There is always something to be done in the garden these days. The never ending dead-heading and weeding, the chopping down and cutting back, re-positioning unhappy plants, potting on, sowing seeds and buying more plants. This last week I have been pruning (with some help from Harry) the deutzia, philadelphus and weigela, which have all finished flowering now. In the raised garden I have cut back some geraniums and dug some out that had outgrown their space. The violas had spread far too much too so they were hoiked out. Most of the foxgloves have finished flowering now and I have pulled a lot out but will save the seed from a couple to sprinkle where I would like the next lot to come up. I am thinking of just getting rid of all of the nettles along the side wall now as I had originally grown them for wildlife, and I have not seen a single nibble on them over the last six years so I think it is time for them to go – a job for Harry as I can’t reach them.
In the conservatory the cactus had five lovely big flower buds at first but the weight of two were too much and they fell off. I put them in a vase so I could still appreciate their wonderful scent. They only last a day or so which is such a shame.
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| 5 cactus buds ready to open |
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| only 3 flowers left on cactus |
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| 2 cactus flowers in a vase |
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| cactus flower side view |
At the moment I am loving the combination of the Heuchera ‘Rachel’ coming up beside the Spirea Japonica ‘White gold’. The spirea buds have a pink tinge to them which go so well with the pink flowers of the heuchera.
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| Spirea Japonica’ White gold’ and Heuchera ‘Rachel’ |
The moss roses are looking good just now too. Harry thought that they were covered in greenfly but it is just the kind of furry, mossy look that they have. I have found that if they get chopped quite low then they don’t get such a straggly look. They tend to behave more like a shrub rose. The other roses are doing ok but the ‘Munstead wood’ has some rust on it.
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| Moss rose ‘William Lobb’ |
I treated myself to some air plants during lockdown. Harry had given me some Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides) at Christmas which I split into two clumps and I have kept thinking about some of the other Tillandsias that might go well with them. I am keeping them upstairs which means that I had to get a grow light for them. The trouble with upstairs is that I need all the blinds and doors shut to keep out the summer sun, which means that any plants I have would have to cope with very low levels of light. The grow light I did buy has a few settings and I have chosen to use the pink light for 9 hours per day and see if they like that. I don’t actually like the look of this black light in front of the plants so I may try to find a way of clipping it to the side of the shelf but the lead is quite short.
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| Collection of Tillandsias and couple of ferns |
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| collection of Tillandsias and couple of ferns with pink grow light |
And lastly, here is a photo of a moth pupa I found nestled in the corner of a door in the conservatory. I did keep it until it hatched but alas I did not get a photo of the moth. It looked kind of khaki coloured and I looked through some moth charts but couldn’t identify it.
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| Moth pupa |
