GARDENER'S WORD

We are having fabulous weather in the UK right now and it has been so for quite some time. Here in West Yorkshire, on the Pennine mountains, as is the case in many parts of the UK, we haven't had any decent rain for it seems like weeks and the sun is blazing down every day.  Greenfly seem to like this weather and are trying to infest my roses ( Wild Eve and New Dawn ), and rust disease on the raspberries and white drupelet disorder  on the fruit are affecting my precious Polka raspberries .  White drupelet disorder on raspberries caused by scorching sunshine  I squash the greenflies with my fingers as they are only infesting the tender tips of roses at the moment, so that's easily dealt with.  As for the white drupelet disorder on the raspberries, as I consider it is due to the hot and sunny weather, I am ignoring it.  The same applies for the rust disease.  It comes and goes, year by year, sometimes appears not at all, sometimes ...

I always think it is terribly sad that people confuse the harmless and helpful hoverfly with stingy wasps and even bees.  Hoverflies are small and, well, they hover!  They have no sting and they do not bite.  One hovered onto my Kindle device today while I was reading and it sat in the middle of the screen for quite a little while before it decided to hover elsewhere.  Please don't kill them.  They are the good guys, invaluable in the garden for pollinating plants and their larvae eat aphids.  Hoverfly - they have stumpy antennae and fat, sticky tongues  Gardeners have a lot less bother with a hoverfly around . Hoverflies have no sting and they do not bite. Hoverfly amid carnivorous plants Hoverfly on the edge of a carnivorous plant Hoverfly with its sticky tongue getting moisture from a carnivorous plant I know wasps eat aphids too but wasps will sting you just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  YouTube li...

I know that quite a lot of people, from what they have said to me, think that my garden is enormous.  Don't be fooled.  It's a small English garden with a lot going on.  Plants have come and gone over the years and many of the plants which I have mentioned in much earlier posts may no longer be a part of my garden design.  Every gardener, professional or amateur, will lose plants to disease, pests, inclement weather, neglect, or ignorance, now and then, and sometimes plants are removed simply because they no long suit the gardener's landscaping ideas.  However, as my lawn shrinks and my borders grow, my garden is always full of interesting things; not least of all the recent erection of a garden room which I love dearly and spend many a happy hour reading there.  Every penny was well spent on it.  So, here is my garden as it is right now, June 2018. Outside of the above image are my containers filled with hostas and ferns, where they face east and...

My poor Philadelphus 'Snowbelle' never knows where it is going to be growing next.  When I first bought it four years ago, I grew it in a container but then, the next year, it didn't flower as prolifically as when I bought it.  Maybe the tub was in the wrong place.  Anyway, I then transplanted it in a southish-facing aspect among other plants like perennials and small shrubs and I thought it would be happy there in the ground, and for a while it seemed to be, but then it succumbed to something or other and its leaves started to yellow.  So, in spring this year I dug it up and moved it to the top of the garden, near the garden room , in a small piece of border which faces mostly west but gets plenty of sunshine.  So far, so good.  It is being given plenty of water while it settles in and there is good drainage.  It is happy now, disease free and covered in healthy white flowers which are beautifully fragrant.  Philadelph...

I seem to have developed a 'thing' about solar lights recently and the other day I saw another, on offer, in a garden centre.  So I bought it.  As it turns out, it was actually much cheaper on Amazon UK!  Although the idea of the night light is nice, it has been designed with no regard, it seems, for balance; no effective counterweight.  It is top heavy and tends to tilt over or fall over which, considering the flowers are glass, isn't great.  It also feels like the long, thin metal 'stem' of the bluebell might bend under the pressure when trying to push the prongs into hard ground, and if the ground is soft then the prongs cannot get a grip, so to speak.  Bluebell solar light in daytime Even so, despite having to secure it in place with a terracotta pot, it's quite pretty.  I am sure there are other bluebell design solar lights on the market but this one is made by Gardman and is part of their Cole & Bright collection.  The top...

Storm Hector is hitting the UK today, particularly in Scotland, I believe.  Here, on the Pennines of West Yorkshire, Hector is giving my garden a good old bashing and while so far nothing is damaged extensively, I was rather worried to see those beautiful but troublesome ash trees on neighbouring land, very close to my garden boundary, swaying under the impact of the wind.  Many have grown tall, and thin, and top heavy, and very very close together, so that the roots must be jostling for space as certainly the trees themselves are. Tops of trees swaying does not concern me as  believe it is natural and there is some flexibility in the trunks, but the trunks of the some of these ash trees are swaying only a few feet from the ground.  It's unnerving. I think it is only a matter of time before one or more uproot and cause damage to whatever has the misfortune to be in the wrong place when they fall.  I hope it's not me as the trees are immediately be...

