Colour on Dull Days

I show a lot of my large leaved plants on my blog and I think my garden can appear to be very green, Over the years I have gradually introduced more colour.
I chuckle to myself when I think back to helping mum and dad in their garden. Dad being a seafarer really enjoyed working in the garden, he had a veg patch and grew lots of dahlias. In those days I hated dahlias they always seemed to be full of earwigs, so here we are at least 50 years further on and what am I growing.....

Lots of dahlias lol!

This group of dahlias is from Thompson and Morgan 'Harlequin Mix' they come as tiny plug plants which you bring on and then plant out.

I love the different colours and shapes,

not an earwig in sight..

some just simple and plain

others pretty and blowsy

 including pastel colours too

I have more in the rest of the garden that have not yet flowered, so I can show you those another time.

These have all been planted in the large trough down by the pond. I know it still seems pretty green, to be honest my camera doesn't do it justice, plus there are still loads of buds to bloom.

What it does do is disguise the fence and makes the seating area very 'cosy'.

I think the best is still to come.

At the very bottom of the garden I have a large trellis which I have sent a couple of clematis up. This helps hide the greenhouse.

These clematis have gone mad this year, absolutely smothering the trellis with masses of flowers.

I keep having to cut it back as it stretches to take over anything in its reach, whilst also trying to stop my neighbours Clematis Montana, planted on a small trellis from trespassing and taking over my trellis and my garden!

She 'my neighbour' also has a very vigorous Euphorbia which I am forever having to dig out of my beds as it tries to invade. Ironically it can hardly be seen her side, preferring mine!!! Not that I don't like Euphorbia just not in the beds it invades!!

Now Begonias!!! My mums favourite. I have never really liked them, its the flowers I don't like, but since I have planted them, they have flowered and flowered and flowered. So I now get why they are so popular, doesn't mean I like them.

The hanging basket is amazing, Begonia Apricot Shades  also from Thompson and Morgan. Stunning colours, simple to look after, I water daily, feed once a week and don't even really dead head. The window box is behind, as I ordered extra plants which failed to turn up due to unprecedented demand.

So would I order them again, unfortunately yes. You may laugh even though I don't like the flowers their colour right from day one has been amazing. 

There is an elderly lady in the village who has huge begonia displays year in, year out, they always look so good, no matter what the weather does.

Hubby went to buy a fish the other day and came back from the garden centre with this..

A hardy Hibiscus, the colour is stunning and it looks gorgeous on our patio. Now whether it is hardy or not in my garden we will see!

Now the tomatoes, in the Vivigrow,  well what can I say , they are growing... lots

The roots have gone mad and I have to top it up very regularly as the guzzle water. I think my only worry is how close the all are.

I have missed a few of the side shoots, so I have a couple which are huge and have tomatoes on, I never know at this stage whether to take them off or not, so currently the are still on!

See you next time x

#thompson&morgan  #harleqindahlias  #begoniaapricotshades #greenhousesensation #vivigrow 

Trying to keep busy!

I have been busy but I have had to do it slowly as I have Achilles tendinitis, it is bloomin painful, in fact it is the worst pain I have had in quite a few years and requires rest, gentle stretches and ice!! Apparently its quite common in 'middle aged women'  I said to the Doctor 'I am thrilled to still be classed as middle aged'!!!

So whats be going on here........

well the hydroponic system is doing well and as you  can see the roots are growing like crazy. What is being a problem are the PH tests I have to do, about twice a week. When I do the test it is always at the top end of alkaline, (7.6)so I add a half measure of 'downer' to get it down and this 'always' with out fail takes it down to acidic (6.0) so then I have to bail out some water and add tap water. After much too-ing and fro-ing I can usually get it to just about 7.2.
I did contact the company about this and they told me to do basically what it says on the instructions, but I haven't found this works. I have also found I must not add the 'full' dose of the 'downer' (yep thats what its called) as it will take me forever to get it balanced again.
So I am monitoring it and will contact them again, we obviously have strange water in Wiltshire!!

This is my front window box. my dad had it built on board ship at least 60 years ago, there were 2, they sat under the windows of the french doors of our lounge at our family home. When mum moved she took one but didn't want the other so I had it. Mums died, well collapsed actually,  I think because she put compost in the wooden box, I always use a plastic trough and sit that inside.
So it was that time of year when I always clean it and treat it, but I found the base was parting company from the rest of it. I was heart broken. Now I can do DIY but I really wanted someone who knew what they were doing to do this, so put a shout out on our village facebook page.

