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Post by cheerypeabrain on Sept 7, 2011 14:41:15 GMT
Yessir Mr Cactus sir... ;D
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Post by mickthecactus on Sept 7, 2011 14:50:25 GMT
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Feb 19, 2012 2:41:08 GMT
Yesterday I spent a happy couple of hours in the conservatory. The strelitzia bud continues to enlarge and flatten...oOOooo. I've put the mother-in-law's-tongue in there to see if it will flower too. I repotted a small jade plant and a streptocarpus....swept up and moved all the cacti and succulents around. Some of them are sitting in heated propagators for now...until I need the propagators for this year's seeds....
Unfortunately I had to get rid of a geranium maderense as it was thick with greenfly despite my spraying with dilute soap and wiping off the critters with a paintbrush...there are just too many of the dratted things...I will just have to start again.....
It waspouring with rain all morning so I couldn't get into the garden...I have lots of tidying to do out there...altho I like to leave it until the last minute so that little animals and beneficial insects hide in the old foliage over winter....Maybe next month...
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Mar 11, 2012 19:21:15 GMT
I've been in the garden most of the day today, digging and weeding...tidying up the perennials ready to let the new growth come through. It's given me a chance to see what plants have succumbed to the winter...I've lost the geranium maderense despite wrapping, and my veronicastrum...but lots of other things are waking up. It always gives me a thrill to see new growth in the spring.
I've sown lots of seeds and have already pricked out some cosmos, schizanthus, sweet peppers and tomatoes into individual pots. This next few weeks will be really busy in the greenhouse and garden. It's really a wonderful time of year. I plan to grow lots of food plants too....tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers in the greenhouse, mini pumpkins, courgettes, onions and shallots in the vegetable patch...potatoes in a huge old water tank and a couple of very large pots....peas and beans in the border...chillies in pots...carrots in big boxes. I have new raspberry canes for autumn fruiting, blueberries for summer and strawberries all summer long....I'm sooooo excited!
and we're thinking about getting a few chickens..... ;D
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 12, 2012 5:10:56 GMT
Chickens?! You all are really homesteading. It sounds wonderful, but lots of work. So imaginative!
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Mar 13, 2012 18:58:13 GMT
The chickens are a thing for the future.....a project for if OH can't get a job when he's recovered. He will build the coup himself...I am in two minds as I really worry about the birds wrecking the garden.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 15, 2012 21:14:02 GMT
The chickens are a thing for the future.....a project for if OH can't get a job when he's recovered. He will build the coup himself...I am in two minds as I really worry about the birds wrecking the garden. Unless you are able to keep them confined to a pen Cheery,or,regularly get their wings clipped,they will wreck your garden. I just stopped off at my friends house to clean up,rake,sweep, all the mulch from her flower beds that her neighbors chickens scratched out onto the street and clip the plants they broke the stems of,rooted up all her new poppy seedlings and goodness knows what else. This was on my way home from an all day long garden job,and when I saw the mess,I was so pissed off...GRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!! I do get free eggs out of the deal supposedly,whenever I can catch up with the owner who is in a rock and roll band ::)and sleeps all day .... more GRRRRRR!!!!!!!! This is ongoing btw,not just an every once in a while occurrence.
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Post by fumobici on Mar 15, 2012 21:50:04 GMT
I second the garden destroying properties of loose running chickens. Our neighbors got two to have eggs and decided they shouldn't be penned. They did enormous damage to our yard in the few weeks before we convinced the neighbors to find other arrangements for them. If it happened again I'd probably just use them for dinner and pretend I didn't know what happened to them.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Apr 29, 2012 19:55:09 GMT
Might put off getting the chickens indefinitely then...I liked the idea of it. It's the Hippie in me.... Our garden is coming along now, altho it's been raining so much lately that I've had to put any gardening chores on hold. Also work's been pretty heavy...I did a 66 hour week a while back and not much less this week. wallflowers the alpine sink has some fresh gravel on top...the thrift is flowering nicely and soon the thymes wll spread and flower too Planted up my hanging basket but it's too cold to go out yet...the petunias don't seem to mind tho...
