Esther’s Garden Notes and Photos

DIGGING UP THE CHOISYA

2012-01-27T15:09:00.001Z

I had been planning a post about plantskept for reasons of sentiment rather than sense - plants which dwindle foryears but which were given into our keeping by friends, or brought fromelsewhere, or which were bought in specially happy times so we want never to let them go. Then Anne Wareham wrote an article for The Telgraph aboutmuch the same thing and it seemed silly to replicate what she says (even though it's notlikely there's much of an overlap between our readerships!) so I abandoned that post.

However, her last paragraph gave me the dynamiteI needed for action.

"It isdecision time -" (she says) "and the really important thing is to dowhatever you want to deliberately. So that even if you are still looking at amiserable, half-dead plant, you do at least know why."

That Choisya Sundance which hugs theground outside the house; an embarrassment whose leaves are pale and stucktogether and eaten and brown and thin. I know why I've let it linger. It'sbecause I want a tall, substantial, bright and sunny, eye catching plant thatmakes me happy every time I see it. No sentiment involved - just wishfulthinking.

Right.

I picked up my fork, marched to theplant - and lifted it.

It came out without a murmur. Nodigging. No wrenching. Fork in. Plant out. Poor thing. Its roots looked strongbut their hold on the earth was . . . absent.

Before bunging it in the brown sackof garden waste the council takes to mash up, sterilise and compost (I use itfor thick twigs, cordyline leaves and tomato plants) I peeled back some ofthe leaves.

This is the other side of the chrysalis at the top of the page.
Features like the line which looks like a spine
(but which presumably, isn't) are clearer in black and white.
The front end is buried in the threads which are, themselves, white.

I wasn'texpecting a chrysalis. About half an inch long, black, and in a soft nest ofwhite threads. My neighbour, Lucy Corrander, put it on iSpot to see if anyoneknows what would emerge. Difficult . . . but - maybe . . the moth Silver Y(Autographa gamma) . . . ?

I didn'tthink this was likely to be the main culprit so I peeled back anotherstuck-together leaf.

This!

Some kind of sawfly? And, my could it move! In the picture, it looks as if it'sstopped for a munch. It hasn't. It's racing for freedom, for cover, for whoknows what? But, whatever it was, the wind caught thepaper I'd put it on for the sake of the photograph. Off went the sawfly. Offwent the chrysalis.

Gone.

I felt sad for the chrysalis. Alarmedabout the sawfly. I've got enough unwelcome beasties in the back garden withoutbringing in more as part of a misguided nature hunt.

I closed the sack and stuck it in theshed to wait for the council van. No more escapees please!

And now what? My garden seems to havebeen taken over by miners and sawflies. It's a very sheltered garden. We rarelyget frosts. I have no fire indoors from which to collect ash. No space for abonfire. Can't dig up everything! Who will win?

___

For more information about Ann Wareham's garden at Veddw House - click HERE

BLOOMING NUISANCES

2012-01-15T20:41:00.000Z

While everyone else is celebrating their gardens in bloom, what I'm most aware of is the pests in mine - the blooming nuisances.

My garden has been specialising in miners. They have taken up hard-eating residence in so many plants, I can't keep up with cutting off affected leaves.

I'm uncertain what to do about old leaves on the ground. I've left them for the over-wintering of insects. And there's the contradiction. It's all very well being ecological and nature friendly and all that - but you don't get to choose your guests and quite a few of mine are unwelcome. In some places, I've scooped away winter ground cover. In others, I'm nervous. Lots of bulbs have their green spikes well above ground but they are still new. If we have a frost, I'd be sad if they were zapped.

But sawfly have decided my garden is a well stocked hotel and I suspect they are just waiting to leap out of the debris / surface earth at the first sign of spring. Indeed, I don't think they've stopped munching all winter.

I took this photo at the beginning of December. From the house, I could see the leaves of the blackcurrant bush were in trouble. They were not having a happy autumn so I went to investigate. This little chap was curling the edge of a leaf and tying itself in with silken threads. It did not like being disturbed and was surprisingly speedy.

Because it is on a blackcurrant bush, I took it to be the larva of a Blackcurrant Sawfly but, when I looked them up - they have clear, black dots - which this doesn't. Maybe the dots come later. Anyone know?

All the leaves fell. Buds for next year arrived. They look fine. Fine and healthy.

I'm nervous though.

Look closer.

Threads.

Of course, it might be that a spider has taken a wander but . . . .

Something's been at the bulbs I didn't get round to re-planting after my autumn dig. (Mouse?)

And something else is nibbling holes in the red veined sorrel.

The Choisya Sundance is turning to mush.

I'm thinking
of giving up and digging it out.

A nasturtium leaf is providing shelter for quite a large grub of something.

One of the bay plants is providing sustenance for a couple of other creatures. (Bay leaf cutters killed of a couple of the very small ones.)

But, but, but . . . despite the feast the caterpillar I showed in a previous post was making of the rainbow chard before the weather turned wintry (though not very wintry) tulips are coming up in its shelter. I doubt the caterpillar will bother with them. (I doubt it's still there. If it is, I think it may have gone underground.)

I'm looking forward to frost. I wish I didn't try to be creature-friendly. This garden is small. This garden is too small for all of us - me and the miners and the eaters and the carvers and the mushers - and I think it's me that's being edged out!

P.S. Apart from the photo of the sawfly larva, which was taken on 9th December 2011, all photos were taken today - January 15th 2012.

RHS SNOWDROPS

2012-01-11T18:34:00.002Z

It's a day when flowers are in the news - there are too many of them.

The big story was set in train when Dr Tim Rich of the National Museum of Wales (and the Welsh Rare Plants Project) and Dr Sarah Whild of Birmingham University went out to count them in the streets of Cardiff. They found 63 varieties instead of the anticipated 10 to 20 - or 20 to 30, depending on who tells it.

There seems to be similar confusion over whether these are flowers in general or just wild ones, nevertheless . .

The Royal Horticultural Society is getting excited too - if that's the right word. Maybe 'disturbed' or 'agitated' would be better for it's sent this photo of snowdrops at Rosemoor in Devon. They are lovely to see - but we shouldn't be seeing them yet.

Snowdrops flowering three weeks early

in the RHS gardens at Rosemoor in Devon.

If plants flower before pollinators emerge, seed cannot be set. One doesn't want to be over-dramatic but, long term, if this happens to plants we value for food, and it happens over and over again, it could mean there will be less to eat - and fewer seeds for next years flowers . . . so fewer flowers . . . less food . . . serious stuff.

We're not going to eat snowdrops, nor yet the wallflower in my garden which thinks it's a bush and currently has thirteen beautiful flowers . . .

This is what my wallflower looked like on 21st December 2011
and it is flowering happily still on January 11th 2012.

but, while appreciating the unexpected loveliness of a blooming January - you can see the problem . . .

P.S. Pat at The Squirrelbasket also has a post about surprising winter colour.

THIS IS MY FAVOURITE DANDELION - A GENERAL LOOK AT WHAT'S HAPPENING

2012-01-08T17:46:00.000Z

When it comes to summer, I'll examine this plant in detail for it is, it really is, my favourite dandelion. So beautiful is it that, were I to be pressed into choosing a favourite plant - this might win the contest.

If practical, I'd use dandelions all the way along the edge of the border . .

January is a sort of enquiring time. One wonders what will happen when spring or summer comes - autumn even. I've not grown Canterbury Bells before. Here's one weathering its way through the winter, readying itself to flower later in the year. (I hope that's what it's doing!) I've put three together, uncertain whether they will thrive or over-power. And I have three spares in pots.

This little patch is one of the most exciting parts of the garden because nothing has agreed to come up here before. The tatty leaves on the left are of an aspidistra which, if ever I really planted it, can't have lasted long before going into hiding, for the earth has been bare for a long time. It appeared, all of a sudden, a few months ago. It was a 'whatever is that?' moment. The cyclamen is (are) relocated from the back garden and seem happy. The . . . daffodils (I think they are daffodils) . . . are the first bulbs to get anywhere. When I've planted any there before, they've either been eaten as they emerged or gone weird pretty soon - or simply never broken the surface.

So many things to be excited about.

HOW TO SAVE A MARRIAGE

2011-12-24T06:35:00.000Z

By the time you read this, ourfamily may have disintegrated. We may have woken in the night with rage in ourhearts and hatchet-ed each other to death. But . . . so far . . . so good . . .

Thanks to our bench.

I’ve explained (on my other blog- Esther’s Garden Notes) how, when we get cross with each other, this is wherewe sit while we stop being cross.

Over the last year, I’ve had abig uprooting of plants grown too big for our garden, so our quiet corner iscurrently more exposed than it usually is . . . which makes this the right moment to take itspicture, even though the cold December light makes it look a bit bleak. (Youhave to allow for winter!)

I know people who live in bighouses argue. I know people who have huge gardens get divorced. BUT . . . mycampaigning point this Christmas is that just as every dwelling now has indoorsanitation, every home should have a garden, a growing space, a place to calmdown in. It won’t stop all strife - but I bet it would save a few marriages.

Here we can sit and look up through the Cordylines andpretend we are somewhere exotic, abroad.

Do not be alarmed.

The house opposite is not sliding down a hill.

Blame the camera.

We can pretend the Cordyline berries are Christmasdecorations.

And enjoy the flowers which aren’t in the picture - likethis wallflower which thinks it’s a poinsettia.

HappyChristmas Everyone!
p.s. The Cordyline photo was taken on 17^th December 2011.The rest on the 21^st.
For the other post about our bench - click HERE.

