Wednesday 31 August 2016

Endless London summer – EOMV 2016

It’s the last day of August, the last day of summer and autumn is officially starting tomorrow – but here in London the summer is far from over. We have had the best summer for years, once it finally got going, and the reminiscences of the unusually cold spring and early part of the summer is now a bleak memory. The good weather started on 16th July and today, nearly 7 weeks later I can look back on several short heatwaves with well over 30 degrees and the rest has been in the mid to high 20s. Last week we had 34 degrees a couple of days and for me that’s a bit too high, I am happier in the garden with around 25 degrees C. Despite having had some rain forecasted a couple of times we have only had proper rain once and it was a welcome 24 hours of rain – but that was back in July. Everything is really dry and the ghost of mildew is hovering over my garden, threatening to invade. So far I have managed to stay clear but all the watering is taking its toll. I wouldn’t mind 3-4 days of non-stop rain....

....but that’s not going to happen yet because the good weather is just continuing. The forecast says one afternoon with showers the next 2 weeks, but…promises, promises....I’ll believe it when I see it. We have had forecasts like that many times and usually end up with 5 minutes of a light drizzle. Hardly useful at all for the garden so I guess I will be watering Saturday evening as usual.

The garden is still green and full of flowers, but all the trees are a bit sad and droopy and the big cherry trees are already getting the odd yellow leaves because of the dry weather.

My plum tree looks like some sort of weeping kind of tree, a bit difficult to see in this photo with full sunshine but I just could not manage to get a photo taken without blazing sunshine. The plumtree is so full of plums it must have 3 times as much fruit as last year! I should have thinned out the plums, but I was recovering from my slipped disks in June and July when I should have done this and I never got around doing it afterwards. Some of the branches has broken and will need to come off once the fruit is off, but I am not so worried about it – I am still considering getting rid of the tree and I am dithering about what to do. The tree really is too big for that space and I have to squeeze past it to get to the plants behind it and especially when the branches are bent downwards in the summer the whole tree is just a nuisance. I can’t eat plums anyway (although I have tasted a few even though I really shouldn’t!), so the fruit is just being given away to anyone willing to take it. I will think about it for next year. Perhaps I will just have it taken out and put another obelisk with a nice climber there instead.

Some of the plants in my garden haven’t been so happy about the prolonged period of sunny dry weather, but this Lewisia cotyledon has been flowering for ages, I have had it for about 5 years and I can’t remember it flowering for 3 months solid ever before. Many years ago I had a peach coloured Lewisia which I think is a more common colour, but I love this white one, such a cheery little plant right at the front of my rose bed.

The roses should have been in their second flush right now, but although all of them are flowering it is a bit sparse. I have probably not given them enough water, especially those in the ground and I have seen signs here and there of mildew. The organic spray I use for mildew isn’t terribly effective, the best way to prevent mildew is to give them enough water. But I find all the watering hard work and I am determined to get a soaker hose down in all the flowerbeds during the winter, ready for next summer. I will still need to water the containers but it will save a lot of work. This is 'Scepter'd Isle – still beautiful albeit not as plentiful as earlier in the summer.

And this is 'Wildeve'. Both of these two roses have grown incredibly big since being planted in the ground last winter. They lived a container life in my previous garden and they have never been able to stretch their roots like they can now. They probably like the clay soil here better than most of the plants too so with a bit more water they should have really good conditions.

This is 'The Generous Gardener' - and I must admit I am struggling a bit with what to do with this rose – it grows like MAD! There aren’t that many flowers, but every time I look at it there is another new, waist high cane. I am trying to train it up the wall and along the trellis and was aiming for a fan shaped base structure. But this gardener seems to have other plans, generous plans. It is just a mess at the moment and I am letting it do its own thing for now.

Come January I will take charge though and be ruthless, cutting down and training and try to get a structure. I say ‘try’ with some trepidation as my goodness how this rose grows. If it could just use all that energy to produce flowers instead then it could be amazing as the flowers are lovely, even the new buds are really pretty.