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Apr 29, 2012 19:59:53 GMT
Clematis still in flower Dicentra and euphorbia Apple blossom The usual chaos...the weather seems to have checked the growth of the seedling though...
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Post by bixaorellana on May 14, 2012 20:30:37 GMT
Belated drooling on these scrumptious shots of your bit of paradise!
Cheery, who'll watch over things while you're in jury duty? Is it raining less there now?
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Post by cheerypeabrain on May 15, 2012 15:58:04 GMT
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Post by Deleted on May 15, 2012 17:40:18 GMT
The garden is coming along GREAT! I am always a big fan of ferns unrolling in the spring.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 15, 2012 20:49:54 GMT
It's an absolute fairytale of a garden, Cheery! I love your plant choices and combinations. What is that last plant? It's beautiful.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on May 15, 2012 21:01:48 GMT
It's a heuchera Bixa...not unlike 'kimono' but it's got slimmer leaves...I'll have to hunt out the label. I love this time of year when the teeny-tiny epimediums are in flower..they are so pretty...and there's new foliage exploding out of the ground all over the garden. The delphinium foliage is alreadt over 36" tall and the flowers haven't started forming yet! The alliums will be in flower soon as well...contented CPB
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Post by bixaorellana on May 20, 2012 4:12:18 GMT
The garden just kind of makes everything else okay, doesn't it? I was looking at the pictures again. That second epimedium picture, the one with the gorgeous pinky-violet flowers -- what is that interesting acid-yellow plant behind it? Fabulous combination! Neglected to say before how totally wonderful that first pic in #71 is.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on May 25, 2012 12:41:48 GMT
Thanks Bixa, the plant behind the epimedium is a euphorbia...one of the purpureas...it (and another euphorbia) has been in frower for weeks and weeks...sigh...lovely.
I've completed my jury service and as I was feeling rather battered emotionally I rang in work at lunchtime today..expecting to be dragged into work. My boss was very sympathetic and has given me the rest of the day off to recover...I have just clipped a box ball within an inch of it's life!it's baking hot out there now... but I may get to spend a bit of time in the garden when it cools down this evening.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 11, 2012 19:46:20 GMT
"Cools down"? I'm trying to remember how the weather was at that time in May, since people are still putting on their heat in Paris right now with the dreadful weather. I took the bus to work this morning and I appreciated the fact that the driver had the heat on full blast. Is this really mid-June?
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Jun 11, 2012 19:53:22 GMT
In the brief respite in the rain I took a few pics.... ;D astrantia and ferns... Primula capitata mooreana Pyrethrum Lupins vegetable patch... Potatoes blueberries strawberries
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Jun 11, 2012 20:00:56 GMT
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Post by lugg on Jun 11, 2012 20:01:26 GMT
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Jun 11, 2012 20:02:53 GMT
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Jun 11, 2012 20:09:13 GMT
Thanks Lugg... Trombocino is a climbing courgette....
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Jun 11, 2012 20:11:48 GMT
That's a lovely astrantia you have Lugg...I have a white one (somewhere!) but it isn't in flower yet.
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Post by mich64 on Jun 11, 2012 20:51:02 GMT
Cheery I love your purple collection!
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Post by Deleted on Jun 11, 2012 21:59:26 GMT
I feel I'm watching an episode of Sherlock with the words popping up all over. ;D
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Jun 12, 2012 16:59:00 GMT
;D
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 12, 2012 17:38:29 GMT
Geeez, CPB ~~ you truly surpassed your own already splendiferous thread! This is just drop-dead lovely. Love the pics with the labels right on the plants. (how do you get them to stay there in all that rain? ) What's that nifty blue thing in the middle of the garden -- a watering device? Adore all your close-ups, but the fern ~~ oooooooo, the fern!
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Jun 12, 2012 18:27:44 GMT
Wutt?
There's a rotary washing line (the aluminium thing in the middle of the paving)...a lead covered concrete pillar that we use to mount our telescopes on...OH made a sort of hat to cover the equitorial mount...and by the GH we have two water butts....water drains from the greenhouse roof into those...
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Jun 12, 2012 18:30:10 GMT
.....and thanks for the kind comments...it is a small space but it's a nice place to be when I've been busy at work.
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