The Giant Phormium has gone!

The phormium which has been in my garden since 2015 so not that long really, but boy had it grown.

last year it went mad and flowered and since then it has started to look a right mess. After much discussion between hubby and me, he wanted it to stay!  I wanted it gone. He agreed and did understand why it needed to come out, it did used to look beautiful and structural but since last year it seemed to be dieing from the middle out.

I was fortunate that a lady from a facebook group I'm in, offered to help remove it. She came with her partner today, I went inside to make a cuppa, came back out and her partner had got it out.

I could not believe it.  The roots where relatively shallow, I was surprised. Only once it was out did we realised just how much it dominated the garden.

Just a few roots to dig out and a bit of tidying up to do.

Then we need to decide what to do with this space.

I would like to plant something else in here but the problem is we have  Verticillium Wilt. Prior to planting the phormium I used to have a Catalpa bignoniodes (Indian Bean Tree) planted here, it was stunning. But one year it started to leaf curl and basically die. At the same time the neighbours hedge the other side of the fence started to die back too. This disease is in the soil and sadly cannot be removed or treated.

There is a massive list of plants you can't plant here but on the plus side there are a number of plants you can plant, this includes Bananas and bamboos. I have always wanted a bamboo but have always been too scared to plant one incase it escaped into the neighbours garden. Why I should worry when I battle plants that invade my garden from the neighbours I have no idea, maybe its because I'm a considerate gardener.

Watch this space!

My 1 Million Step Challenge

I have been a bit distracted of late, the reason being I am training!!! Don't laugh, this is serious. After our trip to Budapest when I did so much walking I thought maybe I can do this. So I found the 1 Million Step Challenge which I thought, 'yes I can do this' so signed up. Then read the details!!! The good bit is, its over 3 months 1st June - 30th September. By the time I have finished, providing I hit the step count I will have walked the equivalent of Dover to Edinburgh or 19 marathons!

So I have been trying to up my steps, a walk round the village is 6000 just about 3 miles and I don't do that on a daily basis.

10000 a day, every day for 3 months well who knows. I just hope my knees and hips hold out.

Due to the heat wave I was up at 5 am to walk in the cool, Darcy preferred it too.

To follow my journey and see how I do go here to donate click the link at the top on the right.

Another change!

I had planned to make the raised bed by the pond into another, look after itself, arid bed. But due to the neighbours hedge and lack of cutting of it, this has failed miserably due to the lack of sunlight.

So today I changed it, we dug out all the gravel and filled my 2 large troughs with it, transferring the soil back into this bed.

I planted it up, then they cut the hedge!!!! Typical, but I don't holdout much hope on this being a regular happening as their house is on the market and is most likely to sell to people out of area

due to the price, so I shouldn't imagine people coming for a weekend will be wanting to do gardening and they have a enormous garden.
Anyway I have planted cottage garden type plants here. I know a bit different to my normal, but we have more or less decided to make the bottom part very English. Mainly because this part of the garden can get very cold in winter.

This is the trough at the end of the arid bed, which has been sat doing nothing for a couple of years. Using the fence I should be able to construct a fairly good winter protection.

This is the trough at the top of the garden, I need to get more gravel but I have decided to put all my  aloe's in one place, when they start growing and sprouting I think they will look pretty magnificent. Again easy to sort out some type of protection over winter.

We went and bought some gravel and to cut costs we bought split bags,  will plant some of the smaller ground cover succulents in here as well, should look good when the have settled in.

Patience not me!

I am not a patient gardener, I think I am but I'm not.  How does this affect the garden well probably more than I think.

When I sew seeds or take cuttings, I am forever checking for root growth, thats why when plants/seeds do grow here they are very tough, becuase they have probably been popped out of there pots on numerous occasions.

The Hiniba are a prime example and could explain why only a few have grown instead of lots, serves me right really!

So can I really expect the tree ferns to be sending out new croziers bearing in mind I only blogged about it 5 days ago, I think not! I wonder if it is easy to learn patience (not the card game) I really ought to try harder.

I also change my mind a lot. A grand example here is my arid bed, July last year I plant two new cactus  Pachycereus pringlei and Trichocereus macrogonus, so they have a) survived the winter

b) look relatively happy.

So what do I do? Dig one up! to move it to make space for a new Agave!

it maybe small but I have high hopes,

this is what it 'could' be like. This is grown in the UK and more information about this Agave can be found here

Obviously if it gets this big, I will have to move more than one cactus, lol!

Meanwhile around the rest of the garden, plants I presumed where dead have come to life Colocasia Pink China, I had assumed had been frozen and rotted has poked through

As have 2 other Colocasia

another Pink China

In some way you hope the ones in the ground will survive, but what has totally stunned me is this

a pot on my patio that has had no winter protection whatsoever, was probably frozen through and yet look whats popped up, another Colocasia.
So how does a tiny little plant like this survive when a huge tree fern, that was protected doesn't?

That's gardening for you!

The Good and the bad!

Well the good is that one of my Hiniba's has successfully sprouted babies, not as many as I had hoped, but some are better than none.

Lots of good roots

So I have successfully separated them and will just bring them on a bit more before I sell them. Really chuffed to pieces about this.

The bad is both my tree ferns :( My big one I have had for over 10 years, it came through the bad winter of 2009/ 2010 fine, but its not looking good.

Although not a photo of my tree fern this was 2013, we had loads more snow.

compared to the winter just gone.

Normally at this time of year I have lots of green fronds unfurling and I thought I had the start of some

but they are black, which I found out is not good. I was told that I need to get theses out as they could be stopping the healthy fronds from growing.

So last night I went out and pulled, not so very hard on the black fronds, which came away rather too easily.

This is the pile from just one of the ferns, its not looking good....

There is nothing there............

why oh why didn't I give them additional protection? Oh! Hubby has just reminded me I did, I put a duvet and tarpaulin over them both.

What on earth am I going to replace them with? Now hubby is not in his high powered job I can't afford the £200 to replace the big one. Totally gutted!