THE GARDEN IS UNDER ASSAULT - ONE

2011-12-09T17:05:00.000Z

The weather is windy and warm.

We could do with frost.

I’m trying not to feel murderous, violent, cruel or vindictive but my garden is crawling with unwelcome wild-life.

Apart from an almost fully grown (but dead) rat which has materialised on the path over night, there are speed-powered, bright green, saw-fly-type caterpillary things racing all over the place.

The chocolate mint has been chewed into a skeleton and, just as whatever it is that has been mining the rainbow chard all summer has stopped munching, something else has taken over and, whatever that is, it is not a delicate creature. The holes it's making in the leaves are almost big enough for a cat to stick its head through.

On investigation, I find a sluggish great caterpillar in residence, a languidly curved and unpleasantly puffy half-moon, pale green with yellow chevrons. My hand goes out. Eviction . . . eviction . . . eviction. (Dalek style!) Reluctantly, I withdraw it - empty. One day, I assume, it will turn into a moth. (The caterpillar, that is. Not my hand.)

Would I not be interested to have a moth in the garden? I would. Of course I would. . . . But it’s already very fat and the chard is vanishing fast and . . . well just how large is its extended family?

* * *

That was yesterday. (December 8th 2011)
What now? (December 9th 2011)
And now . . . ? I went to look again - but it had gone.
Another has taken its place. Or . . . maybe it just looks different when it is stretched instead of curled . . . but this is what I saw . . .

* * *

When I know what it is - I'll write a caption for the photo.

A BLACKBIRD FEEDS ON THE ROUNDABOUT TREE

2011-11-28T17:32:00.001Z

A blackbird has moved into our garden.

I think a blackbird and his wife are living in the bay tree. I've seen Mrs peeping out between its 'golden' leaves and Mr standing on a branch of our Roundabout Tree, eating its bright red berries. One every two seconds. Peck, gulp and it's gone. Then another. And another. It's surprising there are any left.

I know nothing about blackbirds. I don't know where they live in the winter or whether it is usual that males and females hang out together at this time of year - but there they are!

Not that this plant is really called a 'Roundabout' tree. It's just that when my husband first brought it home I was horrified. It was ugly and, although I didn't (still don't) know what it's called, it's the kind of plant I associate with ground cover on municipal roundabouts.

There followed a few years of quarrels about the space it was growing into until, in the end, we came to an agreement that I could cut every end of any branch that stretched further than agreed bounds and that the lower branches could be trimmed off so the little white cyclamen it was bullying out of the way could have room to grow and breath.

Result? A sort of weeping standard almost tall as me which, this year, is heartily decorated with bright red berries - to the evident satisfaction of a blackbird. I quite like it too - after all!

I don't know what it is but . . .

Well . . . what is it?

ALPHABET A and A BIT OF TODAY

2011-11-20T13:54:00.000Z

There are an awful lot offailures in my garden.

How can the Jerusalem Artichokesnot have lots of flowers?

Maybe more will come.

I know why the Gobe Artichokeis a mess - slugs or snails and insects plus lots of neglect. (A good recipethat!)

The little Holly Tree has flowers. We have only the one so I doubtwe will ever have berries - but it's good to see these tiny false starts.

And something extra cheerful. Can you see why I bought theMeercat?

CURVES IN PONDS AND CEILINGS

2011-11-18T16:00:00.000Z

If our summer holiday wasanything, it was a lesson in different kinds of rain. If you go to the websitefor the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival at Buxton in Derbyshire(one of our stopping places) you will find yourselves advised to bring a raincoat.And rain it did while we were there.

It was beautiful rain. There wasa lot of it. It floated densely indrifts with the sun shining through and sometimes it stopped long enough for usto put our little stove outside the tent and boil a kettle or to walk from thecar to the supermarket (which is more than it let us do at Rydal!) but for mostof the time . . . we drank coffee and ate toasted teacakes and waited for it tostop!

However, we’d go back. Indeed, weliked it so much, we talked about moving there some time.

This is a small patch of water above the very much larger
Fernilee Reservoir

We were camped on the edge of theGoyt Valley. Where the reservoirs are surrounded by hills.

We walked in the Buxton Gardens.

Pavilion Gardens - Buxton

(Designed by Edward Milner - who trainedat Chatsworth. They were opened in 1871 and have been much extended since then.In 2004 they were fully restored.) We didn’t see them all - after all, the parkcovers sixteen acres (or is it 23?) and it was raining quite heavily nearly allthe time . . . but we did manage a picnic by the pond before we left.

The Auditorium Ceiling of Buxton Opera House

We went to see ‘The Sorcerer’ (byGilbert and Sullivan) at the Opera House.

(Built in 1903 and one of themany theatres designed by Frank Matcham. Indeed, if you look at a list of thetheatres he had a hand in, you’d think he was solely responsible for places ofentertainment in the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the beginningof the twentieth.)

The Goyt Valley

And we spent a short time in thehills.

The Pavilion Conservatory, Buxton

There were plants to see in thesmall conservatory (1871) belonging to the large Pavilion

And we grew very familiar withthis view of a bandstand - seen through the glass of the teashop window.(Apparently, you can get married there!)

All in all, it was a good visit!

And, yes, we’d go there again!

(Rain or no rain.)

SPRING IN NOVEMBER

2011-11-17T10:00:00.000Z

It probably wasn’t the bestmoment to go into the garden and take photos - but there’s something oddlydrawing about a mid-November evening when the sham spring sunlight has given uptrying and the cosy dark of night hasn’t yet made being outside a waste of agood view.

So off I went with my camera.

Having hurt a rib so it’s painfulto lean down to the left or reach up to the right . . . I’ve abandoned mostgarden tasks part way through. There are pots all over the place, bulbsunplanted, leaves un-picked-up . . .

But the nice thing about a gardenis that it chumbles on regardless and, just at present, it’s gearing up forspring.

The Bleeding Hearts plant haspresented a pink shoot.

There’s a little Red-Veined Sorrelsteadying itself to tough out the winter.

The Sedum Cape Blanco is a favouritestopping off place for felines so it never spreads far but, if I pick up thebits and slot them between other stones, they will grow into new plants.

I’ve been neglecting snails. Allthe big ones (the ones I can find!) have been evicted and, until now, theiroffspring have been too little to collect without crushing. Now they have gotto the just-about-pluckable-if-one-is-very-careful stage, I’ll have to begin myrounds again.

Snails like the Clematis Armandii- and they don’t harm it. Here are a couple on a dead leaf. This clematis is anevergreen but the stems break easily . . . and all leaves have to die one day.

But although snails don’t damagethe clematis, they destroy Lupins. While we were away in the summer, theygnawed the first year plants down to almost-nothingness. Some were destroyedbut others should last through the winter and flower next year.

It’s been a digging-in-compost season- and, while digging, I’ve been coming across bulbs. Big ones went straightback where they came from but there were so many little bits and bobs of smallones I’ve saved some for putting in pots and odd places. They already haveshoots and will need to go back into the earth as soon as I’m in practice withleaning downwards in a way that doesn’t hurt. (It’s just a matter of beingconsistent about bending to the left. No! Bother. Right.)

There are tiny cyclamen cormswaiting to be put back too. They won’t flower until late next summer. They likea lot of water but the feathery green thingy is all that’s left of the Saxifrage after it was overwhelmed by rain. I’llmake it a bed of stones.

And finally . . . not in theleast ready for spring but more than ready for picking, a small bunch of grapes.Last year we were overwhelmed with grapes, this year there have been hardlyany. I’m the only one who eats many - their skins are tough and the fruit isn’tover-sweet - so I’ve left these here to look pretty. And they do!

HARLEQUIN LADYBIRDS

2011-11-08T15:36:00.004Z

Our internet has been running slowly recently - which has made posting to this blog so irritating I gave up trying for a bit.

Things seem to be moving better now but, before I post anything for this blog - you might like to know there's a post about Harlequin Ladybirds on Lucy Corrander's 'Loose and Leafy'.

Dorset gardeners beware - all pictures in that post were taken on The Rodwell Trail!

CAMOUFLAGED UNDER THE PLASTIC

2011-10-28T10:54:00.000+01:00

For all that we visited gardens like those at Little Moreton Hall and Rydal, the real garden highlight of our summer holiday was an ordinary vegetable garden in Ross-shire (Scotland).

Well, not 'ordinary' - for it's a specially lovely one; sunny, surrounded by a picket fence, with beautifully constructed raised beds and flowers enough to keep the atmosphere relaxed. At the far end, the shade of mature trees reduces productivity so it's left to 'wild-life' - and a poly-tunnel for delicate plants to live in over winter.

That was where I met my first New Zealand Flat Worm - in the poly-tunnel. What a relief! Ever since warnings went out that they'd arrived in this country and could eat populations of garden worms to destruction, and ever since we were warned that all plants bought from garden centres should have their roots soaked in water to drown any Flat Worms that arrived among them . . . ever since then, I've examined every flattish worm with suspicion - which means just about every worm I've ever come across because all worms elongate suspiciously and flatten a bit when they move along.

I need not have worried.

For a start, I first heard about them when I was living in Scotland and brought worries about them with me when I moved south - but they aren't so much of a problem here. What's more, it turns out New Zealand Flat Worms don't look anything like worms. They look like squashed snails. If ever I see one again - I'll know!

Left for a short while on a stone, the New Zealand Flatworm begins to uncurl, ready to walk away.
(What do you call the movement of a legless creature? 'Slither' won't do.