I watched the British gardening programme, Gardener's World, the other day and one of the presenters, Carol Klein, mentioned that blue flowers are much rarer than other colours.  I think she said that only about 10% of flowers are blue.  Now I am wondering if that includes flowers which are not a true blue but are a little on the purple or mauve side.  Anyway, I realised that I have quite a number of blue-flowering plants in my garden and an even greater number of purpley-blue flowers.  I think that I tend to steer towards that colour, and whites, and maybe that's because I am Piscean, if you can believe that kind of stuff.  Anyway, here are some of the blue flowers that I grow, or have grown (and died on me), or seen elsewhere and photographed.  Jasione laevis 'Blue Light' Jasione laevis 'Blue Light' Lithodora diffusa 'Heavenly Blue' Lithodora diffusa 'Heavenly Blue'  Gentiana pneumonanthe Gentiana pneumonanthe  ...

A year last January, when I had the garden fencing replaced with concrete gravel boards and replaceable slatted wooden panels, I thought that the clematis climbers would have been just about killed off but, no, this year must be the best year ever for those on my fence.  I wonder.  I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that I have planted large shrubs a little distance away from the south-facing fence and that the clematis happily have their feet in the shade and their heads in the sun.  That's what they are supposed to like and that is what they have this year.  I've lost one or two, I think, but the white Gillian Blades is happily embracing the Syringa Red Pixie and further up the fencing both Doctor Ruppel and Elsa Spath are getting along together quite happily.  Clematis 'Gillian Blades' embracing Syringa (Lilac) Red Pixie I've always thought it a good idea, where possible, to let clematis cling on to what they like.  The only trouble is...

It was only very recently that I read that magpies are considered by many to be pests and that they will kill other birds. I've never seen them attack other birds in my garden, but a long while ago I saw two magpies attacking a squirrel on my fence.  I thought at the time that it was highly unusual and thought nothing further about it.  The squirrel escaped up the trees and the magpies went on their own not-so-sweet way.  Then this morning, as I watched Alfie, the much loved resident Ragdoll cat, jump up onto the top of my garden fence, I saw a magpie swoop down and land on the fence right behind him.  I was really taken aback because as much as Alfie looks like a softy, he isn't and his claws are razor sharp and never trimmed because he is well behaved in the house.  Anyway, then I saw another magpie come down on the fence on the opposite side to Alfie (obviously up to no good), and so I went up the garden path fully prepared to break the magpie...

I bet that many people who come across this webpage are seeking information about the deaths of thousands of ash trees caused by a fungus called Hymenoscyphus fraxineus or, as it was previously called, Chalara fraxinea. Well, no, this is about the invasiveness of ash trees planted less than 3ft (90 cm) over the other side of my garden fence and which drop literally thousands of seeds almost every year.  And they say buddleia is invasive!  So, I would be very happy if those ash trees would succumb to a fatal dose of fungal disease, or the Emerald Ash Borer beetle, and drop dead (preferably not on top of my garden room).  See below images of the mound of seeds I swept up yesterday from just a small patch of patio, and the size of a very young seedling, and the cascades of seeds still suspended from trees which overhang my garden by about 10ft (300cm) or more.  Very young seedling of the ash tree (fraxinus excelsior) Look at the length of the ro...

It's been a while since I had a Bullfinch visit my garden.  Today I saw one perched high on the bird feeding station and went to grab my big camera, the Canon EOS 6D.  I know using that full frame camera that even if I get a distant shot of a small bird, it could still turn out well when the photo is heavily cropped - and that was the case today.  Sadly, just as I clicked off one photo, my neighbour started yelling for her cat and the Bullfinch flew away.  Got it, just (bit blurred, sorry) in flight and it showed just how grey Bullfinches are on their backs.  Often confused with chaffinches, chaffinches don't have the very black head, are not as red, and have mostly brown on their backs.  Male Bullfinch on bird feeding station More info on  Bullfinch vs Chaffinch   (internal link) Bullfinch making an escape There was also a female bullfinch close by but that one flew off as soon as it saw me with a camera.  Clearly male ...

For a long time I grew chives in a pot. It started off with a smallish pot, then a bigger one, and a bigger one, then a container, and then they outgrew that.  So then I divided up the chives and planted them like a little hedge bordering the lawn but I didn't like the look of them so got rid of most and just left one small clump.  Anyone who cannot grow chives must have really bad luck because mine grow happily in my garden.  The little clump that I left growing last year has now grown into a substantial clump which is full of flowers right now.  Bumble Bees like chives and I like them too, but even if I didn't I would grow them for the insects and simply because they look pretty in flower.   It always makes me smile when I see Bumble Bees with big fat pollen sacs on their hind legs.  I think it's incredibly cute.   Bumble Bee with full pollen sacs on chive flower Bumble Bee with full pollen sacs on chive flower  Numerous...