Cheers again to Mike & Julia for this continuing look into their back garden with some wonderful dahlias (we think they are all dahlias). Thanks again for the pics Julia, they are great.
Towards the end of the growing season pt 2
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Towards the end of the growing season
Cheers to Mike & Julia from near Coventry for sharing a towards the end of season photographic report (fantastic pictures as ever Julia!) This is going to be a two parter as there’s so much good stuff been sent. Their comsos are looking fine (above and below).
Their garden doesn’t half look fine even at this time of year. We thought our garden was looking beyond repair but last weekend with a bit of a lawn cut and a trim and pulling out of the tomato plants and some dead heading it didn’t look too bad in the end but nowhere as great as these pictures.
We also love what we think is an echeveria (below) as those angular flowers look great and also those aster flowers (lower below).
Next part will include some dahlias amongst some other things. Keep them coming Mike & Julia and thanks again!
A message from Kyiv
As always, it’s good to hear from Wlad (US7IGN) in Ukraine. If you remember, Wlad was featured in a Radio 4 documentary called Lights Out in an episode called Call Signs (here) which was about life as a radio amateur living and working in Kyiv during the Russian invasion. He also has two books out about his experiences and they’re well worth reading if you want an insight on what is life is like out there. More about the books here.
Wlad was telling us that his good friend Sergiy (UT3UFD) is not only growing a banana tree (more on that here) and bonsai but he’s also growing seeds from fruit he eats. The photos above and below are his avocado plants, brilliant stuff. Thanks for keeping us updated, Wlad, and as always, our best wishes to you and Sergiy over there.
We’ve found something on the RHS website about growing avocados plants from seed here. It’s interesting stuff.
And now the end is near
The back garden is in a bit of a mess at the moment as we haven’t been able to go out there as much as we would have liked to of late. There’s a still a couple of things that make us smile though. This morning we saw this cosmos (above), peeking through the broken paving slabs at the back of the pond after our “throw them everywhere” sowing experiments earlier this year.
The echinacea we got from B&Q (above) is still making a stand and hopefully if it don’t rot off over the winter due to the heavy soil here we’ve get more next year and the calendula (below) which was sown by the same method is great too. Do send us your end of season pictures (to one deck pete at gee mail dot com) and we’ll post them up.
A view from north London
Cheers to Debby H for getting out in the garden and taking some pictures for us now things are coming to a close but you wouldn’t think it with these photographs though.
Above are the cosmos that are still flowering and looking great and below are some cosmos deadheads which’ll be used for seeds. Debby told us you don’t even need to break the seed heads up that much, just put them as they come in a seed tray in the spring. We have to deadhead ours actually, before it starts getting wet and the chance of things going mouldy on us.
Below “The sedum is now looking very pretty” she said and she’s right. It’s a nice plant and seems to do well in UK gardens. It loves full sun and can even tolerate a bit of shade and the bees and pollinators seem to love it.
Below, “Interestingly, one of the dwarf sunflowers that we thought was dead has grown three flowers where there was previously only one.” Brilliant stuff Debby! We look forward to more photos and thanks as ever for sending them on.
From the remains of the ancient city of Lidl
Thanks to our good friend Gerry Hectic who let us know about these cheap bulb packs above that are available in Lidl* now. We like the crocus called “King of the striped” but there are quite a few different packs available. We can’t remember how much they were, as we’ve chucked the receipt out, but we are sure they were around the £3 mark each which is a bit of a bargain. When it was sunnier today we filled a few pots with them and will keep our fingers crossed. Anyone else know any more garden bargains that are about now as we feel a trip to B&Q coming on before the weather gets rubbish.
*Other discount supermarket chains are available.
And as if by supermarket magic we tapped Lidl into Bandcamp and the Lidl Museum of Ancient and Contemporary Art came up and it sounds very much up our street. This is what AI told us about the project:
The “Lidl Museum of Ancient and Contemporary Art” is not a physical museum but an experimental audio tour and cassette release from the Dublin-based collective The Ecliptical Newsletter, inspired by the Lidl supermarket on Aungier Street. The supermarket was built on a site with significant historical layers, including an 11th-century home, a medieval church, and an 18th-century theatre. The audio tour, which features artists like Acid Granny and Robbie Kitt, blends skits, essays on capitalism, and meditations on the site’s history and the company itself.”
More about the ancient ruins in the Aungier Street Lidl at 6.36 below.
For your Sunday listening pleasure
Here’s a wonderful tune found while looking for music for a forthcoming shortwave mix and again it is from the ever-wonderful Mississippi Records here. From the lovely cover of the LP with a beaming Alick Nkhata behind a radio mike in a room full of records, this tune Kalindawalo Ni Mfumu has a sort of a rock n roll feel, lovely harmonies with even a brass band (it sure sounds like it) and lovely tinkering of the ivories thrown in towards the end. This tune will not fail to make you smile!
A message from Crete
A big shout to Rich R who is on his holidays at the moment in Crete and found this rather nice flower called a sea daffodil (AKA white sand lily, amaryllis, lily of Knossos, beach saffron or beach crocus). It’s supposed to have a “pleasing, exotic and very subtle lily scent”. More about the plant here.
He also took some great pics of the sunset and the eclipse the other night (above and below). It looks like a magical place and “the beach we look out on is the actual one where Zorba the Greek (Anthony Quinn) did his dance”. Wow great stuff Rich, enjoy the rest of your holiday!
More from a north London garden
Cheers to Debby H for sending us some pictures of her garden in north London now that the summer is sadly coming to an end (how quick has this year been?) The first (above) is of the Zephyranthes Robusta (AKA Rain Lily). As she told us “These bulbs have flowered so many times this summer. We thought that we had seen the last for the year, but amazingly it has performed again!”, great to hear!
There’s also the Ornithogalum “The flowers have now grown. Unfortunately, one of them broke off, possibly due to the wind, but we still have 8 flowers.” Even though the picture is a little out of focus it gives us a good idea how they have done this year.
“Our sedum has flowered and is looking very pretty” above.
Debby also has a self-seeded ragwort (we think) which if it is, has a nice flower but has its problems as it is poisonous to horses and other livestock and causes minor skin irritations so it’s better to leave those gardening gloves on if you ever are wanting to pull one up.
Cheers for the update Debby, the garden is looking great!
September’s weather has come in August
We’ve got some time off work for a week now and typically there’s a good bit of rain on the way. It’s good for the garden (as it’s parched), the pond (water levels are low) but not for us (lounging around in the sun doing nothing is fun, can’t lounge around in the rain!)
The garden is going to go wild with all this rain and of course mixed with a bit of sun that may come out from behind the clouds this week. Above is a reminder of what plants in the sunshine look like just in case you have forgotten. This is the salvia we got from B&Q a few weeks ago and it’s loving where it is.
Weeds up to me knees 