We found this one under black plastic that was keeping weeds at bay in the poly-tunnel. But we found more than this.

There was a slug.

There were slugs eggs.

There was a Common Toad.

And a Palmate Newt.

Who needs topiary?

(Well . . . those other gardens were lovely too . . . and one gets to a point when one has had enough of garden wild-life . . . for the moment . . . until . . . just think of spiders!)

FLATWORM LINKS

Wikipedia

Gardeners' World

Research Into Flatworms

TENSION IN THE LANDSCAPE - PART THREE

2011-10-26T21:44:00.000+01:00

And now to Wordsworth.

Imagine being in Wordsworth’sbedroom!

Imagine looking out of hisbedroom window!

Imagine looking into the rain . .. and thinking if only the water weren’t tipping down quite so heartily, onecould look around the four acres of gardens he designed.

If you enlarge the photo taken from Wordsworth's bedroom window - you will see the rain! August 11th 2011

(With the exception of a few lateVictorian additions they are as he intended.)

This post could have appearedearlier if only I hadn’t spent so much time trying to fill it out. I’ve beenfloundering around in the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, the vegetable garden in the house where Wordsworth grew up, the relationship between natureand sin, the time he spent in Dorset (yes! Dorset - at the foot of PilsdonPen!) wondering if I’d need to read his poem ‘The Prelude’ twice - does it matter to me (us) whether he was a monotheist or not? . . . I’ve been all round the houses . . .I’ve learnt a lot but . . . well, really, all I did in the first place was runfrom my tent in the field next door, up the stairs of his house - and look out of his bedroom window onto a rain-sodden garden before dashing off to Edinburgh.

But that’s something!

Until I went there, I hadn’trealised he was a garden designer as well as not-my-favourite poet . . . except- the longer I’ve lived with this post, the more his work’s been growing on me.

. . . At the beginning of this series about thegardens of Rydal, I included his poem 'ComposedUpon Westminster Bridge'. I’ll finish with another. Forget ‘Daffodils’. Imaginestanding at this window, looking into the rain and thinking, “Wow! I’m here! Justlook at that view! I must tell . . .” and you turn to share your pleasure withsomeone you love dearly, someone who’s always there . . . but no . . . they are there no longer . . . and you arefilled with guilt that you could ever, ever, even for a moment, have forgottentheir death.

Surprised by joy - impatient asthe wind
I turned to share the transport -Oh! With whom
But thee, long buried in thesilent tomb,
That spot which no vicissitudecan find?
Love, faithful love, recalledthee to my mind -
But how could I forget thee? - Through what power,
Even for the least division of an hour,
Have I been so beguiled as to be blind
To my most grievous loss? - That thought's return
Was the worse pang that sorrow ever bore,
Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn
Knowing my heart's best treasure was no more;
That neither present time nor years unborn
Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.

* * *

In 1805, Wordsworth's brother was killed in a shipwreck off the coast of Dorset. In 1812, two of Wordsworth's children died. This poem was first published in 1815.

* * *

Wordsworth 1770 - 1850

Lived at Rydal Mount 1813 - 1850
Poet Laureate 1843 - 1850
We camped at Rydal August 2011

TENSION IN THE LANDSCAPE - PART TWO

2011-10-13T08:27:00.000+01:00

And now for a contrast.

Here’s theterrace of Rydal Hall itself.

. . . And here’s a view from theterrace where it overlooks the gardens created by Thomas Mawson in 1909. Oureyes are drawn along the path, past the fountain - to the fields and hills ofCumbria which are wonderfully framed by a break in the balustrade. It’s as ifwe are looking into a painting. The view leaps from formal to wild. The narrowlink between garden and hills is a sheep field. It softens the contrast but don’t be deceived by that green pasture. Farming here can be tough. If you are able to enlarge thepicture of the hill in a mist near our tent (in the first post of this series) you’ll see white dots - sheepon rugged ground. In the winter there is snow.

(Incidentally - those balustradesare not made of stone but of pre-cast concrete. An early example of its use inthis way.)

I wish all pergolas had partialroofs. It wish I could have been a little more sheltered from the rain whilesitting there. (I might have stayed longer!) But, none the less, for a short while, I sat on a bench and admired thecroquet lawn where slugs were feasting. (I’d never seen so many slugs on a lawnbefore; wouldn’t you say this is an odd place for slugs to hang out; do theyeat living grass?) And, beside me, there was a hosta in a pot, a small bambooand, beyond them, rosebay-willow herb. An odd combination - but here, always,there’s a wild-beyond.

For, below me - there was the grot which I described in the first of these posts.

And here, as a reminder, is the bit cut out from the picture with the colour changed. See? There is the 'summer house' (bottom left) and there is the bench in the Rydal Hall garden (top right) almost back to back; divided merely by history, style, and a steep bank.

That's why I've called this series 'Tension in the Landscape'. Wonderful contrasts side by side.

* * *

For information about sheep breeds in Cumbria - click HERE.

For a picture of sheep farming in winter - click HERE.
For more information about the restoration of Rydal Hall Gardens (including a picture of the Pergola under construction!) click HERE.

Except on the Yellow Book Day, entrance to the gardens is free - with donations welcome.

TENSION IN THE LANDSCAPE - PART ONE

2011-10-11T14:41:00.000+01:00

This is the first part of a post about the Formal Gardens of Rydal Hall in Cumbria, The Rydal Grot (really!) and Rydal Mount where Wordsworth lived from 1813 to 1850, in other words, for a large part of his adult life.

They are within a few minutes walk of each other, simply on opposite sides of a narrow lane so they belong properly together - but being three, they take too long to talk about in one post.

So I'll publish this in bites short enough to read with ease. Later, I'll stick them back together so they can also be read as the one article they really are.

Here's Part One . . . .

* * *

If you had been rained on forforty hours, with puddles flowing into your shoes, with the nearest loo a walk awaythrough dripping woods of oak and beech . . . you might have thought you understoodwhy Wordsworth decided the view from Westminster Bridge was a sight which couldn’t be bettered anywhere on earth. The puzzle is, why, when he could have livedanywhere, he chose Rydal Mount, a comfortably large house bang next to wherewe’d pitched our tent (except we weren’t there at the time because he moved in in1813). Love of one’s homeland must be a strong instinct. Rydal is thirty milesfrom his birthplace in Cockermouth so he knew what he was in for. And, there, despitethe puddles, he created a garden in the rain. (Though I’m assured the cloudsclear sometimes.)

But, before I begin . . . take alook at this picture. It’s cropped from a bigger one, which I will come back tolater. The colour’s altered to draw attention to the relationship between alittle stone hut in the bottom left hand corner - and the bench in the topright.

11th August 2011

* * *

This is a rough and variedlandscape, with dry stone walls and high hills . . . and lots of rain - which,I suppose, is why there are lots of lakes.

11th August 2011

Here’s where we camped.

11th August 2011

And this is what we could see from the lane outside the field.

11th August 2011

Standing outside the tent and looking in the opposite direction from the tree - there’s this. An organic garden with greenhouse, staffed by volunteers in the grounds of Rydal Hall - a small stately home that is now a retreat and meeting centre for the Anglican Diocese of Carlisle.

We were there for only twonights, but, during that time, the roar of the river nearby grew and grew in adisconcerting way (not quite frightening but heading in that direction). Downit went, parallel to the path which led to the loos, over a waterfall, under abridge, then down to this ‘grot’. Horrid word, but there we are; sometimes it’ssoftened to ‘grotto’ but that makes me think of fairies and Father Christmas;some call the little hut ‘a summerhouse’ - but that’s misleading too so I’llstick with ‘grot’.

11th August 2011

Well . . . whatever it’s called - it was built in 1694; anearly (possibly the earliest?) example of somewhere created with the solepurpose of providing a platform where nature may be admired. Visitors can stillgo inside - and you can see what it’s like by clicking here.

More to come!

Meanwhile . . .

here's the text of 'Composed Upon Westminster Bridge' which Wordsworth wrote in September 1802. (Wordsworth didn't believe in imaginative titles - what he says he is about to write about is what he writes about. If you take a look at a list of his poems - you'll see what I mean. )

Earth has not any thing to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

Having seen the beck at Rydal (that's what the narrow, rushing rivers of Cumbria are called) - I can understand why the slow, lugubrious silent, almost ripple-less Thames impressed. Having gone to school near the Thames in London and having lived by it in Oxfordshire - where I found it boring . . . and having seen London with new eyes since its soot was stripped away - maybe I understand a little bit more why someone could love London but choose Rydal - rain and all!

IN PRAISE OF NEGLECTED TOMATOES

2011-09-26T17:01:00.001+01:00

The trouble with going away is that things in the garden can go adrift.

The trouble with coming back is that it may take time to lasso that which is adrift, stake it, tend it and water it.

It is then, sometimes, that one realises the value, the strength, and the downright tastiness of the plants and fruits which have survived.

Here are two kinds of tomato plants in my garden which were all but abandoned yet struggled on and fruited. I have grown neither before and they have toughed it out so well - and (what is more important) the flavours are so good - it's worth naming them.

First are Incas F1 Hybrid. These grow as little bushes. The tomatoes are plum shaped, moist and tender, with very little free floating juice. At least this is how these ones are. Indeed they are almost solid flesh - and delicious. They are about two inches long and are ripening to a chilli-pepper red.

