Tag Archives: garlic mustard

My Patch – A Garden update: May 2019

Posted on by

May 1st – I potted on 25 lady’s bedstraw and 46 teasel, though there are many more left to do! I have moved some of the plants into the ‘potted plant display area’ and potted on the budleja; they are still quite small but are developing well. 


May 2nd – tonight I potted on another 32 teasel and tried to make more room in the glasshouse; I am rapidly running out of space! 

May 3rd – I finally finished potting on the teasel; another 68! which gives me a total of 215! I wasn’t expecting that many to germinate; good job I have a large field I can plant them in! I saw some down by the river last year, so when they are big enough I think I will start by planting them out there. I’m sure the birds that live there will appreciate them when they go to seed.

May 4th – I spent the whole day in the garden; I ‘weeded’ all pots and gravel on the right hand side of the garden; I was primarily pulling up herb robert, I did feel bad as it was in flower, although it was starting to take over much of the garden space 🙁  I moved a large thistle from the raised bed and put it out in the field hoping it will survive; in its place in the garden I have put the peony. I knew there were some old pots chucked in the field underneath the hedge so I took the opportunity to drag them out; I was expecting them to be broken but they are perfectly fine and full of compost!  I actually think they have been there that long the compost is actually leaves that have broken down.  They are now in the garden for me to use 🙂

I have moved some of the pots around and now have a ‘development’ area, this has all my plants which have been recently potted out and pots that are yet to be filled.  I have deadheaded all the daffodils and potted on 32 ox-eye daisy’s – I have run out space to pot on anymore at the moment!  Some of the sweet williams have been planted in the pot with a rose.  I did want to get them all planted out but I have decided that the pots at the front of the house which do not have holes in need to have internal pots to have some drainage so I have to wait until I can buy some.

The aquilegia has started to flower, I wasn’t expecting them to be white – I didn’t plant them so had no idea what colour they would be, I have never seen white ones before.  I am glad there are now some flowers starting to bloom for the insects.

May 5th – I went to buy more peat free compost today; there was one bag left and I was told they wouldn’t be getting anymore for another 3 weeks as its difficult to get hold of!  They said there might be more outside as they had compost in a few different areas; thankfully I found some.  I guess it is good that they had run out and that it is difficult to source as it indicates more people are using it.  However, its not great if being out of stock means it forces people to use peat instead – I would have had to have gone without! 

May 7th – I was going to pot on more of the ox-eye daisy’s today but I noticed the field marigolds had grown rapidly, I potted on all of them, which turned out to be 41 and then I decided to sow some more!  The intention was to have some as cut flowers (my friend often visits his mothers grave and I think she would like to know they have been grown in her garden).  Also I have not had a lot of luck with the rudbeckia, not many have germinated; last year I had quite a few in the garden and the bees loved them.  This year I do have more plants growing but I feel bad I have failed them with the rudbeckia, hopefully the borage will make up for it!  There are a few pots that go back and forth to the grave site and I had noticed that the skimmia japonica rubella hasn’t been looking too well.  I bought some larger plastic pots to pot them on (I don’t like buying plastic but to be put on a grave I thought they would be more appropriate).  The poor things were completely root bound!  I believe there are actually three plants in each pot and one of the pots is looking half dead!  I will watch it for a few weeks and may have to try and divide it up to remove the dying ones.  They do look much happier in their new pots though.  

May 8th – This evening I popped to The Range to buy pots, (again plastic ones :() to put in the pots with no holes for the sweet williams, I need to be able to lift it out if the weather is really wet so I can allow them to drain, unfortunately this means plastic.  I do plan on looking after all my pots and hope they last for many years to come, at least they weren’t black so hopefully at the end of their life they can be recycled.  I also bought two more terricotta pots as I remembered that I needed to pot on the hellebores!

May 9th – Today was planned in advance, I hate going to the dentist so I took the whole day off of work so I could turn a horrible day into a productive day.  The plan was to clear out more of the glasshouse to create more space for the plants.  I have to say it was a mess!

After about an hours worth of sorting and tidying there was a trailer full of broken items to go to the recycling centre and a lot more space in the glasshouse.  There is still more tidying to be done but it makes it workable for the rest of the summer and it can be thoroughly cleaned and sorted in the winter.  

I also potted out 4 more borage, potted on 111 ox-eye daisies (until I ran out of paper pots!) and made 80 more newspaper pots ready for next week.  I need to make some more though as I have more than 80 seedlings in the glasshouse!