The last of the roses today is a bit of a surprise flower. It is another rose I inherited with the garden and I had decided to remove this one as it is in a very narrow bed, half growing under the tall hardy fuchsia. I just haven’t had anyone to dig it out for me yet so up until now I have just removed every branch it produced. And suddenly last week I realised I had missed one branch and the rose had managed to grow a 5 ft tall branch inside the fuchsia that I had not even seen – with flowers on. And here are the flowers – really pretty. I think I will try to salvage the rose and move it out to the front garden. Sometimes the garden takes charge and makes the decisions for you if you are a bit late getting things done :-)

Want to see something exciting? My Fuchsia boliviana ‘Alba’ is flowering – and producing fruit! I can’t wait for my first harvest, I have no idea what they will taste like but I have read they taste a bit like kiwis, just not as sweet. The fruits of Fuchsia boliviana are apparently in sale everywhere in markets in South America, but they don’t store very well so that’s probably why we don’t see them in the supermarkets here.

The sunflowers are basking in the sun, I have 5 along the tall wall, but the sunflower to the far right is either a wrong seed in the bag I bought, or it suffers from gigantism – it is a monster! One of my garden helpers had to climb a stepladder and extend the bamboo stake to support it as I was worried it would break. I measured it today and it was 3.56m tall, but only last Saturday it was 3.32m tall so it grows fast. It hasn’t started flowering yet so by the time it stops reaching for the skies it will be much taller.

The sunflowers are a nice burnt orange and yellow, really gorgeous. There’s something about sunflowers that makes me smile whenever I look at them.

A few harvest photos – the plums first – some are already picked and some are weeks away from being ripe, a plumtree needs to be picked every few days and sifting through the plums to get the ripe ones is a bit of a chore. Next weekend I have invited people around to come and pick what they want - saving me from having to pick lots of fallen fruit from the ground.

The tomatoes are still going strong, I have lots in the freezer and I have given away several bags already. I like roasted tomatoes and they are also good to just pop into soups and omelettes – once they have been frozen they don’t look like a fresh tomato anymore but can be used to lots of different things.

Some of the tomatoes come with their own personality, like this one with a distinctive nose.

And I grow only cherry tomatoes, but this one to the left was apparently aspiring to be something bigger than that.

I have grown Lobelia cardinalis 'Queen Victoria' for many years, the red one to the left, it has now got company by a princess – the pink one to the right is called Lobelia x speciosa 'Russian Princess' and although they are totally clashing in colour I think they look good together.

Here are some other newcomers, I am trying Echinacea again, for the umpteen time. But here in my new garden they should be happier, more sun and drier conditions. Fingers crossed they will come back next year. This is Echinacea purpurea 'Magnus' and ‘White Swan’.

Yet another newcomer, Malva sylvestris 'Mystic Merlin' – a perennial plant currently in a pot but it will join the queue of plants that will be planted hopefully during the winter and early spring.

This gerbera is no newcomer, I bought the plant for £1 in Ikea in 2002 or 2003 and it has lived outdoors ever since. It usually flowers from autumn right through the winter until late spring but this year it has decided to do the sensible thing and flower in the summer. Perhaps getting a new, bigger pot for the first time in almost 10 years helped it to get its act together. Or maybe the gerbera will flower non-stop until next year, I have no idea – I don’t get to enjoy the flowers much because the local squirrel population has worked up an appetite for the flowers and they break them off and eat the whole lot as soon as they open up leaving me with just crumbs on the side. Having two whole flowers at the same time is a rare treat.

The cannas in my tropical corner are doing remarkably well, I bought them as bare-root last February and this is the first year they are flowering. I am amazed at how they flower, I didn’t really know that they would produce new flower buds over and over from the same stalk. As soon as one is finished, the next one is ready to take over as you can see in the photo to the left. On the top photo you can see the two plants together, quite sizeable by now, and to the left of the cannas, on the ground is my absolutely huge Zantedeschia aethiopica.

I gave the Zantedeschia a really big container this spring and deliberately made the drainage holes rather small. The container is huge, big enough to bath a small child in and every evening I give the plant a bath – I fill up the container with water until it reaches the rim. I just lay the hose between the leaves and leave it to go and do something else. It takes a good 5 minutes to fill up the container and I do this every time I water the garden – most evenings. The Zantedeschia loves it and is lush and green and has been producing flowers since early June. Look at the size of that flower!

The dahlias are in full flower, they would probably prefer to be given bigger containers so that’s the aim for them all, in my garden there won’t be any dahlias in the ground, only container dahlias as the soil is not suitable. This is ‘Happy Days’ in a mix of colours.

Do you remember my Dregea sinensis, the vine I had over the big arch in my previous garden? I have a new one! It is still a baby, but I have now got it planted in the ground and it will grow up this fence. I need to get a trellis soon!

