On 25/2/07 15:42, in article ,
"Peter Robinson" wrote:

Sacha wrote:

Sorry about the Rhodie, though.

It's still got a few flower buds, so there will be some at the proper
time, but at least two thirds were too eager and got frosted off.

We put that horticultural fleece over anything we're a bit worried about.
Touch wood, this year things haven't been bad at all in terms of cold.

I hope it's the latter, because I don't see how we can get one more
millilitre of rain onto the land!

I know I will be praying for rain before too long!

Good grief, where are you?! The water is running off the fields and down
the sides of our lanes as if they were stream beds. And yesterday we drove
up to Dulverton which is Exmoor way and acres and acres of land are under
water.

Sounds pretty dramatic! There's plenty of wetness around here (Herts)
too this weekend and half my back lawn has decided it would rather be a
pond for a few days. But it is the first time since January that it's
stopped me getting out at the weekend, so I can't complain too much. I
was thinking of May rather than next week when I said 'too long'.

Peter

Actually, my husband said something like that as we drove past all this
flooded land "Come July everyone will be complaining about drought"! ;-)

--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
http://www.discoverdartmoor.co.uk/
(remove weeds from address)

Sue wrote:

"Carol Hague" wrote
snip

Still not sure what to plant yet. There's a fair bit of mature ivy
coming over the wall, which I don't want to disturb as it's good
insect hiding territory.

You may also get wrens roosting and nesting in the ivy; they seem to
love a good old tangle of mature ivy as a nesting site.

For their sake I hope not - we have cats who would infortunately make
short work of any bird unwise enough to nest in our garden :-(

I need to unearth my gardening books from the spare room and look up
what plants will like the shde :-)

Ooh, hellebores. Definitely. Did anyone see CK on Gardeners' World last
night?

I have argutifolius and foetidus and a smokey plum coloured one with no
name, which are all doing well, but I covet that lovely lemon yellow one
she was planting.

Oh good idea - thank you. A nice white one to go near the back sounds
good (the soil is higher there - not quite the bank that CK recommends,
but close). I tend to favour white flowers a bit as my husband, who has
impaired sight can see them much better from the house.

Last month I was able to take over an allotment (complete with
shed) and am gleefully planning my fruit and veg growing thereon.

Happy allotmenteering.

Thank you!
--
Carol (near Derby)
"Never trust a man wearing leather shorts and a plastic dressing gown"
- Spray, "The Dangerous Sports Club"

Sacha wrote:

On 24/2/07 21:35, in article , "Carol
Hague" wrote:

My own honey bees attacked me when someone else was manipulating the hive
and I wasn't wearing the proper gear. I received so many stings that from
being a bit resistant to them I've gone to 'don't get stung - ever'.

Ouch! Poor you!

But
while I do avoid weeding certain flower borders when the bees are really
busy, on the whole I find the old thing of 'leave them alone and they'll
leave you alone' does work with them.

I suppose if a bee wants to sting you it has to be sure it's worth it,
since it's going to die if it does - wasps can afford to be the
aggressive little toerags they are because they don't have the same
constrant.

snip

My memory comes from the same stock, obviously! It does help to know where
people are when it comes to swapping gardening experiences. Friends of ours
have just moved to Matlock where his mother came from originally. Now you
mention that wossname that made small bits of earth for the garden, I
remember my grandfather had one of those. What were they FOR, I now ask
myself? To grade soil? To add compost and soil together? And do you
*ever* see anyone use one now? No, IME. I'm assuming that back in those
days before proprietary compost, they were used to make ordinary garden soil
very fine for the growing of seeds and seedlings.

I've actually used one myself not that long ago - in my last garden we
built some raised beds for growing veg in and couldn't afford huge
amounts of compost from the garden centre so we used the riddle (hurray,
I remembered!) to sieve garden soil and compost together to fill them.

We didn't really *need* to I suppose but it made planting much easier.


snip
I like ponds, but this one takes up a disproportionate amount of the
garden. It's staying though, cos I'm a total softy and couldn't bear to
evict the fish and their umpty dozen water snail pals.

Could you/would you alter the size of the pond, though?

I don't think so - not in the foreseeable future at least. It's such a
huge unwieldy thing that it would be a major project to undertake any
alterations. Maybe when I get the rest of the garden sorted....

snip

I imagine the trees are there to protect from stray cricket nballs as
much as for pretty. Not had any landing in the pond yet though.

I think those trees are a good idea!

Oh definitely. Makes it harder for Bill the Burglar to get close to the
house too. Besides which, I'm in favour of trees on general principles
:-) They're rather nice silver birches too, most of them. I really must
get some netting for the pond though to keep their leaves out of it in
the autumn.

Last time I watched a cricket match
the ball landed, very hard, on the bonnet of someone's rather expensive car.
Not a popular shot....

