Over my forty years or so of having bamboos in the garden there have been quite a few flowerings. Some have resulted in the death of the plants a few of considerable size.
Until recently, it was an occasional bamboo species flowering, Fargesia murielii, Yushania anceps, Himilayacalamus falconeri,
Some of you may have read on the old web site about the sudden disaster, that occurred during the summer of 2009, when our very large weeping willow’s tree trunk failed at about five feet from the ground. A number of trees and shrubs were damaged by the falling tree along with our ancient 8’x6′ pent shed. It might have been repairable but was not a feature of great aesthetic value.
Our daughter and her friend served drinks and cakes etc. from the shed so we thought perhaps a more attractive replacement might be used as a tea room, were we to start having open days again.
We were completely amazed by the two guys who carried the panels one each down our long and winding paths with overhanging branches, with almost no damage to plants. From when they arrived to completing the the building including felting the roof was less than an hour and a quarter. We had to glaze the windows and door ourselves, which has taken far longer. Each panes of glass has been pressed into a bead of silicone sealant, and any excess trimmed off with a sharp knife and chisel when cured.
I don’t know about you, but I’m a bit fed up with this drought! The ‘experts’ never mention that gardeners wont have been using their hose pipes a great deal for the last five or six weeks, not to mention farmers, who wont have been irrigating anything. Also they have been saying the water will have been taken up by trees and not soaked in. Many trees have only just got leaves on them and wont have been taking up water. Surely the situation must be much better for water companies now!
What has been having a field day with all the rain are the molluscs. As someone who tries to protect their Hostas, Epimediums and other vulnerable plants without the use of too many toxic slug pellets, I use the capture and destroy method. I go out with a torch and collect a range of undesirable creatures. As well as slugs and snails you can catch Lily Beetles, Black Vine and other weevils and night caterpillars all about their destructive work, once it is dark. One does of course have to have a degree of determination to get out of
A few years ago I was very pleased to obtain a very small plant of Phyllostachys kwangsiensis. It sounded as though it was a very exciting addition to my bamboo collection, as it is said to have many of the desirable features of Phyllostachys edulis, but doing them much quicker in the UK climate. Indeed it had heavily pubescent culms when they appeared and small leaves in profusion.
I have potted off my pan of open pollinated Epimedium seedlings and currently have just
We have continued the good work of Karen, our volunteer gardener with our potted Hosta collection.
New visitors to the site may not be aware that there was a previous incarnation of the site which ran for about 11 years. The posts and images were not added quite as regularly, due to the greater difficulty.
There are news posts covering such things as pond building, tree disasters and our Koi Carp.
You can find the old site by hovering over ‘About’ and then selecting ‘Old Site’ or for added convenience click on the image of the old site on this post.
Both Denis and Karen are knowledgeable gardeners who have only small gardens of their own.
Today, Denis and I set up water pots with Waterlilies and Irises etc.
Sarah arrived this morning with a large tub of the casting rubber and set about spreading the pink material over a substantial area of moistened trunk, of our approximately forty year old tree.
The mould will, after several further processes, produce a bark texture material which will be stuck to a carved polystyrene tree trunk. After painting this will be used in an exhibition about dinosaurs in Germany.
The pair of Mallard Ducks are back for what is at least their third year. They are clearly park ducks as the don’t scare off easily. They have been observed dabbling up the hatching tadpoles,
However on the plus side, after we’d shooed them off the waterlily pond they did go on the ‘natural’ (clay) ponds and started to do a good job eating the duckweed and algae.. Unfortunately next door’s dog went mental, when he saw a cat in our garden rushing at the wire fence and barking loudly, which managed to scare them off before they completed the task..
