The Mock Turtle

Dics that is a fabulous transformation!

Hippy your garden is lovely.

In my eternal quest to find easy long flowering plants that won’t die straight away, I’ve bought another salvia because they seem to grow well, another anemone , the last one died but I think it was planted in the wrong place, and a hardy perennial that looks similar to a salvia. All to fill gaps from when things died when it was -5° in the winter.

Mountain Goat wrote: ↑Wed Jun 07, 2023 12:41 pm You've done an amazing transformation, Dics. How long did it take you? And how much of it were your wrists in traction? I am really putting mine through the mill.

It was back breaking. I literally put my back out and was in a codeine fog for weeks. Well the lawn is 50 feet long so the first side took me several weeks of digging out all the spaghetti-like ground elder roots, picking out the common celandine knobbly nodes and then trying to make it even by stomping all over it, the I did the grass seed.

The other side I started the digging but put my back out when I was about halfway through so I had to stop for that season. The following year I paid a man to do it with a rotavator and he levelled it properly, then I sowed seeds.

That was 55 years worth of ground elder, ivy, bluebells and common celandine and onion weed I have mostly eradicated.

I made borders over time because I didn't have any plants or much spare funds to buy so gradually I've added things but even up until last year some borders still looked very sparse. R's mum gives me lots of things from her garden so it's really starting to fill out now, look a bit mature and established.

seriously. You deserve all the sunny cocktails forever for taking all that on.

Bloody hell Dics, you absolutely do. That's a real achievement.

That is an AMAZING transformation Docs. I remember when you first started on the ground elder.

Thank you!

Believe me, Del, I was tempted to have a cocktail this afternoon but then I remembered I only drink once a week so I made a cup of tea instead and planted out dill and courgette seedlings. I also found the pigeons haven't eaten all of my brassicas so I have a few tiny ones in my vegetable patch, which I weeded, and one sole broad bean.

I have just done my evening tour, and I have one (open) courgette flower!

How exciting! Is it a male flower?

How lovely disco! You can tell the work that’s gone into it.

I was surprised by how quickly my buddlea grew so hopefully it comes along quickly Del!

I’ve just been out thinning radishes and checking on some other plants. I lost a few seedlings in the shed in the heat recently so will plant out a few more directly now I have some cloches spare.

Our first blackberries are coming and I need to net them. You can see the rocket and salad leaves in the dome.

Looking good, Wendy! We are water butt twins.

I like big butts, and I cannot lie.

You've done a cracking job, disco.

I can report back on my copper pan scourer slug guards! They work! I have them round each dahlia, with no other slug protection! All 16ish dahlias are fine!

That's good to know!

I#ve got crushed egg shell and razor clam shells all over my strawberry patch which I'm hoping will do the trick although I might get some copper things because I want to make strawberry jam.

I have strulch around my dahlias and zinnias, and no slug damage so far (well, since I put it down) though I'm not sure we've had many slugs about anyway.

It's a female courgette flower! I had to google as it's a long time since I grew courgettes and I had forgotten about this, it looks like it's unusual to get a female flower first? There are about seven tiny courgettes on the plant (with tiny flower buds not yet open). I bought it as a young plant on a whim from the garden centre when we went to buy manure, I didn't grow it from seed. It's the sort of garden centre that's good for manure and plant pots, not so good for plants, so I wasn't expecting much.

I have now planted four of my five little bush tomato plants, the last one will go in a pot indoors ( I am running an experiment on different locations) and I ran out of pre-work time to do that.

Yes usually male flowers first of all. Will you use the flowers too?

I’m also experimenting with locations. I’ve dotted edibles in amongst normal plants in my borders. I loved a garden in Bristol that was like this. My vegetable patch is in a lot of shade and under a conifer so the needles drop all over the soil and I haven’t made amendments to cover it.

I will, although just having one flower is a bit limiting, I won't be setting up a stuffing and deep frying situation for that. But I will stir through pasta or similar.

I've done it that way previously, this is the first time I've had a raised bed/specific veg patch, and I do have some edibles in the border (herbs) where they need shade. Lots of edibles are beautiful, I think. Cavolo nero I love as an ornamental (also to eat) though that's where it gets annoying if you need to net it. I grew nasturtiums and tomatoes up my black sambucas (when it was smaller), so after its lost its own flowers it got this beautiful display of borrowed orange and red against its black leaves. It didn't always quite work but when it did it was very pleasing.

I grew a clematis up my mock orange blossom but it died.

I tried to grow a lovely bronze grass and crocosmia next to the black sambucus to contrast colour wise but had to move them as the elder grows so big.

I cut my elder back every year; what do other people do ?

I desperately hacked at it each year to try to get it under control; it was enormous by the time we moved and I couldn't reach to prune it effectively, so I didn't do a good job. Do you cut yours right back?

I cut it down to shoulder height ish every year and then right back every few years. It grows so quickly it’s always a decent size again come summer.