 Lo and behold a lovely man said he would have a look at it, so we took it round. After much discussion about what I wanted we left him to it.
This is what was returned, all fixed, new base and he reused as many of the solid brass screws that had held it together all these years. It is made of oak and now has many more years left in it.

Just need to plant it up now.

He even cleaned and oiled the old base and gave it back to me, it is such a beautiful piece of wood, I really need to find somewhere special to use it.

I just wanted to share a picture or two of my Paulowina's. I have 3, but 2 are up near the patio. I can't remember when I planted them but I have had them a number of years they amaze me every year.  As you will remember every year I pollard it, in the spring it starts budding in various places on the trunk. I usually wait till the frosts have passed until I decide which buds to keep and which to take off.
Well we have been really caught out this year by that really late frost we had, but, this last week I removed all but two of the buds and I just thought I would share with you a couple of pictures of just how fast they grow.

I showed you the picture above and below. back on the 15th May just after the bad frost.

The next 2 pictures where taken Monday 1st June.

The next few where today!! The first one is closest to the house and is relatively well protected.

I just cannot believe the size of these leaves already. Just love them.

This one is a little further down the patio, by next week I reckon it should have caught up.

All my seed planted plug plants have been planted out and it still amazes me that once in the ground the speed they grow.
I have also found a lot of self seeded plants popping up everywhere, this is quite exciting for me as this very rarely happens. So I have very carefully been transplanting them around the garden.

I am hoping this will be a good year. Next post will be about my new irrigation system I will be setting up. Which will be needed as for the first time ever at this time of year all and yes I mean ALL my water butts are empty!!!

Back soon.

Vivigrow Soil-Less Planting

I haven't grown tomatoes in years, something I have never been very successful at. Whilst in lock down I have Facetimed my sister loads. She is a big veg grower and told me about these tomatoes she had found, that if left on the plant 'self dry'.
I always like to try something new and bearing in mind I had sold/given all my tomato growing 'stuff' away it meant starting from scratch. The problem with my greenhouse is it is in a south facing garden and even with shading it gets extremely hot and no matter how much watering I do it never seems enough.
So I did a bit of research and came across a website Greenhouse Sensation where I found Hydroponic Planters. Hydroponics has always fascinated me and I was delighted to find a rather interesting piece of kit 'Vivigrow' and yes I went mad and bought a kit and a very large parcel arrived.

Inside was everything I needed, it all looked very scary. .

 I had to make up bottles A & B and I wrote on them so I didn't get them mixed up. Eventually during the set up I will have to add 3ml of bottle of A to the water and then 3ml of bottle B has to be added separately.

The all important pump.

So off I went to the greenhouse with the Vivigrow kit.

Apologies for the reflection in the above pic it was very sunny when I set this up.

The pump outlet, pumps water with added nutrients from the reservoir below to the growing area on top. The fun bit was getting the PH level correct.

I live in a very hard water area so it took a number of goes, the above is our water with only the nutrients added after an hour of running. The PH is supposed to be between 6.2 and 7.2.

Because it was way off and at the top of the scale I had to add the 'downer' and run again for another 1 hour and as you can see it went to the opposite end of the scale.

To achieve this I had to bail out about 1 litre of water from the reservoir and add 1 litre of tap water and we got there in the end.

So in went my tomato plants that I had potted up. Yes the whole plant soil and all went through the little hole to sit on the membrane and thats it. I have to check the reservoir to make sure it doesn't drop below the pump. Pump it out every 3-4 weeks and refresh the water going through the same PH checks. But being in a nardwater area I have to do regular PH checks.

The photo above and below was taken after just 2 days, you can see the roots stretching out to the membrane.

Its quite odd not going down all the time to water.

The photo above and below are on day 5. The roots are really going for it. I find it a bit creepy but fascinating as well.

The plants themselves are looking really good.

I have to rig up something called a 'yoyo' which is a string support for the plants. I will keep you posted on how my new hydroponics system goes and how the tomatoes grow.
Lots more to come as the great big plant out begins for me.