The woodland bed is lacking a bit in the flower department, I need to get some early autumn flowers for this area, everything is just shades of green here. Later on there will be primulas and cyclamens here, but in my garden the cyclamens doesn’t start to flower until around November when it gets cooler and wetter. The bare patch at the front had 3 lovely tricyrtis from my previous garden, none of them came up, I don’t really know why as the soil here is not too bad. Maybe the pH is so high they just gave up, or maybe it was too dry. I miss the tricyrtis, they are so lovely late in the autumn.

And here is a photo of what’s meeting me every day when I come out in the garden – this is what the squirrels do to my pots and containers. The rose here can tolerate a bit of digging, but some of my plants have been killed by all the destruction and in my cutting area there is complete havoc every day with uprooted plants and compost everywhere. Apart from destroying a lot of things, the squirrels create a lot of work for me. Did you know that squirrels were originally brought over to the country in 1876 in the Cheshire area by the Victorians, it is thought that they were introduced because the Victorians wanted to liven up the woodland and make it more interesting to look at. They were completely unaware of the destruction they can cause and their negative effect on the native red squirrel. Say no more......

But the birds are a joy and I so appreciate being able to sit and watch them. I never thought I would have so much entertainment from having birds in the garden, and although I tried to feed the birds in my previous garden I never succeeded getting them down in the garden, they just flew over. Here in my new garden they are right next to me and they seem to get more used to me too, I am allowed to film them outside now, I don’t have to stand in the kitchen anymore and do it through the window. Even the sparrows allow me to come quite close to film and take photos which they didn’t do last year. The pigeons are literally walking between my legs, not scared at all.

I have made two movies for today’s post, one is my usual garden movie and one is of the birds in the garden. The bird movie is centred around one of the bird feeders and the day I was filming it was mainly sparrows visiting, although I see the odd blue tit and great tit still too. I suspect there will be more of them in the winter again. Well, I say birds on the feeder, but one of the visitors to the feeder in the movie is definitely no bird, you’ll see....

If you don’t usually view my movies in full screen you should probably take the trouble to do so today for both the movies, just use the buttons in the bottom right corner - and please change the setting to 720p or 1080p as the quality will be too grainy unless you watch them in HD.



The music for this movie was: Slow Waltz from the Suite 'Fancy Dress' by Cecil Armstrong Gibbs

The second movie is my usual end of month movie, and in the middle of the movie I have included some night shots from the garden. I so wish I had a really expensive camera so I could show you all the night lighting I have, but my little camcorder was not up for the task. I was however able to film some of the lights I have, and I also filmed my chimenea which features in the film.

If you are not sure what a chimenea is, here is a photo of it, the metal burner in the corner here. It usually stands here when not in use, but I can pull it out when I want to use it and I think it gives a really nice ambience and it is rather mesmerising to sit and watch the flames.
The chimenea can be used with charcoal or wood and with such fuel it can also be used as a barbeque, but I usually use biofuel as I don’t cook on it, I just use it for a cosy fire.



The music was: The Banks of Green Willow by by George Butterworth

That was it for today, next post will be on the 15th September for the Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day. I am linking today’s post to Helen at The Patient Gardener’s Weblog for End of Month View.
Until next time, take care.

40 comments:

  1. Hello Helen! Wonderful catching up on your lovely garden. It's amazing how quickly it has grown in and I love that you always have "plans!" We must have had a garden-friendly winter in Quebec because my garden has never come back as enthusiastically as it did this Spring. If I was nearby I would gladly relieve you of some of your delicious-looking plums! Happy autumn :)

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    1. Nice to see you back here Rosemary, I haven’t been around to everyone lately either as there are too many blogs to visit and too much to do in the garden. Our winters and summers are different every year and it is anybody’s guess what we will get next, this summer has been amazing and we are still having wonderful weather, 27 degrees (80 F) today :-)
      Happy autumn to you too!

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  2. Hello Helene... As always I have enjoyed your garden views and your videos. I am so glad you have had a long summer,and can enjoy sitting out in your paradise. I would love to see some of the fruit from your fushia when you get some, the flowers are amazing. Are you not bothered by all the bird seed that gets dropped into your garden.. maybe you feed them different seed than what I get here. I use a wild bird seed, and found the seed dropped sprouting up weeds or wild flowers I didn't want so I moved the bird feeder station. I loved the light you have that changes colour very fascinating..Thank you.. enjoy your Autumn months..

