Tuesday 28 May 2019

Tuesday

This morning I had absolutely run out of fruit - almost a disaster for me as I think I must be related to a fruit bat.   So, although I have ordered a delivery from Tesco for early on Thursday morning (I have a visitor staying overnight on Thursday) I needed to stock up with fruit on my way to coffee.   Good Summer fruit is tantalisingly close - the peaches, the apricots, all those fruits which make Summer such an exciting season for us fruit bats.

Then it was an hour and a half coffee stop and chat and then home for the rest of the day.   This afternoon I did some gardening - very frustrating as my balance is so poor but I managed to get some things planted up and some polyanthus dug up and thrown into the green bin (polyanthus are cheap to buy and never as good the second year, so it really is not necessary to keep them from one year to the next.   They have served me very well flowering non stop all winter).   Now another little bed is dug over in the garden and ready for planting.   Digitalis (foxgloves) and Pinks are on order - foxgloves are biennial so will flower (and seed) next year but need planting when they arrive in a favourable spot.   Pinks I shall plant here and there towards the front of the borders.   Today I also added some Phlox to my long border.  Although I have spent a lot on herbaceous perennials for the long border - and they are doing well now the tulips are out - it is a large space and it needs filling for a fine display.   So for now I am filling mostly with annuals.

Oh how I wish I could garden like I used to.   Luckily D, who helps me in the garden, is very good at carrying out my instructions and is indeed a very nice man but it would be so good to do it myself.   Still I can at least potter. 

Sad to say I notice Mares Tail weed is coming up again like it did last year and there doesn't seem noticeably any less frankly.  I think there is one more dosage of speciality weed killer left, but then I think I shall get D to plant the area with shrubs in the Autumn and then just keep weeding the Mares Tail out as I would if it were Creeping Buttercup.  I think I have just let it get to me when I would have been better ignoring it and just carrying on with planting up.

Busy day tomorrow.   It is M's birthday so we are having breakfast out (this means fasting until ten in the morning!!!) and then it is our Poetry afternoon.   So now off I go to look out my Poetry to read tomorrow.

14 comments:

JayCee said...

I hope you will be posting some photos of your handiwork when it comes into flower. It all sounds quite delightful.
We have had a lovely sunny day today, although cool, but more rain on the way tomorrow. Good luck with the Mares Tail eradication project.

angryparsnip said...

I also would love to see how your gardens are growing.
parsnip xo

justjill said...

And me!

Simon Douglas Thompson said...

I just don't get on with apricots in any form

Rachel Phillips said...

I would still have breakfast at 7 regardless.

Beverley said...

I don't do well with foxgloves Weave, we have clay soil. What do you have and do they grow well there? Bev

Heather said...

I had three lovely clumps of phlox in my garden, a white, pink and a lilac. I do love their peppery scent. I am sure that when your garden is more established and the shrubs have filled out. the mares tail will not be so obvious but I do hope the treatment to get rid of it works even if only to reduce it's vigour.
Enjoy the birthday breakfast, poetry afternoon and friend's visit.

John Going Gently said...

Have some preserved fruit as back up

Joanne Noragon said...

I have some pinks in bloom. Do yours smell like cinnamon?

Cro Magnon said...

I feel for you with your Mare's Tail; I have Oxalis which is a nightmare.

Derek Faulkner said...

My foxgloves, all growing really well on clay soil, are all out in flower, so isn't it a bit late to be putting your's in. I normally put foxgloves in,in the autumn and then after they've flowered leave them to seed themselves round the garden. I've found the best solution with mares tail in my partner's garden, is to hoe it off as soon as it pokes it's head out of the soil. That way you don't see it for a week or so and it also weakens it. Over several years we have reduced it by about 60% but doubtful we'll ever completely eradicate it.

Librarian said...

Just like some of the others here have said, I'd love to see pictures of your garden. I so enjoy lokking at the gardens along my way to the station every morning.

thelma said...

Must admit I need my fruit fix as well, usually a pear and a tangerine. Dried fruits are not bad as a backup. I think the method of tackling the mare's tail as it comes up, thereby weakening it is probably a good solution.

The Weaver of Grass said...

Thanks for your various comments everyone. I will post photos of my garden once the sun comes out - if it ever does. My bit that I have done looke quite pretty and is filling in nicely. My long border has been very colourful but now the tulips and most of the forget me nots have gone it is rather bare. Yes - digitalis are planted in the Autumn - but these are plug plants ordered from a magazine (I have just had an e mail to say they have been despatched today)and they are for flowering next year. (hopefully)
As to the mares tail - my book on the subject says never hoe it up, cut it off at ground level so as not to disturb the roots and encourage them to multiply. One more lot of weed killer to administer and then I intend to plant up with shrubs.