Garden Fund

I shall tell you about hubbies plan for a 'Garden Fund' in between keeping you updated with pics from the garden!!


Beginning planting out

Now we know hubby is being made redundant and if he does not get another job we will have to live on his pension.


This is a leaf of the 'Tandara Red'. This is such a huge banana that I am keeping it in a pot, this year.

So he informed me the other day we will have to have a gardening fund!!!


from the side

Eek! thinks I, who is used to popping out and buying bags of compost, grow bags, plants etc when ever I fancy.


Paulownia tomentosa (Foxglove Tree) you can practically see this growing!

How on earth do you start planning how much to save for a garden fund?


Ensete Maurelli

I'm sure if he allowed me £100 a month I'd spend it, easily.


Brugmansia Grand Marnier, just beginning to flower.

So how much is enough?


Healthy looking Strelitzia Mandelas Gold

Already I have used 3 bags of multi purpose compost, 3 bags of Miracle grow water retention stuff and 3 grow bags and I still need more.


Treated exactly the same, an unhealthy Strelitzia

I need at least another 4 grow bags


Bamboo, going nuts

and probably another 6 multi-purpose compost!


Caster oil, badly hit over winter but coming back well!

Then of course when we pop out to the garden centres do the coffee and cakes come out of the gardening fund?


A Hibiscus I have had for years and neglected badly, but it keeps coming back!

Well I would say not, but I suspect he would say they do?


Bromeliads, which survived the winter in my greenhouse

I am trying to work out, roughly what I spend each year,


Banana pup

but I'm not sure I want to, I might scare myselfand have to tell him


Magnificent hosta, which I will split later this year!

I wonder if it will cover the garden shows I have started going to?


A New tree fern planted inside an old one.

I'm not sure I am going to enjoy living on a pension!


Which looks good from a distance.

But that of course is between you and me!!

May update!

In the greenhouse one of my Bird of Paradise (Strelitzia) seems fine



the other seems curly and does not seem to have the leathery feel of the other one, wonder what I'm doing wrong?



One of my Brugmansias is coming into flower, it is the yellow one that always seems to flower first and puts on the most amazing display!



Since I potted up the bananas and started to water and feed them they have really taken off. Although I lost a few over winter, I thought I had done well, but since potting them up I have lost another one :o( you can just see it, third pot along in the middle!



I love the colour of this one, but as you can see it is abit curly, I think this is whats known as the strangles and if I recall this one did the same thing last year, it was suggested I threw it away but I persevered and when it got really bad I lopped it off part way down the trunk and it grew fine after that!!



This is my new banana which will replace the ones that did not survive this last winter.



I need to decide whether is should go here, by the pond



or here on the patio



I think I will plant it on the patio, although I loved the one down by the pond it really was beginning to spread and I could see it taking over this bed and even puncturing the liner in the pond!

So now I have to decide what to put in there instead! In the meantime we get to enjoy the Solomons Seal, another spreader, which I usually have to cut back because it gets covered in caterpillars!



The gunnera is coming along slowly, and this was definitely one plant I expected to lose. It is currently growing out of one side of its mound so I'm wondering whether its size has saved it!



Since the lawn man came there has been a vast improvement in my patch of what was moss. I still have quite a few bare patches but nothing a little seed can't fix!



Looking back up the garden we see the veg beds and the bee garden, we had a frost last night, quite a bad one hence the bits of fleece everywhere!



The bay bush has definitely had it. This is going to be a job and a half to get out, but it will eventually give me a new route off the patio, so we can't see right to the very bottom of the garden, hopefully!



The trachy always amazes me, the big fan has opened in the last couple of weeks and there are 2 more coming up, one bigger than the other.



The tree fern appears to be dead and the cost of replacing it is a bit high, but I have a plan, I have bought 2 smaller ones and will clear out the gunge in the top and pop one in each of the dead ones, clever huh!



This bamboo has really taken off this year, I should find it a bigger pot, I am debating on whether to ask my neighbour for the old bath that she has lying at the bottom of her garden doing nothing, semi sink it and plant the bamboo in that then it can spread and fill that to its hearts content!



Finally, my friend managed to miss being in any of the pics of the garden, so I thought I would show you this. The rayburn is still lit and this is his favourite place to sleep and his favourite position too!

Darcy Spoilt? Never!

Mum has been staying for the last 2 weeks so I have been unable to do too much on the computer.
The garden is coming along and I should hopefully do some work there tomorrow and get some pics to update you.
In the meantime, I'm sorry to say more Darcy pics!!

Does he get spoilt? Of course not, but he likes to help..........

Mum enjoyed his company!



Assisting K with her assignment...



T on her computer



He likes his home comforts too, when the Rayburn is lit this is his favourite place and favourite position! Yes he is sound asleep!



He detests the rain and refuses to go out in it



so we bought him a coat!!!

He is not spoilt honest!!!