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    1. Thanks Ruth, I will post photos of the fuchsia fruit when they are a bit bigger, and I will try my best to describe the taste too! I used to feed the birds with a mix that grew up everywhere and it was so much work to keep it at bay. But I have changed to a non-sprouting seed mix and it doesn’t sprout at all so no problem. I also use sunflower hearts, which doesn’t spout and I use peanuts in the winter. I hope the weather is warming up nicely for you, enjoy your spring :-)

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  3. Dear Helen, I'm amazed! Your canna Indica is simply gorgeous. I would really like to buy one, but I'm afraid of how it would cope with the frost and snow during the winter.I don't live in a particularly cold area, it's rarely freezing.Do you put yours inside during the winter or let it stay out all winter long, maybe with some protection?
    I think you could plant some anemones Honorine Jobert in your woodland area. Mine get very little sun under the cherry tree and they are marvellous in this period. Your garden is always a source of pleasure and inspiration to me. Thank you for sharing its wonderful pictures.

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    1. I had my cannas in the shed through last winter, it is unheated but won’t get any frost. The cannas didn’t die down properly last autumn so I was a bit worried they would not get enough light through the little window in my shed, but it went OK. This winter I will probably leave them outside for longer and only take them inside for the few nights when we have a threat of frost. We rarely have frost too, and only just barely below zero when we have it.
      As for anemones, I actually have 2 already for my Japanese bed, 'September Charm' and ‘Whirlwind’ – they are still in pots like everything else in the Japanese bed as I haven’t even started on work there. I have moved the pots over to the Woodland bed for now so it can ‘borrow’ the plants now that they are in flower, maybe I will have some both places. But ideally I would have liked to have that corner for tricyrtis, it is perfect in terms of light, but possibly not the soil. If I can get some help to dig up the soil and incorporate lots of leaf mould and compost a new bath might stand a chance.
      Good luck on growing cannas, they are great, just be prepared for a lot of watering :-)

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  4. As always, I am amazed and made quite envious by your garden. What a wonderful space. I was quite interested to see that you have the same insect house that I have in my garden. Mine is presently being utilized by bees, which makes me happy.

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    1. Funny you have the same insect house, I bought mine from Amazon :-) I have been thinking of getting a few more and cover that fence with them, maybe make a homemade one from an old bookshelf and place it up against the fence. So many plans, so much to do!

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  5. Hei Helene!

    Spennende fuchsia du har! Jeg hadde en lignende da jeg hadde fuchsiadilla for noen år siden. Synes de er så fine, men det er så mye jobb med de når en ikke kan ha de ute. De får spinnmidd og lus inne om vinteren :(
    Jeg antar at de overlever ute hos deg?
    Så fin video med fuglene i hagen din!

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    1. Hei Marit, Fuchsia boliviana er ikke hardy her hos meg så den har vært i skuret mitt om vinteren, men vinteren her er jo ganske kort, bare 2 måneder ofte, og så kanskje noen netter inn og ut av skuret før og etter det hvis temperaturen faller ned mot null. Noen vintre har vi ikke kuldegrader i det hele tatt :-)

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  6. Your garden looks marvelous, hard to believe it is just the beginning of even better things to come.

    Lovely weather predicted for you. We're also expecting excellent gardening weather for the next week at least. Happy gardening, Helene.

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    1. I suppose a garden is never finished – I have never had a finished garden at least and I have had many! But after 16 months here I feel the garden has taken a big leap forward the last couple of months and if I can just get some help to plant some more this coming winter (only 3-400 pots left….) then the garden would look even better next summer - and watering the garden would be so much easier!
      We still have amazing weather and it is set to last for the next few weeks.

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  7. I'm glad you got a spell of warmer weather at last. Your garden looks wonderful as usual! Your roses are scrumptious and your tomatoes look very tasty. My favorite part of your film this month were the images of the bee on the coneflower - I've never come close to getting close-up photos that good. Best wishes for a bit more rain for you. We can't expect any for a couple of months yet but at least we're going to have pleasant temperatures over our upcoming holiday weekend.

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    1. We have had more than 2 months of nice weather and it is just going on and on, the next 2 weeks is also set to be amazing for this time of year. It means a lot of watering but it is a small price to pay. As for filming insects – they are more challenging than filming flowers yes, I find that the best thing is to park myself on a stool in front of a plant I know is frequently visited and just start filming. If I wait until they land and then start to film I will be too late. I can always edit afterwards and cut away the long bits where nothing happens.

