Hot again!

Those two trees got a serious trim. They are spiky too which adds them to my least favourite options for keeping in the garden of the future. It seems the chop they got last year encouraged them to produce fruits but I’m not 100% sure what they are…

Why do plants in some places grow well and others they fail to thrive? Buddleia grows amazingly in the bed by the house but there is a narrow spindle I have identified next to those spiky trees as buddleia which must have been planted 3 years ago. We struggle to stop the monster by the house…

Straggly buddleia… (before brambles were culled)

But the culling better stop as it’s brown (garden waste) bin tomorrow and I have filled as much as I can with the weeds I don’t add to compost. I feel sure my energy levels are rising again and I have to say it could be down to the cbd capsules I am taking. Still only one tablet but much higher concentration. Reading the small print it says to disclose it to an employer in case they do random drug tests, but it’s thoroughly tested to not contain any credible levels of the stuff that can get you in trouble. Not working through the summer so not panicking about it either…

I have lots of seeds to scatter and lots of places to put them. To have a garden with lots of flowers next year would be fabulous. Need to decide where they go! Random as ever and reallocating herbs along the way is interesting too, as I think I will not lay out a herb garden again but integrate them with other perennials.

Significant apple drop from the tree that failed to fruit last year. And a drum beat from landing on the Perspex…

The garden is growing organically!

Rain to end the hot weekend!

We have been busy pulling up the weeds and I made the first prune of the trees next to the herb garden. Herbs are being relocated and cuttings are in water to try and grow new plants. I am excited for what is planned, which in a roundabout way was what I originally hoped we’d do.

The greenhouse has a step of grey paviours which looks very smart, thanks to hubby.

Second flush of roses after deadheading…

I have been clipping initially round the tree which has the yellow plums on. We still want to check these are edible… but there is so much potential now for that corner of the garden.

And it’s raining now so I have decamped inside.

Are these edible? From the clipped tree.

The initial clipping has uncovered a lot of contorted limbs. And brambles behind…

Gardenkeeping!

Like housekeeping only in the fresh air! Excitingly the Perspex ordered for the greenhouse arrived tout suite and in a day the ‘glazing panels’ with shatterproof and appleproof qualities have been inserted. The greenhouse is back in action and tidy! Lots of pressure washing has been done and decisions about steps into the greenhouse are in place.

Great slabs of concrete were being used around the littlest shed, which lies in pieces around and about – and it would make more sense to use them for steps out of the house? We built an extension and have never had a proper kitchen step. And double doors on other rooms also land on, well, not a lot, and it’s been a few years now. Like I’ve said before, lifetime projects…

But we have a paved area where the greenhouse was which can now be a little patio outside the shed in progress? It was made with some lovely little paviors I got through free cycle. And a little sitting area is much better use of this sun trap.

Breathing in Sea Air!

As I’ve alluded to before, I love being by the sea! And today we left our close environs, taking a 2 hours plus drive to the Norfolk Coast. This was decided on based by crunching local Covid numbers – took Essex coast out of the running – and we love Norfolk! We have made quite a few holidays in that area, and haven’t been in recent times.

It was all very civilised and we saw seals! We packed a full lunch and treated ourselves to ice lollies. I felt slightly guilty using my radar key to avoid the queue for the loo, but having been told it was locked I felt rather smug that I could legitimately use the key to the toilet which was kept clean for people who legitimately need to use it. Disability doesn’t always show and it was obvious that if the door had a normal handle it would have been used.

I have also been taking a slightly stronger cbd tablet (I can take up to four a day apparently) and today I didn’t feel agitated and we managed a longer walk of the beach than I’ve done in weeks, so is it helping the fatigue? I’ve been wanting to beat the fatigue but not sure if it was down to the sea air entirely. Answers on a post card? Wish I was there!

Should I make plans?

A relative sent me these photos of their garden in Spain and it does make me want to travel again. Although the rules on quarantine being so arbitrary it does put me off. Being shut up in a tin can above the ocean with possible Covid transmitters makes me anxious but what if I already had it in March? Lots of people say they have been tested now so maybe it’s worth asking the questions.

However my passport ran out in February and I need to change my name in a new one, so methinks it won’t be quick to get a replacement.

I’m itching to go and see some gardens but will make do with a beach… Summer holidays are on!

Harvesting lots of apples!

The apples are abundant, but not quite fully grown. However I suggested moving the greenhouse to where it could potentially be bombarded by the Apple harvest, which this year is looking abundant. A few boughs were sawn off this afternoon and a full bucket and mixing bowl was filled with apples which though little can be juiced and made into chutney. I’ll have to scour recipes for the best sounding boil. Although I inherited one of my grannies hand scribed books, I think her bridge club ladies were given little cakes and delicacies draped with chocolate and glacé fruits, rather than homemade chutney.

