Gardening tool of the week

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Our old hedge trimmers knackered up the other month when we accidently tried to cut a bit of metal that had been sticking out of the front wall. This week we needed a pair, so bought the above from Argos for £50. We didn’t know it was so small until the thing arrived.

Saying that, we’ve been cutting lots of things back this week and still can’t stop cutting things. This weekend we will try it on the hedge with the special hedge attachment, which is a little longer than the blade in it now we hope!

Also, we repurposed the terrarium we found in the street many years ago (below).
It was looking a lot worse for wear with a few sides smashed up so we got ourselves a Stanley knife and cut away the three good sides and made ourselves a cloche! Waste not want not! Now we have to find something to put in it.

Commuter stress in a Lake District style

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Cheers to Rich in the Lake District for sending us this the other day and wrote “This got me pondering the problems people encounter when trying to get to work on time.” He added “You get used to that sort of congestion up here. We even knew the shepherds!“ Brilliant Rich, we love the photograph!

More marvellous business on the street

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On our travels this morning, we passed a plant we’ve seen a good few times. It finally clicked, it’s actually a Marvel of Peru, and a huge one at that, can you believe it? We didn’t know they can get so big!

 

Marvellous!

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Bringing down some tea bags to the compost heap this morning, we were stopped in our tracks by the sight of what we think is our larger Marvel of Peru AKA (‘Belle de Nuit’ or 4 O’Clock plant) which is grown in an old food waste bin. We do love those flowers!

The leaves certainly look like the other marvel, but we’ll wait and see later this evening around 4pm. We’re very happy though, even the smaller red version is great as well. We got the seeds off Real Seeds who have some very interesting seeds in their catalogue here. Have a good Saturday!

Pass us some rain down here please

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Cheers to Rich up in the Lake District for the great picture of what the weather was like up there today. Looks a bit cloudy, if you have any rain to spare in those lakes, could some be passed down here as our lawn is looking so blimmin dry.

Someone at work was telling us the other week about their brother-in-law who has a lovely green lawn even during this summer of draught 2026. She was saying “He’s been watering it morning, noon and night and it looks so green, not like mine”. She went onto say, he’s been watering it so much so that Thames Water contacted him and worried thinking he had a water leak on his property as the water bill had shot up so much. How mad is that? Remember big brother is watching you(r lawn).

Cheers for the picture Rich!

 

 

 

Tell me why, tell me why, tell me why?

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Here’s a book we discovered again in the Weeds gardening bookcase (above). It’s a wonderful book, interviewing gardeners and asking them that one big question “Why do you garden?” All sorts of mad stuff in here from a man who mows grass for the council to commercial rhubarb growers in Yorkshire who grow it under candlelight (below).

We’re asking you the same question. “Why do you garden?” Answers on a postcard or to one deck pete (at) gee male dot com.

And from over in France

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Thanks to Spike from Morschen43 in Le Puy-en-Velay, for sending these pictures of the fruits of his labours and garden. There’s some great looking produce there.

That has come around quick hasn’t it? It was seemingly a few weeks ago when we heard from him when he was preparing his ground with some back breaking work (here and picture below). Good stuff Spike!

If you love a bit of rock/punk and a bit of reggae, ska, dub, metal, hard rock, tune into Spike’s Vampirefreaks radio show here. The shows are all archived here.

Is it four o’clock yet?

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Earlier this year in March, we germinated some Marvel of Peru (AKA the Four O’clock Plant) seeds that we purchased from Real Seeds as it sounded like a strange plant. As it said on Wikipedia, “The flowers usually open from late afternoon or at dusk (namely between 4 and 8 o’clock), giving rise to one of its common names. The flowers then produce a strong, sweet fragrance throughout the night, then close in the morning.” Well, we had to have some of that!

We started off a few seedlings, gave a few away and kept a couple for ourselves. The above picture is one from our good gardening friend Adrienne who said “The flowers are getting better and better. Must love the heat!” It looks brilliant.

Here’s the couple we have kept (above). There’s a small one to the left of what we think is a larger version of the plant (with no flowers as yet) in the reused food bin. The small version has started to flower and hopefully will bring us more! Fingers crossed that it is a Marvel Of Peru in the bin.

We’ve read that the plant is invasive in hotter climates but thankfully not in the UK as the annual frosts kill it. We may bring in the one in the food bin over winter as it seems a great plant! Interesting stuff about the plant here.

Tuesday night tune (before the bins go out)

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We’ve just found this excellent new tune on Bluesky from Cornershop Ft Bubbley Kaur called “Bounce & Salute” and what a great tune it is, with an great video featuring some Trojan singles being pressed and some sort of worker celebration. Wonderful stuff!

Returning to the north

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Great to hear from Debby H in north London yesterday, she’s just back from a break away and sent us pictures from her back garden. She said what with the heatwave “Thanks to our indoor and outdoor watering systems, our plants seem mostly ok” and that’s good to hear! Sadly, “The cosmos isn’t doing so well yet, but there’s still hope for later this summer. It’s the same with ours too, none of the seeds took or if they did, the slugs took them right in front of our noses. Her Zephyranthes Robusta are having another flush of flowers (above). More on the vibrant Argentine rain lily here.

“The big daisies seem very happy” (above) in the tidy bed above. They do seem healthy and so does the lawn, not like ours at Weeds HQ!

The phomium tenax flowers are now mostly turning into seed (above).

And finally, “The dwarf sunflowers are now in full bloom” and look how great they look! Cheers Debby for sending us the updates and do send us more!