Second are Dolce Vita (Lycopersicon exculentum). They are supposed to be greenhouse tomatoes and the trusses are supposed to be long. I know I shouldn't admit to having left this plant aside, outside, under a tree, with stem bent and broken at the base of the plant, then failed to water it so it lay abandoned across the gravel - but that is what happened. It has thirteen small trusses like this and the tomatoes (cherry) have developed such a wonderfully strong flavour, they are a burst of surprise every time I try one.

I'd recommend both. If they have done this well without attention . . . just think how well YOU could do if you grew them!

And, as a celebratory finale . . .

A strawberry plant that has decided to flower, for all that it's late September!

You can find out more about why the tomatoes were neglected on my other blog, Esther's Boring Garden Blog - Saved by a Strawberry Flower.

WE SET OFF ON OUR TREK - AND THE FIRST GARDEN ON OUR TOUR . . . LITTLE MORETON HALL

2011-09-16T19:24:00.001+01:00

At the risk of sounding like thebeginning of a children’s TV show - here’s Ben - Ben of the National Trust - andwith Ben coming to sign us up, our three week camping trek around England andScotland began. Lucy Corrander met him in the winter when he was braving ice and wind onthe sea-front, offering tea to anyone interested in joining. Here he is braving the chaos of our house. Sometimes,I make a list of what’s on our kitchen table for the entertainment of peoplereading my other blog. Now you can see why the inventories are long!

Little Moreton Hall, near Congleton in Cheshire.

And this is why we wanted to jointhe National Trust - free entry to places like Corfe Castle (a bus ride from home) and to others like Little Moreton Hall (pictured above) which were on our holiday itinerary.

Are you gasping with amazement?

I’d been there before and was alittle nervous taking my family along for it had made a deep impression on me. Whatif they found it an anti-climax? “Oh, mum! Why did you think we’d like this?’kind of thing. But they didn’t. Indeed it was hard to wrench ourselves awayfrom the higgledy-piggledy arrangement of rooms, the sloping floors and thelong gallery at the top (the weight of which contributes substantially to theway the building sags).

The house dates from the 1450s. (A new wing was added between 1570 and 1580). Although the wealth of the royalistMoreton family was dented during the civil war (1642 - 1651) and Parliamentary troops werebilleted there for a while, Moreton descendants continued to live at The Hall untilthe beginning of the eighteenth century, when lack of money meant they had torent it out. Gradually, it fell into such disrepair, it became uninhabitable .. . but was restored in the nineteenth century and handed into the care of theNational Trust in 1938.

When I say ‘restored’ I’m notsure it would have looked precisely as it does now when it was built. Time hascreated rickety angles to an almost comic extreme. But there’s another thingtoo . . . I grew up in Essex where thereare lots of half-timbered buildings, and remember hearing that the originalarchitects hadn’t intended that the wood be exposed like this. The Wikipedia entry about Little Moreton Hall says that the beams in this particular housewould have been visible right from the beginning and the weather would have been allowed to soften the colour of the wood (it wouldn't have been painted bright black!) - and the plaster would have been ochre, not white.

The day we were there, it wasraining heavily. Indeed, it rained almost non-stop for the whole of ourholiday, which limited both what we did and what we photographed - but here’s aquick glimpse of the knot garden. You may see foot prints up the middle path.Just before I took the picture, a little boy had run from one end to the other,leaving these scuffs behind him. A few moments later, a man emerged fromsomewhere with a rake and smoothed it all flat again.

If it hadn’t been raining . . .I’d have taken a picture of the moat . . . the apple trees and quinces . .. and maybe the plants for sale . . .

* * *

The next garden to be visited will be Rydal Hall in the Lake District.

* * *

To find out more about Ben and his work for the National Trust along the Jurassic Coast - Click for 'Jurassic Coastin'.

A CROP OF POSTS, A BUSH-CRICKET AND A CITY COUNCIL

2011-09-08T10:17:00.000+01:00

Sometimes one feels very honoured by a garden visitor. Some insects are welcomed almost solely on the grounds that they are not aphids. Some because they might even eat a few! Some are simply interesting.

The Speckled Bush-Cricket - Leptophyes punctatissima
It may take an aphid snack but, mostly, it's vegetarian.
September 4th 2011

The Speckled Bush Cricket is not rare - it's just that we don't see them often in our garden so, when we do, we get quite excited because it looks dramatic. When we first came across one, we thought it might even be DANGEROUS! (Sometimes we forget where we are!) But the curvey spike at the back of this one is not a sting but an ovipositor. So . . . this is a female, for an ovipositor is the tube through which eggs are deposited in stems or under bark.

Her body is about an inch long, her antennae and legs are VERY long. (There's scientific precision for you!)

* * *

While I was wandering around the internet looking for information, I came across a link for the Speckled Bush Cricket on Plymouth City Council's website and went to investigate.

Following through from environment to nature conservation to wildlife species. . . one gets to a cricket, grass-hopper and ground-hopper page with a list at the side so you an find out about each kind - like the Speckled Bush Cricket. I am impressed! There's even a page which gives links for gardeners interested in wild-life conservation and suggests taking up an allotment - with a link so you can find all about them and apply for one if you wish.

Pretty good, eh?

* * *

And over on my other blog, there's a little crop of posts.

Would you Like a Book? - The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
Wednesday Word When it Isn't a Wednesday - Would roses be better off if they were called 'Nasturtiums'?
What Would Be Done if A Meteor Were Heading for Earth? - People search my blogs for surprising subjects!
Sleep, Creep, Leap - A Review of the book by fellow blogger, Benjamin Vogt.

WHAT IS THIS PLANT?

2011-08-29T08:28:00.007+01:00

It was raining, as it was through most of our holiday, and we plodded up a hill to a closed garden centre. Not that we knew it was closed until we got there. The rain eased off so we walked back by a river, dripped on by trees but enjoying the rush of water.

Later in the day, Ming went back and bought this little plant. No label. No name.

We took it to an elderly relative when we went to his house for lunch.

"It's lovely," he said. "What is it?"

Er . . um . . .

"How do I look after it?"

Er . . um . . .

"Don't worry," I said, confident in the combined knowledge of garden bloggers, "I'll find out within a few days of getting home."

"But how . . where . . . ?

"Just don't over-water it!"

Help! What have we bought? What have we given? What should be done with it?

Anyone know?

(Pretty, isn't it?!)

(P.S. It's got to live beside the coast of North West Scotland. Will it manage to survive outside or should it be given a windowsill?)

_ _ _

P.P.S.

There's a book to be drawn out of a hat on my other blog - 'The Language of Flowers' by Vanessa Diffenbaugh.

BOUNCING ON THE BLOGS

2011-07-23T13:42:00.002+01:00

You can now bounce around my other blog by clicking the cup and saucer. If you then click another cup and saucer you'll be given a random post to read.

THE HIT AND MISS POST GADGET; CLICK ON THE CUP - THEN CLICK ON A CUP!

TWO LITTLE SPIDERS on a MORNING GLORY IN THE MORNING

2011-07-22T10:23:00.015+01:00

Here are two little spiders on the Morning Glory in the morning.

Cucumber Green Spider
(Araniella cucurbitina)

One is hanging upside down on the web it has made on the upper surface of a leaf. It is small and bright (about 4mm long).

It's probably a Cucumber Green Spider

(Araniella cucurbitina).

(Its Wikipedia entry says there's another spider that looks the same and only microscopic examination can tell them apart.)

Perhaps a young

Common Garden Spider
(Araneus diadematus)

The other is hanging in a web on the same plant. It is a little smaller (about 3mm long). Brown. I don't yet know what it is - when I do,
Happy Mouffetard suggests young
Common Garden Spider
Araneus diadematus
(Garden Cross)?)
What do you think?

Both photos were taken today so I should

have typed them in a hand-writing font like this.

POSSIBLY THE BEST HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY IN THE WORLD

2011-07-18T11:39:00.025+01:00

Imagine, just imagine, that you belong to a horticultural society that began in 1925 when it was given (given!) a large plot of land; and that in the 1950s, it was able to field a team expert enough to win a gardening quiz on the radio and that the BBC was generous enough to give a prize of enough money to erect a hall on that same site - and not a small hall either! Just imagine that after nearly ninety years it's still going strong .. . . then meet the Wyke Regis Horticultural Society.

Imagine you are its guiding spirit.

Well, I expect you'll want to make sure the members have a supply of potting compost that rivals many garden centres in its variety.

And with quantity and variety on this scale you'll need not only lots of space to store and display it, but a yard big enough for lorries to turn in and a shed for the fork lift you'll use when you unload the palettes . . . where the trolleys can go that take the sacks to their places . . . and carts in which members can wheel their purchases round to their cars.

You'll need staging for the plants members bring to sell on the site.

Bamboos take a lot of space - and members will need information so they know what they are buying.

The Wyke Regis Horticultural Society
opens its Trading Post
three part-days in the build up to summer growing season
Two part-days for the rest of the year.

Somewhere to park cars would be helpful - there are heavy goods on sale - but you don't want them getting in the way of lorries.

What else will your members need?

Pots of course!

And space for volunteers to weigh dry goods into smaller packs for sale.

Many members have beautiful gardens (some of which are opened to the pubic as part of the Yellow Book Scheme) and some have large gardens . . . but not everyone wants huge sacks of lawn sand. Small packs are helpful - especially when the economies of bulk buying keep prices down on the small scale.

Sometimes some of us bloggers
have to remember
we aren't all organic gardeners!

Materials for fruit cages, weedkiller and twine.

It doesn't happen by magic, all this. It needs people with expertise, time and imagination.

