GARDENER'S WORD

The lovely long spells of summery weather with sunshine and little rain, has had its effect on my garden. The roses are loving it, with a little help from my watering can. The lawn, however, is being temperamental. The lack of rain seems to have encouraged the weeds to try and get the upper hand and while my lawn is still green (and many public places have brown lawns now) it is not as it should be. We had a heavy downpour of rain the other evening and there must be leaf blockage in the guttering as the rain came over the top in waterfalls, almost wrecking one of the hanging baskets.  Looking up is not the best for people like me with vertigo and you would have laughed at me standing under a waterfall, struggling to get the hanging basket down and away from the deluge.  I was drenched, and covered with bits of compost off the plants.  The things I do for love of my garden.  So far, the tomatoes are doing brilliantly.  Hope they ripen.

Lazy days are here and I now have the perfect aid to laziness - a hammock swing.  It even flattens into a double bed.  How's that for pure decadence? Garden hammock swing with canopy I also now have stepping stones as I didn't want too much wear and tear on my lawn.  A perfect lawn is a must for me.  It irritates me a bit that my lawn edges are not, yet, straight.  I tried to get them perfect but there is still so much stone in the ground that there wasn't much chance.  In time though; in time.   Garden hammock swing with canopy Garden hammock swing with canopy

Today has been a bit rainy and dull but now a wind has picked up.  I bought a mini-greenhouse yesterday where I have put my pots with young pumpkin, butternut squash, lettuce, sweet peppers, and assorted herbs, out of the dismal rain.  Rain is good but not to the point where plants start to drown in the rain-saturated soil, or mildew and botrytis can take a hold.  Below, my new mini-greenhouse - it is very tiny, only about 2ft x 1ft x 5ft high (60cm x 30cm x 150cm high), yet there are four shelves.  It can hold quite a lot and, apparently, is an award winner.  Nice thing is if you don't have use for it all year long, you can pack it up and put it away in winter or even use it throughout winter and pack it up in warmer months.  Whatever works for you. Strawberries, below, are coming on but they desperately need some sun.  The lawn is growing like crazy and too wet to mow.  At the side of the strawberries, I have tubs with mixe...

Recently I bought extra herbs for my garden. The curly parsley that I bought earlier in the year has taken off so much that I have had to repot it into a large pot and I have used quite a bit of it already! The apple mint is doing well. I planted that in a large terracotta pot that had lost its bottom to the frost! I sank the pot into the garden border and that should stop the mint spreading. Mint in a terracotta pot Like I say, I bought extra herbs.  One is coriander (see photo below).  Although many think it is used just for spicy Indian dishes, it is also popular in South America where they use it in 'sopa' - soup to us.  I also bought chives.  The last lot I bought didn't seem to be doing too well.  It would seem that Alfie, my Ragdoll cat, likes chives.  I found him chewing the tops off the old one.  This new one is not to be shared!  Coriander I bought a plant sold as a Oriental salad herb called Mizuna.  Its...

My garden is, or I hope it will be, a haven filled with the heavenly smell of roses and lavender, and now I have a couple of dianthus (commonly called 'pinks' whether they are pink or not!) too. They are the modern pinks which have such a sweet perfume. Some of the more modern hybrids and carnations have lost their fragrance as breeders sought the perfect bloom. However, fortunately for gardeners, breeders are now trying to create blooms with fragrance once more. Hallelujah!  Dianthus 'Mrs Sinkins' Dianthus 'Doris' I only bought a couple as they are very easy to propagate by cuttings.  I bought my favourites that I have grown before: a white Pink called 'Mrs Sinkins'; and a pale and very well known pink Pink called Doris. They are hardy perennials with a lovely silver leaf.