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  8. Your canna and Dahlias are really awesome. They are growing so healthy.

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    1. Thanks Endah, my cannas have been a great delight this summer and I would like a few more in different colours.

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  9. Your garden is looking great. I especially love the fuchsia. I was surprised though that you thought that summer was so good. According to our weather station from data collected over the last six years August temperature has been average Mainly due to,'mild' nights and rainfall has been above average. You must have experienced the city factor.

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    1. It seems like London and the South East has been very lucky with the weather this summer, we have hardly had any rain at all, so little that I wish we could have 3-4 days of solid rain! Some of the forecasts have been for an afternoon or morning of rain, but when the day arrives we get a couple of hours of light drizzle which is of no good to anything. The temperature has not dipped below 20 since middle of July and won’t for the next 2 weeks either, compare that with last year! We are expecting 27 C later today and for the next 2 weeks there is one day of rain and one morning of showers on the forecast – if it turns up that is, I often see forecast like this and by the time we get to the day, they have changed it again with no rain. Yes, it has definitely been a good summer here, once summer finally got going after the miserably cold spring :-)

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  10. Hej Helene!
    Trevligt att få följa med på en trädgårdsvandring. Det är så mycket som ser frodigt och fint ut. Är imponerad av din tomatskörd, jag har inte fått så mycket trots att de är i ett växthus.
    Hoppas på en fin september. Ha det fint /Marika

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    1. Hei Marika, jeg tror nok den fine sommeren vi har hatt har hjuplet på tomathøsten min, men jeg har vanligvis suksess med mine cherry tomater. Jeg har fortsatt masse tomater igjen og kommer nok til å ha til slutten av september. Håper det fine været hos oss blåser over til dere også, er nydelig her i dag med 27 grader ventet i ettermiddag. Ha en fin dag!

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  11. Your zantedeschia looks fabulous HELENE. Thank you for your helpful comments today about its cultivation on my own blog post about the same plant!

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    1. Thank you Roger, my zantedeschia has been flowering for 4 months thanks to the nice warm weather, but now it’s all over for this year.

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  12. Hello Helene,
    your photopraphs and videos have gladdened my heart like as in other previous posts. At least some garden seem to be in order and look harmonious if the mine does not...Regarding enormous plum harvest I don't know why your are not allowed to eat plums but what about magiun? It has got heat treatment, no added sugar and the whole process is so simple and easy in comparison to any jams and marmelades. And you need large amounts :-)... Take care and I wish you (and me) some rain! Helena

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    1. Hello Helena, I had to look up magiun as I had not heard about it, I am afraid it would probably be just as bad for my stomach as any other type of plum jam – but if you read my post for today you will see what I ended up doing with the rest of the plums :-)

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  13. Dear Helene, I was very surprised to see that your Lewisia cotyledon looks suspiciously similar to a plant that I bought a few months ago and that I lost the label of. Mine is also flowering white and I like it quite a bit.
    Love your 'Scepter'd Isle' rose and also 'Wildeve'. Sounds like your 'The Generous Gardener' is growing like some of the David Austin roses do here in America: Long octopus canes and not too many flowers. I am curious to see how this rose will do for you in the future.
    I love your coral colored Cannas and the white Calla is amazing. I also have some white flowering Callas in my garden, but they look awful right now. It was simply too hot for them this summer and I couldn't water them enough.
    Anyways, hope your autumn will be as lovely as the summer has been!
    Warm regards,
    Christina

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    1. Hello Christina, I hope that my roses is just taking advantage of finally having their roots in soil rather than growing in containers – and hopefully that’s the reason why they grow like mad this summer. After I have cut them down in January I will be more vigilant with cutting off new shoots at the ground and not let them just do their own thing, hopefully I will get more roses. That’s the plan anyway! The heat is over, we went from 30 degrees yesterday to 16 degrees today, what a difference! Autumn is here, I can finally get some work done in the garden. Hope you have a lovely time in the garden too :-)

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  14. Helene... I have just been looking at your post "Moving House" 2015.What a transformation of your garden I now see. You have done heaps and heaps of work there and You have made it look so beautiful to what it was. And oh.. eek, all those aphids horrible creatures. Lovely, I hope you had lots of help..

