April in Your Garden - Page 16

Lovely up here today.

Koalagirl wrote (see)

There was such a nice pink sunset last night that I was fooled into thinking it may be OK today.

I saw it too, it was beautiful and the first this year!

How does that happen, you go to bed with a dry day forecast and a long list of jobs and you get up and they have changed the forecst to match the weather.

Wintersong your garden is very tidy, mine is currently looking a little windswept.

I did a slug run last night, got loads f them plus 5 cutworms, not sure my lupins will survive if it keeps raining.

Mm-they got today wrong-I had plans for this morning outside as well.

The tension is building-there is a lot of red and white to be seen already

@Kate1123, talking of slugs and snails...not sure if it's my imagination or what, but I am observing a general indifference to the pellets I'm using (best on the market!) This morning's peruse around my patch caught me seven snails in my Sisyrinchium and a massive fat slug in my Phormium all of which were living quite happily next to the poisonous pellets! I always try to scatter them right inside susceptible plants so as to keep them away from foraging birds etc.

Anyone else making similar observations?

Wintersong I have to admit that slugs are not normally a huge problem for me, it is so dry here, this april has been a bit of a shock. I have had success with my beer traps and I do like a slug run at night.

Geoff I do not expect them to get forecasting right on a 3 month basis but overnight seems a little simpler. I'm forever blowing bubbles.

This is going to carry on for the next 36 hours-when I checked this morning Wednesday was looking good now it says showers-on the positive side the rain will be warmer after Sunday.

Wintersong are you using the blue pellets or the the wildlife friendly ones-I confess still to be using the blue ones.

I am not keen on using slug pellets unless I really have to - well- something was lurking in my greenhouse on the shelf somewhere. It munched 4 tomato plants leaving just the stalk,enjoyed 3 Celeriac seedlings then for pudding 6 Ageratum seedlings

I searched every tray and nook and cranny but couldn't find the culprit so resorted to putting some slug pellets around. Next morning there was the huuugest big black slug dead! They are very good at hiding aren't they!!!!

Barry is itching to get back down the allotment to put his potatoes and seeds in

Pam x

@Sotongeoff, yes I'm using the blue ones. As I said, I try to limit them to deep under foliage or right in the depths of things like Phormium and Sisyrinchium where I've never seen a bird plunder. (I also believe..think...remember reading somewhere maybe...that they are specifically coloured blue to stop birds and wild mammals eating them). This does not include pet dogs. 

Once the rain stops......I'll make up a Garlic solution to use the rest of the season, I'm trying very very hard to be organic as possible with piles of grit on susceptible plants, although I guess I could try harder with those late night slug hunts.

Maybe I just expect too much this year? My garden is the fullest its ever been this year and I wonder that for every plant I buy or propagate, I must expect an increase in SS population.

sotongeoff wrote (see)

Mm-they got today wrong-I had plans for this morning outside as well.

The tension is building-there is a lot of red and white to be seen already

Congratulations Geoff . Are you going to be out on the street tooting your car horn etc 

(from a Leeds fan )

PS: They got the weather forecast wrong here as well!!

A happy day in Southampton even if it is raining, party at Geoffs

I have maltesers and chocolate marzipan

-but cannot afford the petrol for car horn tooting

Good morning, everyone-looking rather grey out there at just after 6 am---the plan today is to buy a new wheelbarrow, and to put the netting up around my tomato bed to keep the deer out.Finger still swollen, but not painful-thanks for your concern.

Here I live in the slug capital of the world--the native ones are the banana slugs, which are huge--but we also have a non-native invasion of black ones. The ones that do the most damage, though are the little grey ones. They are most active in my garden now, as it's wet, green and lush. In the summer its too dry.I dispatch any large ones I find, but mostly I leave it to the birds.

@wintersong-this damp weather is ideal for slug/snails that is the problem and of course the pellets get dissolved in the rain-when it dries up-(it will-keep the faith) normal balance will be resumed but at the moment all this lush new growth is like steak and chips for the slimy ones.

The war continues

No gardening for me today though I did plan some for this pm.  Possum and I went to dog training this morning and came home with a new playmate for Rasta.  He's a 2 yr old Labrador who has never been outside and knows no commands nor other dogs nor other humans apart from his recently deceased owner.  He ended up with our dog trainer who has taught him to pee outside and now we have the soppiest dog going -  keen to be cuddled and to play and to listen and he and Rasta have been romping all over the garden for 3 hours straight.  Exhausted now, all of us. 

Still raining here

Banana slugs yuk.

Obelixx he sounds lovely, name?

I decided to get on with raking out dead thatch from the lawn and over seeding a few bare areas. It is one of the few jobs in the garden that I consider to be rainy day jobs.

The only other useful thing that I have done is to plan the next two sculptures for the garden.

Eddie do you plan your sculptures then look for wood or does the wood inspire you?

@obelixx, that lab sounds adorable and must feel as though he has a new lease of life! My deceased 13yr lab was a handful for the first two years, needing a lot of walking and training, I can only imagine how stir crazy the dog must have felt trapped indoors! They never get past adolescence in my opinion, my Phar still lved to nuzzle his teddy bears with a beard and grey paws!

 He had to be put down with a heart condition in 2010. Still sorely missed and a great big soppy mutt.

Best of luck and enjoyment for the bouncy new playmate!

kate1123 wrote (see)

Eddie do you plan your sculptures then look for wood or does the wood inspire you?

It's a bit of a mix of both. I'm currently very keen on using wood that I just pick up from the side of the road with no real idea in mind. Usually I will spot an aspect of the grain in the wood, or a particular knot, and an idea will develop. I guess that the shape prior to working the piece of wood also forms many a theme.

Very often I will start with one idea, and end up with something completely different.

The piece that I did this week was a prime example, as the layout changed from the initial concept. Oddly I often don't like what I produce and it takes a while for me to accept things. Again the piece this week was just such an example. It was very much a rushed piece and felt almost as though I was just churning it out. Two days on and I now look at it and really like it.

I now like it enough that when I looked out of the window this morning, I was instantly hit with an idea of what to make next. I'm going to make two more identical pieces, but with differing height levels. One tall, one medium and one small. Then in a plant fashion, I shall set them out into a group of three, almost though they are coming out of the ground. So I guess that in this case, nature and garden planting has given me the idea.

This one will be the medium size piece.

I don't ever look at what other people have created, and to be honest don't even know the names of any other sculptors. I sometimes get ideas from ornaments in peoples homes or from items found on Google images, then adapt them to suit an idea.

This is a prime example.

I really love the flow and sweeping curves, and whilst I haven't made anything like it yet, one day I shall create something that echoes it.

I also love technically difficult pieces that are very symmetrical in shape. I often need to tax my brain to keep focused, and a piece such as the totem pole is a prime example. I have long forgotten how long that it took me, but every cut was marked and cut by hand with no power tools used. I guess that it was approx 70-80hrs work in total and I only made two slight over cuts in the whole piece. Luckily I was able to sand them both out.

And to show the scale and size of it, here it is with a mobile phone sitting on it.

I'm also a bit of a sucker when it comes to attention to detail and I've never been happy with anything that I have ever made, be it at work or with my hobby of sculpture. And finally, the one thing that holds me back is money and time, or rather the lack of both.

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