Here's Jeff, Chair of the Horticultural Society Committee.
In a mini-office behind him, Mike is keeping track of orders placed with suppliers.
The Society Store keeps around 345 lines in stock - not counting the different kinds of seeds!
nor seasonal things like bulbs, seed potatoes, onion setts . . .There's a turnover of around 30,000 a year!

It doesn't happen by magic, all this. It needs people with expertise, time and imagination.

Of the 800 members, a dozen volunteers work in the Trading Post when it's open . . . (they aren't all there at once and more are needed!)

Here's Mollie at the till.
See the red scales . . .
and the green Membership cards?

When you've delivered your plants for sale, renewed your membership and paid for your pots and sand and seeds and string . . .

Maybe you'd like to buy a mug of tea

to drink while you read gardening books from the shelves of the society library?

Maybe time to think about winter evening talks with subjects like Bee Keeping . . . Colour in the Garden . . . Birds That Visit Gardens . . .

or the society's visits to places like Rosemoor (an RHS garden in Devon (the next county along, going west) or the Lost (now found!) Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall.

. . . or hope the Prince of Wales' Garden at Highgrove won't be booked up if the society tries to organise a visit there next summer

. . . or the Summer Show (July 16th 2011) . . . There will be around 30 entries this year. It's a special event but used to be much bigger. When I first came across this society, it needed to book a school to display all the entries and accommodate all the people who came to see them. There were jams and photos and all sorts of things - as well as flowers and plants (and cups of tea!). Times change. Approaches to gardening change. There is less of an interest in the perfection of petals, more of an interest in food and how it is grown - and that in itself brings challenges. There are three allotment sites nearby. Many of the 250 allotmenteers are retired and have a lot of time to spend caring for their plots. On some, there is not a weed, hardly a grain of earth, out of place. But that's not the only way to do it. And one senses none of the pernicketyness which makes people feel uncomfortable in the allotments of some areas - there's great variety of style between the plots, they are used for lots of different crops and aren't all 'perfect' - thank heavens! What about veganic gardening? (No-dig.) Are docks and dandelions the right kind of food to grow on an allotment? This is not a silly question. There's a growing interest in neglected but edible plants. Neighbours have to negotiate different approaches. The committee sometimes has to intervene.

And for the future? Will Gardener's Question Time be broadcast from The Wyke Horticultural Society when it celebrates its ninetieth birthday in 2015? How best can the society expand in its willingness to make the expertise of its members available to the wider neighbourhood? (It is already helping two local schools - All Saints and Westfield with their gardening projects.)

What do you reckon? Is this the best Horticultural Society in the World?

Whether it is, or it isn't . . .

One of the things which makes it all possible, something few societies have to their name . . .

is a roof!

Wyke Regis Horticultural Society

Founded 1925

800 Members

250 Allotmenteers

Summer Visits

Summer Show

Winter Talks

Trading Post with turnover of £30,000 a year

Meeting New Challenges

Always in need of new Committee Members

and

More Volunteers!

And Now for a Little Tour Of the Photos and Posts On This Blog?

Dorset readers might like to know Lucy Corrander has a post about Corfe Castle - Click HERE.

SNAILS DO NOT BURROW

2011-07-13T13:10:00.001+01:00

Snails do not burrow. They don't they don't!

They roost near a food source.

Out of the way of drowning.

In the winter, they stick themselves to walls behind evergreens, or inside flower pots, or under sheds, or inside dents in trees. They do not live in burrows. Sometimes, they stack themselves up to hibernate and the piles look like blocks of flats in Roman times.

In the summer, they may find a lovage plant with a hollow stem, like this one

and crawl down into its shade.

None of these places are burrows.

So . . . if you see a snail beginning to burrow

whether in the ground, in the gravel, or a pot . . .

abandon everything you are doing! Stop!

Stop to stop it!

Throw your washing basket aside. Abandon your spade. Stop the snail. Wrench it out. (You may have to pull.) For what it is doing is laying its eggs.

That's why snails don't burrow. You stop them!

Then, as you stand up from digging them out you may notice a lizard on the table. Dead, admittedly. Tail gone too.

But beautiful none the less.

THE FIRST FIVE AGES OF BAY

2011-07-11T18:56:00.001+01:00

Not knowing what the official name is for the fruits of a bay tree, I call them baycorns.

They sit around for ages before sending up a shoot. The time it takes can be described precisely as 'until you give up hope and forget'.

I have had five germinate so far this year. They didn't come up all at once and I'm hoping more will emerge. (Which means they probably haven't had long enough.)

The pictures here are not sequential. They are not of the same plant as it has risen from the earth. They are of the five plants as they were on July 7th and, between them, they show what happens.

And still growing!

THE LAST STRAWBERRY

2011-07-06T19:10:00.001+01:00

Not all good things have to come to an end. Not in the short term anyway.

Strawberries though - they do.

Here is the last from my plants.

There are only two in our garden (in ordinary terracotta pots) but they've provided us with a steady stream of not-very-interesting-to-eat strawberries since the 7th of June. One month. There haven't been enough to feast on - just a few one day and a few more a few days later - but they have looked good and I have been proud to grow them.

If they send out runners, I'll see if we can fit in two more pots next year . . . when, of course, it will rain non-stop so they won't ripen but get slug-eaten and rot.

Good things don't all come to an end. My smugness will stay. The only hiccup might be if you ask what happened to the peas - at which point I'll look around vacantly and pretend I didn't hear.

THE PRODIGALITY AND FINESSE OF NATURE

2011-07-04T16:05:00.002+01:00

Sharpen a hard-leaded pencil to the finest point you can take it to.

Make a dot on a piece of white paper.

One.

Imagine it shrinking in on itself so it's about half its original size.

The size of a Foxglove seed.

Imagine it being dark brown. (Unless it's dark brown already. If it is, you can skip that bit of imagining.)

The seeds aren't as big as they seem in this picture.
This pod is almost two centimeters long.

Foxglove seeds come in pods . . . and there seem to be thousands in each one. There must be millions in my garden. (I'm not planning to count!)

Foxgloves are tall plants. Some in my garden are taller than me (though they weren't supposed to be a tall variety). Their columns of flowers (beyond the bare stalk) are two or three feet; about twenty flowers a foot - so forty to sixty on each stem. Their leaves are big and course.

So why these tiny, tiny seeds - little more than dust?

Why so many?

Who would want that many foxgloves?

And who eats the spares?

MEET MY MINT

2011-07-02T16:39:00.004+01:00

I've heard of Chocolate Mint but, never before today, have I come across it.

When I did, I bought it.

One of the specialities of this blog is to notice small worlds in small spaces. This plant not only has interesting browny tinges to its deep green leaves and truly does smell of chocolates with peppermint flavouring . . . it had creatures aboard to add extra interest.

It was immediately clear that someone had been tucking in.

I suspect Glasshouse Hoppers
have been grazing here too
- you can see the white blotches.

Detective mode - frass on a leaf (insect poo) something must be further up the plant.

White mesh.

And, in it

I'm thinking this is a Mint Moth Caterpiller
Pyrausta aurata

Leaf miners aboard.

The leaf isn't quite as lurid as
it seems in the picture
but I heightened the colour
to highlight the interesting damage.

Not too many leaves affected. Three caterpillars re-located. Mined leaves removed. A leaf which was scrumbled and slightly smooth detached.

This last - I thought it had been affected by greenfly - though I could see none. When I was disposing of it, I saw a little gold ball in the centre of a dip. Not sure if it was a round spider, an egg or a scale insect but it was too late by then to take a picture.

I've begun watering the ground where the Chocolate Mint will go. The earth is hard and dry and will not be ready till morning - when our new plant will be settled in as new member of this garden blog!

P.S. I'm feeling uncomfortable. Many of us like the idea of having butterfly friendly gardens (and is a moth not a sort of butterfly?) but as soon as we find caterpillars (which are also a kind of butterfly, are they not?) we get upset and get rid of them. This new mint plant is small and would not have survived much more munching. If the caterpillars on it were Pyrausta aurata, I now learn they could have spread to lemon balm. There's more of that in my garden. Within reason they would have been welcome to some leaves. But would their 'reason' have coincided with mine?

LONICERA GRAHAM THOMAS

2011-06-30T20:10:00.002+01:00

There are two honeysuckles in my garden. One begins to grow its flower buds very much earlier than the other and greenfly move in almost immediately. I don't know what it's called but its flowers are deepish and used to be prolific. Nowadays, they are stickified right from the beginning and decimated before they have opened their eyes. Each year I try to do something about it. Each year, I fail.

The other is Lonicera Graham Thomas - named after . . . well, read what the Guardian said of him when he died in 2003.

Greenfly don't bother this one at all. Odd.

It flowers a little. Then stops. Then starts again. It's having its second go at present but it is the nature of this honeysuckle to have all sorts of stages of flower on the go at once so . . . here is a sequence of photographs showing it from bud to unripe berry - all taken this evening.

There are ten photos but don't worry, you won't need to linger. You can whiz down the page and follow the change.

Greenfly might have no interest but leaf miners tuck in.
No big deal!

FOR THE LOVE OF SEEDS

2011-06-27T18:22:00.001+01:00

I like seeds.

I like them very much.

I like to see how they form.

I like to see where their seedlings turn up.

For three years running, I scattered aquilegia (columbine) seeds around the garden and anxiously waited to welcome them the following year. Nothing.

Then.

Suddenly.

Something.

Since then we've had flowers every year and, when they've faded and shriveled and produced seeds instead of colours - I've happily shaken them all over the place.

