannot recall!  Sadly the old plant has died this year but this self sown seedling (in a trough  ) will ensure continuity.

[ruben]

Great to follow you're blog on here Tony! Looking forward to see some pictures of Crocus :-d

[tonyg]

This Pulsatilla caucasica flower was almost stemless five days ago, such speedy growth.

[tonyg]

Colchicum corsicum has flowers about the same size as a crocus - nothing wrong with that 

Today about 80 of us enjoyed an excellent set of lectures from Peter Korn, Kit Strange and Paul Cumbleton at the Norfolk AGS one day conference.  Here you see Peter and Kit studying a flora of Kyrgyzstan brought home by a local member who knows the author.  Peter must be the most laid back guy I have met.  When asked about the planning that went into his last trip to Kyrgyzstan he said "I just bought a ticket, hired a car when I got there.  Took a photo of a map in the first hostel we stayed in then just drove to likely looking places."  You couldn't make it up!