Ouch....

People often want to get rid of ivy but we have lots of its around this
house and garden and birds and insects really do benefit from it.

We've got a nice variegated one on the front of the house too (not much
in the way of a front garden, just a small narrow bed there).

I thought I was very lucky to get the allotment right away though - I
understand many places have quite long waiting lists.....

And, from reading allotment holders here, they are disappearing fast, too,
in some areas?

This particular one seems to be going strong still, touch wood, but you
do hear tales of woe from elsewhere. I'm looking forward to seeing the
Gardener's World programme about allotments on Friday.
--
Carol (near Derby)
"Never trust a man wearing leather shorts and a plastic dressing gown"
- Spray, "The Dangerous Sports Club"

Sacha wrote:

On 25/2/07 15:42, in article ,
"Peter Robinson" wrote:

Sacha wrote:

Sorry about the Rhodie, though.

It's still got a few flower buds, so there will be some at the proper
time, but at least two thirds were too eager and got frosted off.

We put that horticultural fleece over anything we're a bit worried about.
Touch wood, this year things haven't been bad at all in terms of cold.

I must be more organised about that sort of thing in the future.

Peter

On 25/2/07 19:10, in article ,
"Peter Robinson" wrote:

Sacha wrote:

On 25/2/07 15:42, in article ,
"Peter Robinson" wrote:

Sacha wrote:

Sorry about the Rhodie, though.

It's still got a few flower buds, so there will be some at the proper
time, but at least two thirds were too eager and got frosted off.

We put that horticultural fleece over anything we're a bit worried about.
Touch wood, this year things haven't been bad at all in terms of cold.

I must be more organised about that sort of thing in the future.

Peter

I wouldn't be if I didn't happen to be married to a nurseryman! But it's
good stuff and it works.

--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
http://www.discoverdartmoor.co.uk/
(remove weeds from address)

On 25/2/07 17:19, in article , "Carol
Hague" wrote:

Sacha wrote:

On 24/2/07 21:35, in article , "Carol
Hague" wrote:

My own honey bees attacked me when someone else was manipulating the hive
and I wasn't wearing the proper gear. I received so many stings that from
being a bit resistant to them I've gone to 'don't get stung - ever'.

Ouch! Poor you!

But
while I do avoid weeding certain flower borders when the bees are really
busy, on the whole I find the old thing of 'leave them alone and they'll
leave you alone' does work with them.

I suppose if a bee wants to sting you it has to be sure it's worth it,
since it's going to die if it does - wasps can afford to be the
aggressive little toerags they are because they don't have the same
constrant.

With bees, it seems to be a matter of self-sacrifice if they attack as mine
did, because obviously they thought someone was attacking their hive. I
remember once watching them after a wasp had got into the hive, searching
for honey to steal. Several bees mobbed it, stinging it to death and of
course, themselves dying in the process. It might be the same trigger when
an individual beer stings someone weeding a flower bed, perhaps the 'enemy'
reaction doesn't rely on numbers!

snip

My memory comes from the same stock, obviously! It does help to know where
people are when it comes to swapping gardening experiences. Friends of ours
have just moved to Matlock where his mother came from originally. Now you
mention that wossname that made small bits of earth for the garden, I
remember my grandfather had one of those. What were they FOR, I now ask
myself? To grade soil? To add compost and soil together? And do you
*ever* see anyone use one now? No, IME. I'm assuming that back in those
days before proprietary compost, they were used to make ordinary garden soil
very fine for the growing of seeds and seedlings.

I've actually used one myself not that long ago - in my last garden we
built some raised beds for growing veg in and couldn't afford huge
amounts of compost from the garden centre so we used the riddle (hurray,
I remembered!) to sieve garden soil and compost together to fill them.

We didn't really *need* to I suppose but it made planting much easier.

That must be what Grandpa was doing but that would be in my childhood when I
don't think you could buy compost in nice tidy plastic bags.


snip
I like ponds, but this one takes up a disproportionate amount of the
garden. It's staying though, cos I'm a total softy and couldn't bear to
evict the fish and their umpty dozen water snail pals.

Could you/would you alter the size of the pond, though?

I don't think so - not in the foreseeable future at least. It's such a
huge unwieldy thing that it would be a major project to undertake any
alterations. Maybe when I get the rest of the garden sorted....

You'll probably have got fond of it by then, or will have tkane u p breeding
koi. ;-)
snip

And, from reading allotment holders here, they are disappearing fast, too,
in some areas?

This particular one seems to be going strong still, touch wood, but you
do hear tales of woe from elsewhere. I'm looking forward to seeing the
Gardener's World programme about allotments on Friday.

Hope yours flourishes and produces good crops this year!

--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
http://www.discoverdartmoor.co.uk/
(remove weeds from address)