Garden Centre

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Wordless Wednesday - flowers from the garden

Labels: wordless wednesday

The All Seasons Gardener at 6:05 AM 3 Comments

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Saturday, August 21, 2010

Daylilies

Hemerocallis are a plant you either love or hate – I really rather hate them right now. When we first moved into this house there was a clump of speckled daylilies right in the middle of the single flowerbed – when I say a clump, I mean a thing about the size of a sofa. I removed it in short order, just because I had to get to grips with the garden somehow, and decisive action was required.

So … many years on, why is there a daylily in my border? It’s not even in the same place the ones I removed? I can only assume that a bird has transferred the seed from somebody else’s garden and over a few years the thing has lurked, building its strength to emerge this year in all its rather strident ‘glory’. They are extremely sturdy plants and are found in their preferred habitats: swamps and seashores, but also up to 10,000 feet above sea level on mountain slopes!

Fortunately I have a friend who likes the Hemerocallis more than I do, and she shall receive this as a gift, as soon as it stops raining so I can go and dig it out!

Labels: daylily, garden plants, hemerocallis, unwanted plants

The All Seasons Gardener at 4:37 AM 0 Comments

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Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Worldless Wednesday - garden spectator

Doesn't look impressed with my gardening prowess!

Labels: garden cat, garden gate

The All Seasons Gardener at 3:12 AM 1 Comments

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Friday, August 13, 2010

Wildlife gardening

We’ve made a concerted effort to grow greener in the past couple of years – we’ve given up most of the pesticides and herbicides that used to lurk in our shed, wreaking mayhem on the eco-system, and I’ve even managed to wean my lovely other half off the liquid plant feed that he used to water onto everything which definitely made plants green and tall, but also seemed to make them sappy and damage their resistance to pests.

We’ve seen some changes in the garden over that time, not least of which has been that if we sit on our hands (sometimes literally) predators do seem to catch up with pests – while our nasturtiums may vanish for a few days under a wave of blackfly, the ladybird larvae emerge very swiftly to munch them up.

Speaking of which, I’ve seen a greater variety of ladybirds this year than in many previous years, not since 1976 in fact, when I was caught in the famous Isle of Wight ladybird plague! But this one was new to me … isn’t it pretty?

Labels: Wildlife Gardening

The All Seasons Gardener at 5:10 AM 0 Comments

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Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Wordless Wednesday - ballon flower

The platycodon always looks like a children's toy to me, and I love its simple, rounded buds.

Labels: platycodon, wordless wednesday

The All Seasons Gardener at 5:26 AM 3 Comments

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Saturday, August 7, 2010

Garden Photo – August

This one’s definitely a work in progress! As you can see there’s a stepladder next to a heap of vine clippings, from our regular summer attempts to keep our beautiful but rampant vine in reasonable check. Sadly, they aren’t too tasty – the green-leaved vines give clippings that make delicious stuffed leaves, but the red-leaved ones tend to be a bit harsh and fibrous. So if you’re deciding on a vine and you like to eat dolmades, my advice to you is to go green!

In the plastic bucket with the noxious-looking black water are our bindweed runners from July. However bad it looks, believe me, it smells worse! One of our neighbours has a bindweed problem this year, and it’s running under their fence to invade our garden. Nothing we can do but keep pulling out the runners and hoping the lazy neighbour will do their part too. I wish there were a less vile-smelling way of destroying bindweed – any ideas, anyone?

And the lawn … am I going mad or does it look a little better?

Labels: bindweed, garden grapevine, garden photo August, garden weeds

The All Seasons Gardener at 3:28 AM 0 Comments

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Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Wordless Wednesday - passionflower

Summer's bounty!

Labels: garden vine, passionflower

The All Seasons Gardener at 6:52 AM 2 Comments

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