London plottings

lilies in flowerLa teigne.   Ringworms. Not mine, but the cat’s. So that’s solved. The elderly gent has to have his pills each day and hopefully will stop losing his hair and his sanity from the itching and scratching.   Don’t you just love all the gory details of pet infirmities?

I am a long way from the garden for a bit.   And marvelling at the rain that is falling here in London. If only I could pipe it over.

But I can’t do much about the fretting while I’m away. Instead I can get on with writing long lists of things to do when I get back, and indulge in a bit of what London does best. Shopping. hall way

stairwellHere are the bolts of fabric I have invested in for the guest house. There is a sort of garden theme, so they do belong here.   All I need to do is sew up the lengths, and buy some wooden rods to hang them on the huge walls.   Each piece of fabric is two metres long.

That should brighten things up.

chipping machineNow there is a small folder on my desktop with pictures that need to be added. A round up of things I managed to get done this month but omitted to write about.

For weeks now I have had a huge pile of sticks in the parking area that needed to be turned into mulch.   But it’s amazing how you can find so many ways to put off doing it.   It’s noisy and a bit fiddly, and I feared that my blades on the chipping machine (seen poking its way into the picture here, lime green) were a bit blunt. box balls mulched

Yep, they were. I had to change my plans and do only the thinnest of the sticks in the pile.   I had just enough to mulch around the box balls under the wisteria bed.   It’s a lovely look, and once I get the machine back from the sharpening shop (our local garden centre) I have promised and pledged to get the whole pile turned into natty chips.

mulched lavender in olivesI did however manage to do mulching of a different variety. One of the compost bins has yielded lovely mulch.   It needs lots of sieving to actually get compost rather than sticks and bits.   But I have decided to try and get as much around the plants as I can.

First up were the lavenders under the olive tree in front of the house.   It’s a way to try and keep back the invasive weeds and also mark out where the plants actually are.   I strimmed this bed and had to be very careful where I put my blade.

They won’t stay dark and moist for long.   More hot weather while I’ve been away, and who knows what I will find when I return. mulching

tomatoAnd this is also the reason why I needed to post my tomato pictures. Two weeks of neglect and I may go back to whithered sticks.   I had so many plants that I thought I would get some into the soil in the potager, but pot on the rest and try and look after them in the hot potting shed over the summer. tomatoes in

This only works if you can water.   So watch this space to see if there are any plants left.

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weeded potagerSo what else did I do last trip? I seem to recall endless weeding. The lower potager needed a great deal of work. Well, not as much as the first two years when I didn’t know which way to hold a hoe.   But I had to get the weeds out so I could get some seeds in. new carrot row

There were gaps in the beetroot and turnip and carrot beds.   They may take off, but if I can’t water daily (and who can?) then this might not be my stellar year for root vegetables.

The cosmos are flowering in their let’s pretend we are a hedge position.   But they are small. It will be more of the delicate vase variety I suspect than the exuberant bunches like last year.

winter jasmine plantedOh yes, and I planted more winter flowering jasmine from Leslie and Teo.   One of the plants I put in during spring is still happy and alive.   This is a risky spot to plant them as it’s the very edge of the hose length.   But if I remember to water when I am doing my rounds, these should surprise me with a bit of welcome colour in wintertuberoses in ground.

I also planted out everything that was in a pot: tuberoses which I actually just sunk into the ground in their pots as I haven’t settled on a final position for the wonderful bulbs.   And I planted out the culinary thyme that was also languishing for want of a spot.

new dawn roses tied inI love my little herb garden area. It’s one of my successes as the purple sage behaves so well and the salvia caradonna comes up without much fuss each year.   There is supposed to be a wall of New Dawn roses behind it. I just tied more of the plant in this past week.   But it hasn’t been a mad success. No scent to start with, and it’s all a bit spindly. But I Have Plans for this area next year, and may coax another climber to help out. current stock june

labels to placeThere you have it; up to date.   Here is a shot of my current stock that I hauled back on the train,  and a visual reminder of what I need to do when I return. Funnily enough it’s one of the things I haven’t put on my twenty bullet point to do list.