I don't know what happens to most. If they all turned into new plants we'd not be able to see our feet for flowers. However, enough grow to make us happy; few enough not to overwhelm us.

This scattering is very satisfying. The seeds rattle from their pods. I can hear them. When the noise stops, I know the pod is empty - and stop.

* * *

Here's an apparent change of subject.

When I look at the statistics for my blogs, it's clear there are millions (well, perhaps not millions!) (well, definitely not millions!) more visitors than I'd ever guess by the number of comments and, amongst these invisible people, I think there must be many who have a kind of stand-on-the-sidelines attitude to gardening . . . they hover around it . . . or like the idea but not the effort . . . or are uncertain where to start. Others will not be in the least bit interested or . . . maybe you have landed here by chance but, now you think about it, think you might like to dip a toe in.

Hello!

* * *

This isn't a change of subject either.

These seeds are small and light.

I am usually very slow and inefficient about getting round to doing anything - however important it is. So when it comes to the post . . . I have Christmas presents from the year before last which haven't been wrapped yet - and even more from last year. (They'll go in the end. I know who they are for!) But these seeds are so light, I can pop them in an envelope and not need to have them weighed. (Which is usually the stumbling block.)

The colour
and the number of petals
is hit and miss.
That's part of the fun!

So . . . if you would like some of these aqulilegia seeds, send me your address and I will send you some.

If you are a gardening sort, look after them properly.

If you are a non-gardening sort but would like to do a little token work - rough up the ground a bit (you don't need to go over-board) chuck 'em around and water the earth when it gets very dry.

If you are a completely non-gardening sort but like the idea that flowers MIGHT come up - throw them on some earth and see what happens. What is there to lose?

* * *

Different countries have different rules about importing seeds. If you live outside the British Isles, do check first it will be legal to receive them.

estherinthegarden@googlemail.com

Looking Up the Skirts of Flowers is another post about seeds.

CHANGE AND DECAY IN ALL AROUND I SEE

2011-06-26T12:15:00.004+01:00

Three or four weeks ago, the garden was perfection.

Not that it ever is (perfection) - but it was as good as my garden gets.

The plants were healthy. They were growing but not overwhelming. They were flowering, not running to seed. There were so many bees, I got fed up with the noise they were making. On and on it went. Drone, drone, drone. Sun, sun, sun. Just at the right moment, the steamer chair arrived. I sat down, stretched my legs, sipped my tea - and was happy.

A few weeks. A few days of rain. A few days being busy. Over growth. End of flowers. Goodbye bees. Hello snails. End of idyll.

What am I thinking? After a few days of dejection, a bit of thinning out out and wallowing in the sense that all of nature had turned against me personally - I put in some new eyes and looked again.

That's what nature does, isn't it? It grows, flowers, changes and decays. If it didn't, there would be no next year.

So . . . here are some pictures of things which are coming to an end; either because it is what they do - or because creatures, drought and sudden rain have had their impact. Nature Esther! It's nature! You see beauty in white hair and wrinkled skin, felled logs and fossils - why not in dying flowers and damaged leaves? What you see and how you see it often depends on which eyes you put in when you wake up. These photos are best viewed through 'I love age' eyes.

The Spanish Broom has gone flop.
It has gone so flop it may have to be felled.
Wind and rain have bruised and battered -
I mean transformed - the flowers.
Their tones are deeper.

There will come a time when
I pay proper attention to the Aspidistra.
It chugs away in dry shade.
It exists. Come rain, snails notice.
(But not otherwise.)
Winds shred it.

It flowered once.
I didn't see
until after the stumpy little things which pass for flowers
had dried out and gone brown.
(They sit on the ground.)
Maybe it has flowered often.
?

I think this damage to apple tree leaves
is caused by drought.
Someone other than me will know better.
What do you think?

The Cordylines shed their lower leaves
every year.
All I have to do is to give a little tug and the dead ones fall away.
I haven't got round to climbing on a chair yet.
However, I think there are more dead leaves
than usual.
Perhaps lack of water has had an impact
here too. They grow through poor soil and gravel.
I'm not sure how I can do better by them.
There isn't any way to dig in compost.
Their roots come right to the surface.
Maybe I should dissolve it it in water
and soak the ground.
Maybe I should merely hope for the best!
Who knows?

The foxgloves have been magnificent
but they are running out of steam.
Their leaves are beginning to go tough(er)
and yellow begins to show.

Foxglove seedpods remind me of the point
of seasons and release my admiration
for dying flowers.

I've even got used to the mottling
left by Glasshouse Leafhoppers
(Hauptidia Maroccana)
which have been grazing on the upper surfaces.
(They have a post to themselves
HERE.)

Change? Decay? Yay!

There are tiny green tomatoes already and dwarf nasturtiums are popping up at the feet of bigger plants in pots. It's not over till . . . but it never ends!

Are you up to date with posts on the Boring Blog?

"WHY ARE YOU TALKING TO YOUR CAT?" asked the boy from over the road.

and

Dubious Advice

A COLLECTION OF EXPERIMENTS

2011-06-22T11:22:00.002+01:00

This post makes most sense if you read 'Starting from Scratch' first, for it illustrates the way my garden is full of waste of time experiments which fascinate me but advance nothing.

June 21st 2011

Here is a wallflower. Last autumn, I tapped a seed pod on the way back from shopping (a group of plants had escaped under a hedge and flowered.) When I got home, I posted one seed into a hole in a brick I had found earlier on a beach. (Blue Peter has nothing on this!) I watered it and here's the result. I should have taken a photograph when it was new. None the less - beautiful isn't it?

I've moved the Bleeding Hearts plant round to the other side of the bay tree so its seeds drop into potting compost in a tray on the middle shelf of a metal stand behind the wallflower (you can see it on the right hand side of the photo . . .)

and the Hellebore is dropping its seeds into a tray on the top. (I'd wanted a Hellebore for ages then, when at last I have one, I don't like it. Huh. None the less, it will be interesting to see when / if its seeds grow - and which do best, the ones on the open surface or the ones I've gently covered.)

The white bit on the seed is where it was joined to the inside of its pod. At first, I thought the little red threads were fine roots but they turned out to be cat's hairs. (I think that's what they must be - it's a bit difficult to be sure because they are very small).

The sticks in the hellebore tray show where I have added baycorns.

Small Golden Bay Tree
about 3 inches tall
June 21st 2011
From seed.

This is the first bay to sprout and grow (in a pot on a windowsill). The basket behind has rhubarb in it - almost decimated by slugs so it's been re-positioned in a sunnier place.

There are two more but they are still like this

Bay grows a long root before a shoot appears and tends to push the baycorn to the surface as it does so - so I know two more are on their way. This shoot above came up in a shallow tray and I've re-potted it. That's why the baycorn itself is now back under the surface.

(Bayfruit looks like a miniature aubergine with a coffee bean inside but, unlike coffee beans, it needs the two halves to stay together if they are to grow - in the way ordinary beans do. I expect there's an official name for 'baycorns' but my approach is, if you don't have a word for something, make it up. Where do words come from?)

Hopefully this is all interesting but to end on a tiny red shoot in a sea of muddy potting compost isn't exactly leaving on a summer high so here's one of the tiny red apples which have deigned to grow on our tree. There was little blossom this year - and not enough rain to sink deep - but small can be beautiful even if it's not big enough to eat!

IT'S FANTASTIC

2011-06-15T15:31:00.001+01:00

When the first of the runner beans grips.

When one is certain the Dwarf French Beans will grow.

When the Calendula smile and we are not alone in liking them - see Hillwards!

AND THE ANSWER IS . . .

2011-06-14T16:50:00.007+01:00

HAUPTIDIA MAROCCANA

(The Glasshouse Leafhopper)

I took this photo this morning
June 14th 2011
The Leafhopper is sitting on one of the few unmarked leaves.
It must have been wondering where to start!

This is the culprit - or one of the culprits . . . or a version of one of the culprits . . . one of the creatures who have been nibbling the surface off my tomato leaves and leaving them mottled with white patches.

Thanks to Mag who made the initial suggestion

To Amanda

Victoria

Michelle Wheeler

Steve Woodward of Garden Friends

Lucy Corrander

who took part in the discussion and

Alan Stewart of the Auchenorrhyncha Recording Scheme of Britain and Ireland who confirmed the ID.

Along the way, I was pointed to some good sites.

British Bugs - An Online Identification Guide to UK Hemitera

Horticultural Development Company of DEFRA - this is the Leafhopper Page

The Glasshouse Leafhopper Page on the RHS Site

And . . . after all that . . . what shall I do?

First, I shall blame the Foxgloves (Digitalis). I've not grown them before and Glasshouse Leafhoppers like them so that maybe that's why they've moved in too.

Second, I'll blame the oddness of the season. No March winds. No April showers. Almost non-stop warmth and sunshine for ages now. My garden has turned into a greenhouse. You might find Hauptidia maroccana adults throughout the year but mostly between August and March. This is June but, once I knew what I was looking for . . . I walked out . . . and there they are, wherever I look!

And now?

Most of the vegetable plants in my garden are heading for a community allotment. Glasshouse Leafhoppers can weaken the plants by grazing from the surface of its leaves but (as far as I know) they don't touch the fruit. So far, the plants all look healthy and this is not a commercial enterprise. As long as nothing deteriorates between now and next Tuesday (when they will move off to their new home) and as long as I let the organisers know about them - I think all will be well.

Thanks everyone.

