It’s still raining!

With the risk of repeating myself – it is still raining and it is a weeks since my last post where I was moaning a bit about the rain, although grateful enough that I didn’t have to water my parched garden, but enough is enough! Since Thursday the 5th April it has rained EVERY day. Not bucketing down all the time, and not all through the day, but we have had rain every day at some point either during the day, evening or night. And it is still raining.

Be careful what you wish for....

Here in London we have had the driest two winters on record, and after the snow we had in the first week of February it hardly rained a drop. Finally the government decided that we were to have water restrictions and a hosepipe ban introduced on the 5th April as our water storages are at the lowest on record. I am on a water meter and pay per litre for water I use, so I really hoped we would get some rain soon for my parched garden as the free stuff from above doesn’t come at any cost or any work at all.

Make your own Bonsai trees

The art of making Bonsai trees is truly a unique and special hobby, but oh so rewarding. Not for the impatient gardener though, as Bonsai trees grow veeeery slowly! Growing Bonsai is a Japanese art form using miniature trees grown in containers. Bonsai can be created from nearly any perennial woody-stemmed tree or shrub species that produces true branches and can be cultivated to remain small through pot confinement with crown and root pruning.

April bloomers

It is Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day over at Carol’s May Dreams Gardens, a whole month has passed since last time, where did it go? Here in London we have had all sorts of gardening weather, mainly dry and fine although cold, but the last week we have finally got a bit of the long awaited rain. Not enough to call off the hosepipe ban that was introduced on the 5th April though, rumours say we might be stuck with the water restrictions the whole summer.

Ooohhh, those squirrels!

Over the years I thought I had come to an understanding with the squirrels in the area, I let them come and go as they want to, and occasionally they saved their lunch for later by leaving their peanuts behind for harder times. It has worked perfectly for 10 years with minimal damage. I have even left a handful of peanuts for them from time to time when I have newly planted flowers, as a peace offering to save my plants. It has worked well – that is until this winter.

The Camellia makeover

Every winter I wait with eagerness for the grand lady of my garden to start flowering. Will she open her first flower before Christmas? Will I have to wait until April to see her first flowers?? In the 10 years I have lived at my house, the camellia has opened its first flower at any time between 20th December and 8th April, so it is anybody’s guess when it will happen – and I think it is more dependent on the weather and temperature of the winter as a whole, not just the last few weeks before it starts flowering. This year was a rather early start, with first flower opened at 19th February.

Sweet mice in my garden

Today we got five drops of rain here in East London, or something like that, just to tease us....and the hosepipe ban started today for 20 mill people in England. It’s going to be a long summer for everyone who has a garden or an allotment, trying to keep it alive. I am fortunate in that as a registered disabled and with a Blue Badge Parking Permit I am exempt from the hosepipe ban (and I promise to be careful with the water I use :-) ) but we might all feel the effect of the drought if this goes on for the whole summer. The farmers are already complaining about bone dry fields, if they don’t get weeks of rain soon it will affect harvest and subsequently the price of food for all of us. Yikes, we are still feeling the effect of the recession, and the food prices are sky high already....