Time on my hands!!??

Since my relapse, I have spent a lot of time just sitting as I don't even have the energy to move. Apart from being bored out of my brain, I play brain games, silly games, watch Netflix and all the rubbish on there. I read lots of gardening magazines, well read isn't quite what I do as my brain gets in a jumble with words, so I look at pictures. Then occasionally I wander down my garden, take pictures and plan!!!

PLAN!!

I hadn't 'planned' to change anything, but as you wander and sit in different parts of the garden you think, well I do. This is also very dangerous.
Since we took the palm out I have been thinking about this area, it has never quite worked out as I had hoped it would.

I put a lot of my potted plants on here.

Which as you can see are getting quite big, a bit too big for the green house. The Brugmasias have now gone, the large Cycas I have planted out, the large fern Cyathea Cooperi I just chop back the pop in the corner of the greenhouse for winter, it will get to the stage where it will get too big but until then this is one I will hang on to.

They also require a fair amount of watering which I don't like to do too often.

So I thought ........... 'what  can I do here' and it came to me , quite obvious really when you look at the first picture and now the palm has gone, the gravel and slabs are going and I am going to have one big flower bed. Well hardy tropical bed actually. Not right out to the path but about 8 inches away from it.

Then I will have the joy of planting it up. I have a couple of plants in pots which can go in here. I do have a lovely water feature ball pool which is run on a solar pump, which I will have to rehome, I would like to keep it but may have to jig things around to fit it in.

So there it is, The Plan, when it will occur I have no idea, it may even change, but that is the joy of a plan.

Brahea Armata, dead? Well maybe not!

My eldest daughter was over today to help me in the garden now I have no energy to do anything due to the M.E.

She was going to dig out the 'dead' Brahea Armata which looked a lot worse than this picture. I forgot to take a before picture, but basically it was totally brown.

I knew I hadn't done anything so was wondering what had been going on. The plan was to dig it out, pop it in a pot, somewhere warm and out of the way and monitor it. So out it came, a little too easily for a plant that had been in the ground since 2015.

The roots had not really expanded from the size of the pot I got it in. which was a little surprising, that was until we looked closer and found.....

It was in a smaller pot which had been inside the roots of the pot I bought it in. No wonder it hadn't been growing!
So we managed to remove this pot and reveal some really healthy roots and it is now potted up and a nice big pot and sitting in the garden in a warm spot where it will stay for a few years i the hope it will come back.

These are renowned for sulking after repotting so patience will be my watch word!!! Well we will see, as I don't have a lot of it!!!

Very Full Greenhouse.

Even though I started the Ensete off in March, the pot stored ones have definitely got away faster but the dry stored ones are proving to be challenging.

I have loads and loads of seedlings, I have restricted how many I sew but  still have loads so  do sell them or give them away.

That will be my hanging basket, the one at this end of the shelf is going to my mums.

The Ricinus have all come up, well not all, Blue Giant yet again failed me this year, same as last. Disappointed as I got fresh seed as well.

This Agave has not done well, think it might go in the bin!!

A few more cactus on the shelf.

These are my Dahlias, Salvias, Lobelia Tupa plus one or 2 others all outside as space is limited.

I dug up some of my Pink China elephants ears just in case, now I have loads as the garden ones have overwintered well.

It has been a struggle as the doctor has confirmed my M.E (Chronic fatigue syndrome) is back. I am very frustrated as I/we have no idea why? What set it off, especially after doing all that walking last year, thats when I would have expected it to rear its ugly head.
Anyway, I have to relearn 'pacing myself', I was never very good at this so it will be a challenge.

Last weekend one of my small, easy jobs to do, was to fit the solar water pump. I bought it years ago at a garden show, I had planned to use it on the tomatoes in the greenhouse, but never got round to it so it has sat in the shed, in its box.

Anyway the solar unit is fixed to the wall,

the line runs into the large water butt, then is pumped out

along the tubes

to my 3 tree ferns.

Seems to be working well, should have set it up years ago! It will be interesting to see how it goes.

So all is good, except for the Hiniba pups!!! They are really trying my patience, having come through the winter so well, these last couple of months has caused problems, the extremes of temp are causing one or two problems, from the cold to the sudden hot days, they are not as good as they could be or I had hoped.

Time will tell!