CAN ANYONE HELP WITH TOMATOES?

2011-06-13T16:00:00.003+01:00

Although one tomato plant is racing for glory (this is about two inches long on an Incas F1 Hybrid)

June 13th 2011
Incas F1 Hybrid

The leaves of many have pale blotches on their upper surfaces. (Not underneath.)

June 13th 2011

Tomato Il Pantano Romanesco

The plants look perfectly happy otherwise. Their stems are strong, nothing wilts.

If they were staying here, I would not be concerned - but they are not. I don't want to send anything unpleasant with them to their new homes.

I've wondered about lime from tap water under the sun but that doesn't quite ring true. I've wondered if they have stayed too long in pots they have almost grown out of - but that doesn't either.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

RAIN DOES FOR THE BROOM

2011-06-12T16:02:00.002+01:00

I suspect the Spanish Broom is done for.

Earlier this year, a few branches were damaged when the shed roof was mended. It left me apprehensive but a few days ago, brazen in the sunshine, what was left looked fantastic.

June 8th 2011.
A couple of its branches.
From this angle, it didn't look
as good as it did from others -
part of the problem!
And you can see one of the branches
was already in trouble.
(On the left is the edge of the
Golden Bay Tree.
I'm concerned about this too.
There are a lot of dead leaves.
I'm assuming drought is to blame.)

I'm not sure how old it is - eight years? Something like that. It came home in the boot of a friend's car. I'd intended to buy a very pale version of what I think of as English Broom (Cytisus) (I was considering Cytisus scoparius Cornish Cream) - but there was none; so I bought Spartium junceum instead - a completely different scale of plant, completely different shade of yellow. I'd set out for a bush which would be regularly pruned - and came back with what I knew would turn into a straggly tree. No regrets.

It grew rapidly but dramatically. Brilliant yellow displays each year. But now - wind and rain have arrived. Both are welcome but they've pushed the broom into its annual droop. Every year I've lopped bits off as they splayed and now the remaining branches, boughed with the weight of water, have dropped to four angles of a square. From experience, I know they will never stand up properly and, since there are paths on two sides, they will be in the way. A two branched stick won't provide the splash and drama we are used to. Poor (not very) old thing.

It may be the last year of broom.

A SMALL BUT SATISFYING FIRST HARVEST

2011-06-08T18:51:00.002+01:00

As you know, my food-growing is token. We gave up our allotment but I can't let go of that connection between soil and stomach.

Yesterday we picked our first strawberries. Here they are.

We bought some specially thick cream and ate them (almost ceremonially) with sugar.

I was disappointed that they didn't have more flavour. The rest of the family liked them better than I did because they were refreshing.

Hurray!

YESTERDAY'S STRAWBERRIES

2011-06-05T14:18:00.001+01:00

When there isn't time to write properly, I often want to make a record just the same.

So here are a couple of photos from yesterday

. . . Strawberries ripening

These are from runners and I've lost track of what the original plants were called when we bought them.

and a couple of trays of small Pantano Romansco tomatoes.

In with the tomatoes, in this picture are
Rosemary
Creeping Thyme
Chives
Strawberries
Red Veined Sorrel
A small Box (Bucus) from a cutting a couple of years ago. (Slow growing hardly describes it!)
Aquilegea
Sycamore
The edge of the rhubarb basket (moved to here because slugs were eating it where it was)
and a plant whose name I don't know.

The tomatoes are small now but the bushes they grow into will be huge - as will be their fruits.

I'm convinced plants grow quicker when watered by rain rather than with a can. Maybe it's something to do with the light. The weather has turned drizzly and a pepper on the inside of my windowsill is zooming up in front of my eyes. The tomatoes will follow.

NEW POST - DELPHINIUMS AND SNAILS

2011-06-01T09:28:00.000+01:00

There's a new post on Esther's Boring Garden Blog

Delphiniums and Snails.

CELEBRATION BEANS

2011-05-20T19:43:00.000+01:00

RUNNER BEANS - CELEBRATION

Now the Wisley Magic Runner Beans are coming up, these Celebration Runners are going into pots. Perhaps it should have been in the opposite order but they are a second thought - for the sake of their pink flowers. (We hope.)

I am keeping one of each variety of tomatoes I am growing. An Inca F1 Hybrid and a Dolce Vita went into big pots today. The Dolce Vita will probably need to go into an even bigger one soon - but I'll have to buy it first!

I do have photos of each - and of all sorts of other plants which looked specially nice in the afternoon sunshine but I'm so struck with these beans, I'm going to let them shine on their own.

THE SECOND PHASE

2011-05-19T15:44:00.002+01:00

I expect we all have different ideas about where the year begins. For me, it isn't with spring flowers but with spring sowing. We come into the second phase when the next lot of seeds and beans are planted. April seedlings are already young plants and, now it's May, I've begun again!

Along with this season, flowers and trees which have been growing under their own steam suddenly start shouting 'It's the second phase! We are here!'!.

I planted iris in the autumn. They were a mixed bag and, sometimes, it pays not to be sniffy but to buy cheap, cheerful and random. It worked with these. Not all came up - but that's because of the soil, the cold and the drought.

Here's one that did (come up) - along with the sage which is there every year. (I've had it since 1994.)

And the Spanish Broom - which is getting thinner as years go by and branches have to be cut off because they get in the way - is coming into flower. (That's the Golden Bay over to the left.)

And the Cordylines are producing their ugly lumpy flowers - which always impress me, none the less.

Second phase under way!

Oh, Grandma! What a Hairy Mouth You Have!

2011-05-17T14:41:00.000+01:00

Not all flowers are beautiful. Not all the time. Not when you really look. Imagine being an insect and going in there. I wouldn't be that brave!

THE ARROGANCE OF LIKING VEGETABLES

2011-05-12T20:09:00.000+01:00

I realise, I do realise, there are many who don't like vegetables; not on-the-plate kind of not-liking but the not-finding-them-very-interesting-in-the-garden-or-on-blogs kind of not-liking.

I expect I understand. For non-vegetable people, a row of cabbages probably does for them what a row of dahlias does to me. And they probably despair when bloggers talk about onion stringing just as I feel all withered and depleted when there's a sudden outbreak of flower pictures.

There are two reasons why I like vegetables. One is that they make me not frightened of my place on earth. Even if my growing is in token only. (Which it is. We'd not last a day on what I can fit in my garden.) But it makes me feel less dependent on shops. Indeed, it makes me feel that I could, if necessary, live without the help of others. You see? Here's the equation

fear arising from a sense of human vulnerability + arrogance + unreasonable desire for independence = need to grow vegetables.

April 12th 2011

The other reason is that vegetables tend to have a lot of leaves and I like leaves. So I get very excited when I see a bean stretching its first leaves from beyond the confines of its shell on its third day of being in the light. Something wells up inside me. True, neck-gripping joy.

(Madder by the second!)

I like leaves a lot; their size, shape, their green-nesses in infinite variety - even the blodges and blotches and missing bits where they have been assaulted by pests and winds and rain and all kinds of trials . . . they too are interesting. Flowers merge into general flower-ness. Every leaf has character.

April 12th 2011

I have flowers in my garden but they are there because . . . mostly because other people like to see flowers and it's their garden too . . . but it's also because, if there aren't too many of them, flowers can sometimes set leaves off to advantage.

HERE COME THE BEANS - SOWN ON 7TH, GERMINATED BY 10TH

2011-05-11T15:35:00.001+01:00

My plants sold. There were only four, a sample to see if anyone wanted them. The standards are high. You can't take them to be sold unless they are in good, clean pots . . and are labelled in the way required . . . and nearly everyone at our horticultural society is an expert. (I think some of them measure the angle between the petals on their flowers!) My profit is small (not even a profit really because selling a few does not cover the cost of the many) but I am encouraged.

Yesterday - May 10th 2011

Yesterday, the yellow French beans (dwarf) germinated and I found Ming's Morning Glory had come up in the airing cupboard and each seedling was about two inches high. (Not seventy-three yet but a lot!)

For a couple of months, Calendula seedlings have been emerging round the garden - and mostly dieing soon after, at first because there was too much rain, then because there was none.

By this morning, the beans had begun to move on to their next stage.

Today - March 11th 2011

Fast movers, these!

p.s. The Pomadoro Romanesco tomatoes started coming up this morning - but they are too fiddly to photograph yet.

A HOLLY BLUE MOVES IN

2011-05-09T16:36:00.002+01:00

For the last few days, a tiny blue butterfly has been darting around the garden.

We first noticed it jumping between the topmost leaves of the bay-tree - but it flits between other plants too. It seems to have moved in - a Holly Blue (Celastrina argiolus).

Of course, it may be several Holly Blues. I can't claim to be able to tell one individual from another - but, so far, we have seen only one at a time. (It is about half an inch long.)

Not that a butterfly is a seedling! Not that the tomato plants are seedlings either.

These are the recently potted-on Dolce Vita. They haven't grown as big as the Inca F1 Hybrids - but their growth has been hampered because I left them in little pots too long. I think one of the reasons so many people like growing tomatoes (apart from enjoying their fruits) is that they are tough old biddies. There's not much we can do to them from which they can't recover.

I've not grown peppers before so I have no idea whether or not they are growing at the right rate - this one is about three inches from the tip of one leaf to the tip of the one opposite.

Last year, I had the biggest crop of apples yet. This year, there will be hardly any. I'm not sure if this is down to my pruning methods or the variety of tree. I'm not too bothered. The fruits are not much to write home about - pretty insipid in flavour and of uninteresting texture. But this tree is worth having for the very sight of it, the idea of it even!