Would this marrow go nicely into chutney?

We have to go to a carpark tomorrow to get my oldest seen by the school nurse. It should have happened in March but is now happening by appointment in the school car park. Welcome to the postCovid world? So my chutney making (or putting off the painting of the next section of the roof) is happening in the afternoon. I think I will also need to dig up some Rosemary, oregano and fennel over the next few weeks as well as continuing to weed copiously. So much to do! Just as well I am not working, much, now until I work out a new way to get paid, or find a mystery new job…

Shelving for greenhouses are all over the place…

As are the contents? I don’t like housework much, does it show?

This is growing on one of the trees needing chopped if we have a large work shed on the herb garden…

Swapping jobs today!

I am trying to finish a paint job I began under lockdown… it’s involving climbing up ladders and trying to stay stable which as most MSers with vertigo know is not as easy as it sounds. Roof lights were asked for but I always thought we’d get someone to do it? In fact when I first took our collie for a walk and she went for someone before I pulled her back, the man she lunged at turned out to be a decorator. A year in and she is much calmer on walks and doesn’t seem to need to protect us, her current herd.

Husband has shifted the greenhouse and in a definite reversal has been in the garden all morning. He is going to purchase some Perspex panels to save the glass from dropping apples. But it looks like the shed is going to be built over the herb garden after all. Which was the original intention?

It also means losing, or cleverly sculpting, the two trees in this corner which we haven’t identified. And replanting some of the herbs.

The greenhouse frame was moved by three of us, while I held back the roses. We are dismantling the arch which was rusted through and again that changed the vistas through the garden. I feel like I am now keen to finish the painting and get back outside!

Arch will find a new home? Or will go to the tip?

Getting a little bit of help…

On a local FB Group I spotted a post I couldn’t ignore? A local gardener was offering a freebie for some cuttings. I was more than able to offer cuttings and bulbs and more… I offered up rose cuttings and lilies and the buddleia has halved once more and bushes along the back fence don’t overhang the garden table.

I offered up the stripy rose and I think Sean went away with enough to propagate the pink and the stripy red and white roses at the back as well as the white ones in the middle. I have a book about propagating so I forwarded some info from the relevant pages.

My gardening exploits today may well have lit the bug again, and the garden will get a little more action! I can see the shed book is again being pored over by my hubby after we discussed rejigging his plan for the shed. I opened up the possibility of going back to the original plan of putting the shed where my herb garden was planted (as I can move those plants) and putting the greenhouse on the slab the little garden shed was on. This just means we could get one larger shed instead of two little ones, ie not becoming a five-shed household!

Local friends if you’re looking for a gardener: Sean Wilson Gardens is on Facebook!

Sean using scary fence clippers… (scary to me)

Weeding again!

Rome wasn’t built in five years, and wandering round our shambles I felt despair and anger! But I’ve given myself a talking to. And started in on the mares tail. Front garden full of lots of seed heads from alliums and other beauties we have enjoyed this year but the mares tail, bindweed valerian and other pests also threatened to do away with the things I have planted. Nothing a bit of elbow grease and perpetual vigilance won’t do away with.

I’ve read on forums that some of these thugs need to be beaten over a long period and I have left them alone because I’ve been working and down in the dumps. I’m not blaming anything in particular but my screen time has been through the roof. And the weeds are overpowering every area I have worked hard to clear.

Clearing an area where we have the littlest shed, I asked a question. My other half has been planning to build two more sheds, but I think we are still better to use the area I’ve planted herbs. I can replant a herb garden and we can move the quite diddy greenhouse onto the cleared slab? Hubby has agreed to rethink. Well I think we both are, as this garden is still a work in progress and doesn’t have a particular area which gives me joy. Working on it! Calla lilies are shooting up in some boxes atm. Yay! More flowers to come…

Phormium is getting strangled. Think it’s vine weevil…

Fatigue and it’s effects…

I’ve been working a lot for me, four mornings this week, and I am trying to find more regular work. I tried to not be tied to social media but we are in strange times, and I think I need to see what people are doing and hope for some break from this interminable despair caused by a government which has failed the country. I wish there was something that could happen to bring back some hope.

My husband has taken down some of the flower bed and I now have to find a new home for the orange lilies which were being strangled with bindweed so it was needing to be dug out, if possible. The lilies could go under the apple tree? I could do with pulling out the grass weeds I’ve let grow indiscriminately. The last few weeks have not seen necessary jobs attempted…

I hadn’t been able to spend much time doing anything else than working and I am scared how much time drifts at the moment and I don’t have the same amount of energy to motivate myself. Last years garden job filled me with ideas and inspiration but the lockdown has set me back so significantly in the uncomfortably warm months earlier this year.