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    1. Hello Ruth, thanks for looking back at the transformation the last 16 months, yes it has been a lot of work and I have been out here pottering every day I have been able to. I have had a bit of help but mostly it is just me on my own and I am not exactly Speedy Gonzales around the garden so it will take a long time to get everything sorted – and potted. I still got over 500 plants in pots and containers….Hope you are getting nice and warm weather your way soon!

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  15. Big thanks for sharing the joy .loved the birds in your beautiful garden.
    Your August garden is far amazing then my small one

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    1. Thank you, and welcome to my blog! I post twice a month and I hope you come back for today’s post.

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  16. Helene, wonderful that the rose had managed to grow a tall branch inside the fuchsia bush, it's interestingly! Lovely tomatoes and it's healthy to eat them raw as much as you can, I try doing the same, love them with sour cream. I think your neighbors will be thankful to you having plums from your garden.
    I've watched your videos and this one about birds is cute and about your August garden is lovely, especially night lights and sunflowers.

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    1. Thank you Nadezda, I am still harvesting tomatoes, it has been a great summer for tomatoes here and I have had way too many even for my freezer to cope with. I am eating tomatoes every day and will miss my own when I have to buy them again.

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  17. I loved watching your videos Helene, your August garden looks so lush and full grown. I know, but when I should not know that you only live here one year, I should think this garden was already there for years. Can understand your doubts about the plumtree, in spring the blossom is beautiful but only for a while. You cannot eat the plums yourself, so I should suggest to cut the tree in winter so that you have more space for a standard with climbing roses or something else.
    I also so enjoyed to see the squirrel on the birdfeeder, I know they are often a nuisance in your country, but for us they are fun because we don't have them in our gardens.
    Here we have another beautiful sunny late summer week and I suppose you have the same wonderful weather, we can be glad.

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    1. Thanks Janneke, I am thinking about cutting down the plumtree and putting something more in keeping with the Japanese theme – this is the Japanese Bed after all :-) I have been looking for something suitable, something tall and slim, but I haven’t found anything yet. I would love a little pagoda, but they are too expensive and all the ones I have seen are way too big, bigger than the plumtree. Maybe I will just end up with another obelisk like I have in the rose bed. But yes, I think the plumtree will have to go, it is too big and too difficult to move around. I assume you got the rain and thunder we had last night – a lot of disruption here, but I was happy for the rain for my garden.

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  18. Those plums look really yummy Helene. I do like your Lewisia cotyledon, we tried without success on a number of occasions to grow this plant in Aberdeen. Wild Eve in our garden has also grown very tall this year, I think it could be trained as a short climber.

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    1. Yes, I have also wondered if I should train Wildeve, instead of staking it as I don’t really like the sight of all the stakes – even though I use green bamboo for it. That means moving it over to the wall though so I’ll see how it fares for another year. I have killed two Lewisia cotyledon in the past, I think they got too much water during the winter, now I placed it together with the aeoniums along the wall of the house during the winter months to reduce the rain they get, seems to do the trick.

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  19. Wow, Helene, your garden is really coming into its own! The Fuchsia boliviana ‘Alba’ is fabulous, and I learned something. I had no idea fuchsias produced edible fruit. The small ones I have grown in my garden have barely survived and certainly produced no fruit. I also am amazed at the size of your Zantedeschia. I like your idea of growing it in a pot with a small drainage hole, so you can make sure it gets the moisture it loves. I am going to try this!

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    1. When I re-potted my Zantedeschia the last time, I gave it a really big plastic container (50 cm wide and tall) and although I have many drainage holes in the bottom, they are quite small. I used a drill bit size 6mm. In the bottom of the container there is a 2 inch layer of horticultural gravel, then a good layer of 50/50 gravel and compost and then the plant was put in normal compost. I did this to ensure the compost would not get stagnant with all the water and it seems to have worked, it doesn’t smell and the plant is lusher, greener and healthier than ever – and has flowered for longer than ever before, but that can be more down to the warm weather we have had. The only problem with a pot like this is that it weighs a ton – I filled it in situ and can’t move it without help. It will have to stay there now :-)

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  20. English roses, bright perennials, luscious tomatoes. Your end of August garden is stunning, Helene. Can not believe it's so young. I'm doing a rain dance for you. P. x

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    1. Thank you Pam – I wonder if maybe the rain dance has helped – we finally got rain over night – and quite a lot too.

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