And now I have an extra reason to be glad to have made the effort to espalier it against the wall - it's a good place for our Holly Blue to pose.

NEW POST ON THE OTHER BLOG

2011-05-09T12:46:00.000+01:00

There's a new post on the other blog

Esther's Boring Garden Blog

It's called

Random Thoughts on Outdoor Tomatoes in Pots

and begins like this

'Having woken in the night with the sudden thought that I have an appointment tomorrow; and having rushed downstairs to . . . . . . . cont.

FOXGLOVES AND BALM

2011-05-08T20:39:00.000+01:00

Foxglove flowers are beginning to open. This plant is producing deep pink.
I think some of the others will be peach coloured.
Balm is one of my favourite plants. Its leaves are lemon scented and remind me of nettles.
As I like nettles, this is a good thing.
Mint is a bit nettle-like but its leaves never grow big enough to catch the imagination.
They are a bit prim.
(There aren't any mint leaves in this picture - just balm and digitalis.)

When people say they don't have space in their gardens, I doubt many are as richly endowed with lack-of-space as me. Plants are crammed in together and, on the whole, don't mind.

I had expected more daffodils to push their way through over-wintering foxglove leaves than actually made it - though maybe the extra obstacle had nothing to do with it and they simply weren't destined to reappear this spring.

Lemon Balm is less reticent. My garden isn't brilliant when looked at in the large. Washing lines and the need to keep somewhere free for extra pots in April and May militate against anything sophisticated in the way of design. Instead, it is best viewed as a series of bouquets emerging from the soil.

SEEDS SOWN, SNIPPETS TO ROOT.

2011-05-07T16:48:00.000+01:00

Plants sometimes breathe a sigh of happy release when you give their roots more space. I could almost hear my Dolce Vita tomatoes (Lycopersicon exculentum) murmur 'Thank heavens!' and 'At last!' as I potted them on yesterday.

There's been quite a gap between sowing the first lot of seeds and the second. I knew I would be going away and didn't want to leave plants too delicate to fend for themselves on their own, even for the inside of a week, so there was an annoying gap.

But we're up and running again on the propagation front.

This is my airing cupboard. (Part of it.)

It now contains:-

1. A tray of Morning Glory

2. A tray of Canterbury Bells

3. Lots of pots of Dwarf Yellow French Beans (Sonesta)

4. Lots of pots of Tomato Il Pantano Romanesco

- all waiting to germinate.

The tomato and Canterbury Bell seeds are several years old but . . . we shall see!

Outside, the wallflowers I have never watered have survived

and the Love in the Mist I have never watered has responded to the sudden rain by suddenly putting on a growth spurt.

Having taken my pots of Sedum Cape Blanca to the Horticultural Society to be sold (fingers crossed!) I have started off two more to grow into new little patches. Compared with last year, this is a bit early - but if I do a couple every so often, I'll find out when they best like to take root.

Outside, I have planted Swiss Chard (Bright Lights). I don't hold out much hope for this, given the slug-ridden nature of the garden. (Our allotment soil was much lighter.) Nevertheless . . . don't sow, won't reap!

STRAWBERRIES BEFORE THE RAIN

2011-05-06T19:45:00.000+01:00

Proper rain again! Everything is instantly greener.

There was a roll of thunder. A pause. The scent of it. Then big drops of it. Just time to run out and bring in the washing and the plants in trays and . . .

. . . take a photo of a strawberry the slugs may have eaten by morning.

MY BABIES HAVE GONE TO MARKET

2011-05-04T15:50:00.000+01:00

I know this isn't how it really is. I know I shouldn't be feeling as I might when delivering children to some kind of school or nursery or child minder for the first time . . . nor should a bit of me be thinking it's worse than that because they won't be coming back.

After all, they are only

Sedum Cape Blanca

and Aubergine (Black Beauty) - but I grew them!

In the case of the sedum - I have been growing them for a year.

Of course, when I go to collect the money they have been sold for (minus 15%) next Wednesday, I may find no-one has bought them so there is no money to collect - and have to bring them home - or, leave them there on the Horticultural Society staging for another week.

What if they get greenfly? (The aubergines, that is. Nothing seems to bother with the sedum (spathulifolium) .) Who will pick off each green attacker as it wings or walks its way in? What if the wind blows too strongly? Who will move them into shelter?

One consolation; I was expecting the building and its forecourt to be male dominated. That's how it seemed when last I went. But there were women there too. Indeed, there were lots of people there of both genders . . .bringing trays of plants to sell, buying seeds and beans and packets and pots.

And my finances?

I bought ten three inch pots and ten five inch pots, twenty long labels and twenty short labels (for naming and pricing the plants) and came home with £2:70 less than I'd set out with.

Such is the start of my mini-farm!

SO I DON'T LOSE TRACK OF MY GARDEN

2011-05-03T16:16:00.000+01:00

It's been a busy day - but I don't want to lose track of what's happening and when. Otherwise, how will I be able to look back on it later and say 'Ah! That's what it was like on May 3rd'?

So - this is what the foxgloves are doing.

And this is what the first of the fully opened Aquilegia looks like when you look into its face.

If nothing more is said - that's quite a lot!

FAILED EXPERIMENTS

2011-04-30T00:16:00.000+01:00

A cry went up this afternoon. I could hear it out in the street.

"It's raining!"

Most years, rain in April would go un-remarked or mentioned with weariness rather than interest.

But the ground is so dry, the air so heavy, tempers so frayed - this

"It's raining!" was shouted with surprise and delight - and then everything smelled good.

2010 - 2011 turns out not to be the best year for finding out what happens if you drop seeds into a pot and ignore them. First it snowed on them in December. (We never have snow in December. We rarely have snow at all.) Then we had ice and frost. Then we had non-stop rain. Then we had none.

The untended seedlings survived the snow, ice and frost - but drought has been knocking them off.

I do know plants need water. I do know that five inch terracotta pots are not a natural environment but . . . I wanted to see.

What I have been seeing recently is them dieing. Leaving them be, missing them out when I go round with my watering can, has taken agonising discipline. It has also been a blow to my arrogance. Would I be able to show how tough plants are? That there are many we can trust to stand on their own multiplicity of roots? No. Not this year!

But arrogance breeds hope and, although there were only a few tantalising drops this afternoon, it is raining a little again now. (It's going on for mid-night.) Maybe . . . ?

Here are how the pots were earlier in the day, before their first taste of moisture in a long while.

By morning . . . their dregs will probably have been eaten by snails which were rushing from hiding places faster than the raindrops were falling.

But then . . . the only way to measure movement is by creating a marker. Here it is.

Two seeds from a large winged sycamore.

This is really embarrassing.
I made a big deal about ground elder seedlings
and they turn out to be
Alexanders.
I'd never heard of Alexanders before
Mag at Ragbag
put Lucy right on one of her
Message in a Milk Bottle posts.
So - many thanks to
Mag.

Believe it or not, these are Wallflowers.

Two seeds from a small winged sycamore.

Hold your breath!

HOVERFLY LARVA

2011-04-28T16:20:00.001+01:00

Never mind seeds and things . . . today, this is what I find exciting.

On the nettles are hoverfly larvae.

What puzzles me is that, on the big leaves, the larvae are on the upper surface, while the aphids are on the underside.

I even saw one of the larvae (the one in the top picture) eat a greenfly. The trouble with the tops of plants is that they waggle in even the slightest breeze and the greenfly was gulped down before everything was still enough for the larva to be in focus.

None the less . . . this is my find of the day!

P.S. You might like to know there is a new post on Esther's Boring Garden Blog.

'Weddings, Marriages and the Absence of Swedes.'

It begins like this:-

"It’s good to see how the Royal Family follow my example so closely, don’t you think?" cont.

THE PILE

2011-04-25T14:34:00.002+01:00

Work in Progress.
The leaf mould extracted from the tunnel
and shoveled into the barrow
is a fine, dry powder.
Peeping into the picture on the left are
the old and battered leaves of the Windmill Palm
(Trachycarpus fortunei)
and, at ground level on the right,
a very battered Aspidistra!

A combination of wanting to provide an overwintering place for creatures and not having anywhere to put un-comopstable vegetation . . . led to an unsightly pile of wood and tough leaves in a corner of the garden. A couple of years ago, I dismantled it and found a mountain of wonderful leaf mould under the dried out branches.

The pile has re-formed and I am really rather fed up with it.

I have almost run out of potting compost. A combination of being away for a few days and Easter arriving hot on the heels of our return meant I couldn't order any in time for an early delivery. We'll have to wait another week.

The tomatoes are complaining. They do not want to wait. Rather - they have no ability to do so. They have run out of space and nutrients.

The pile?

Learning from the difficulty I'd had before

in separating the sticks and bits from usable material,

I'd used the wrought iron back of an old bench

(which I'd found in the woods)

as an upside down base for this new pile.

The idea was that, as the leaves dried and disintegrated,

they would fall through the metal,

ready to be shoveled out.

It's worked - there was quite a bit of work taking the newer branches off the top, chopping them up and bagging them ready for the council to take away for shredding - but there are several barrows of leaf mould to show for it.

Some, I've already sprinkled round the garden then . . . another brilliant idea (at least, I hope it's brilliant) I can use some of the rest for the Chinese Windmill Palm - and the tomatoes may well prefer to live in a mixture of old, depleted potting compost and leaf mould than struggle on as they are.

Hidden (vaguely) beyond the table, the pots wait.