The roses against the SF and WF walls have their second flush in full bloom at the moment, the Sweet Peas are still going strong, the Geums are still hanging on in there, there are a few poppies dotted, the Phlox are still about - in fact, pretty much everything is still there to a lesser extent, though some are starting to look a little bit jaded. There is however another new dahlia on the block - well, the first bloom opened last week but eejit here forgot the camera, so here it is, taken this morning - it honestly looks better in real life !
Dead headed the Achillea, some more Lupins, the Scabious and the Astrantia.
Cut two branches off one of the cherry trees as although they were leafy at their extremities, both had long sections with no new growth at all. This also serves to make the tree a better, more balanced shape against the wall and frees up space for either a new climber or fruit tree or for the Ceanothus Skylark at the base of the bare space to be pulled up into.
I also finished digging out the last of the shrub rose roots which were left from last week. Whilst removing the last large chunk, I disturbed this chap but I'm not sure who got the bigger fright - anyway, he waddled off to find somewhere else to settle down, though he did look slightly pissed off about being uprooted !
On the veg front, I harvested the first of the Savoy cabbages - a conical variety called "Samantha" which look really nice, not too big and as I havealready harvested and eaten some of my own, I can vouch for them being tasty too. I also picked a heap of runner beans and cleared the broad beans out. I have saved about 50 pods of the Broadies for seed for next year as they are the Crimson Flowered heritage variety. The tomatoes are ripening slightly quicker now but it might be time for the rotten banana trick soon - hanging a couple of ripe bananas amongst the trusses helps promote ripening due to the ethylene gas given off as the banana starts to brown. The leeks and PSB are looking good though there are still a lot of flutterbies about so I'll leave the PSB under their netting for a week or so yet.
Took three cuttings from the productive redcurrant bush and these are now planted in situ where hopefully they will grow to be as good as their mom!
Sally came down to the garden and we talked raspberries and our initial decision is that the garden will have three rows, each about 5m long - an early variety, a mid season variety and possibly an autumn variety, though varieties have yet to be decided.
We also talked about what plants we would use to fill in the spaces vacated by the shrub roses when the time come for lifting and dividing clumps of perennials.
Up at the house I weeded the small borders along the front and lifted three geranium clumps that had outgrown their allotted space - these were taken down to the herbaceous borders in the walled garden and one was split further so we now have 4 new clumps of pink geraniums in the borders.
I also cut back a couple of rose bushes to allow the hips to be seen to their best advantage.
For those of you who have been with me for a while, you might recall that I sowed some paeony seeds (and some tree paeony seeds too) last year and these were just stuck outside the potting shed and left to either grow or not. Well, I checked them today and they all have tap roots forming - no guarantee that they will all make it to adulthood but if they do, we 'll have 20 paeonies and 7 tree paeonies to find home for.
Other than weeding round the entrance and the potting shed, that's about it for today but I'll leave you with one more photo of my potting shed resident tucking into a windfall apple that was left on the bench last week. Later..................................
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