Berghill

Unknown plants

And the frut of Chaenomeles IS edible. We are just witing for ours to be ripe to make our batch of Quince jelly.

Leucanthemum 'Broadway Lights'

We lost Broadway Lights too, the other Shasta daisies thrive here, but not that one.

Pruning Braeburn apple

Pruning now will encourage new growth. If you want to keep the tree in check then prune in Winter, back to 1 new bud from the origin of the ew growths.

Mystery Purchase- Beautiful..dusky maroon umbels

My Actaea have gone to fruit, so no flowers to see now, but that is definitely the spitting image of our "Joe Pye Weed" Eupatorium purpureum

mystery bulb

Scadoxus multiflorus.

Mystery Purchase- Beautiful..dusky maroon umbels

Yep, definitely looks like Eupatorium to me too.

Iris's and Gladioli

Just answered this above.

Talkback: How to divide iris rhizomes

Lots of questions there. First of all first year Irises do not need splitting up. Next year maybe, if the rhizomes are overcorwded. Resons for non-flowering are many, but take your pick from, 1 too young, 2 underfed and 3 lack of sunlight on the roots last Summer.

1 Wait.

2. Feed with Maxicrop about now and Tomato type food in early Spring.

3. Move to a sunnier place. Or if the rhizomes are overshadowed or facing the wrong direction, change that. They should always be planted sp that the rhizomes are exposed to as much sun  as possible.

Next, o;d flowering stems. Cut the stem itself off back to where it emerged from the leaves. Clean up and remove and dead or dying leaves and you can if the tips are going brownl cut of the tops of the leaves, but to no more than half their length. The plant needs them for food production.

Gladiolus bulbs may be left in ,if you are on a well drained sandy soil and they were planted deeply enough for frost not to reach the corms, otherwise dig up and store over winter for replanting in Spring.

Sedum

And just to add, Vine weevil adults eat cicular holes in the edges of the leaves, not in the middle like that.

Get Rid of your Lawns

Interesting to look at the history of the' lawn'. Partly (outside of the Monasteries) it was a statement of wealth. "Look at me I can afford to have this amount of land and NOT grow food on it. " Also until the invention of the lawn mower it was very labour intensive to keep it cut short.

I would love Mr. Flowerbum to come and remove two of our grassed areas and put them into cultivation. the top lawn has about an inch of soil over the big gravel used in road construction. You cannot get a fork into it anywhere to spike it even, never mind dig it up.  The other area is probably full of the remains of a tudor house and three Georgian properties which were bulldozed across the land in the 60's. Again where ever one puts in a fork, one hits brick. Since we have already removed over 30 tons of rubbish from the land, I think I will pass on removing them.

In some ways I agree. We did not have a lawn in our previous small garden as we used all the soil for growing things. And they certainly do consume a large amount of petrol just to keep them short.

Potato problem

Plant id

Photo size

Sheds

A mild annoyance

Helleborus x hybridus

Timber

Silene and Phlox roots

Anyone used this mower

An invitation to View June 2012

A few of our bulbs.