May 13th – Potted out another 2 pots of sweet williams, I don’t think I will ever need to sow anymore seeds for them, I still have loads left!  I have been giving them away at work; hopefully I can give away a few more!  I was going to pot on the ox-eye daisies tonight but I noticed the perennial flax were growing rather fast so potted them on instead, I only have 9, as I didn’t collect many seeds; I only had one growing in the garden last year, it must have sprung up from a pack of wildflower seeds.  

May 14th – some of the plants need to be put into the raised bed so tonight I spent some time ‘weeding’ out all of the plants I know are going to take over, I didn’t get very far as there were so many of them 🙁

May 16th – I finished ‘weeding’ the rest of the raised bed and planted out 33 cornflowers 🙂 I didn’t put them all out at once as I wanted to see if the slugs were going to eat them or not first!  

May 17th – I’m pleased to report that the slugs left the cornflowers alone so hopefully next week I will be able to get the rest in.  The chive has started to flower 🙂

May 18th – I potted on 96 bird’s-foot trefoil; I have a lot more than I thought I had! 

May 20th – I didn’t have a lot of time in the garden tonight as I had to work late but I managed to tie in some of the jasmine that has started to sprout after it was cut back last year, and I started to sort out some pots to put some more of the borage in.  I feel really bad as they are still in tiny pots and not looking too well 🙁 I hope they will perk up once they have been transplanted.  I finally remember to take a photo of the Rhododendron which has started to flower 🙂

May 21st – I potted on 9 of the borage tonight; I still have a lot to go but 9 is a start.  I planted out 14 of the sunflowers, I am hoping the slugs and snails stay away from them this year; I have left the rest in reserve just in case the ones now in the garden get eaten! 

May 22nd – I don’t normally do very much to the front garden as it is generally left for the owners Dad to potter with; as he’s not been too well, tonight I have removed the herb robert from the window box, rescued the daffodil bulbs, refreshed the compost and then re-potted the bulbs and added some pansies that were being root bound in a pot as some ‘weeds’ had taken over.  It looks much better, but now I feel I need to ‘tidy up’ the rest of the space too 🙁 I just have too much to do in the back garden to worry about the front at the moment!  I finished potting on the last of the bird’s-foot trefoil – another 32; gardening by head torch isn’t as difficult as I thought it would be, at least it meant another task was ticked off the list!

Tiny strawberries have started to develop in the hanging basket 🙂

May 23rd – Tonight I managed to tie in some more of the Jasmine.  It has started to sprout more and is waving stems around in the wind, if I don’t keep it in check then it will probably get broken off so I have been doing my best to weave it back into the lattice or tie it to itself! I managed to plant out 20 cornflower and 15 teasels into the raised bed and potted on another 56 ox-eye daisy – I have way too many!

May 24th – Today I was busy potting on 131 red campion!  I also managed to ‘weed’ all of the pots and the raised bed.  Although I hate to say it, it looks a lot ‘tidier’ now, much more cared for.  I feel I can tidy every now and again as I will leave as much as I can for the wildlife.

May 25th – I have potted on 28 cornflowers, 27 rudbeckia, 35 love-in-a-mist, 35 zinna, 29 mariglods, 45 common fleabane and made another 320 newspaper pots!

May 26th – Potted on 33 common feabane & 68 ox-eye daisy (I have more ox-eye daisy that needs to be potted on but I think I will now plant them straight out!)

May 27th – Planted out 15 cornflowers into the raised bed. And re-arranged the pots. Daisies, buttercups and wood avens are now all starting to flower.

May 30th: There are some potted plants that haven’t received much care over the years; I have now re-potted them 🙂 I also potted on some of the tomatoes. 

This year the total number of plants grown from seed and potted on are…
267 ox eye daisy’s 
217 teasel
160 bird’s-foot trefoil
131 red campion
127 cornflowers 
78 common fleabane
73 borage 
70 field marigolds
27 sunflowers
25 lady’s bedstraw
35 love-in-a-mist
35 zinnia
27 rudbeckia
9 perennial flax

My Patch – April 2019

Posted on by

April 3rd – This morning in the garden there were two robins, long-tailed tits and the starlings were clicking up on the roof.  

April 10th – some late afternoon sun brought out the bees and a 7-spot ladybird.  Unfortunately I didn’t get very clear photos of the bees so not sure which ones they were!  I still find them confusing.


April 11th – This evening I got a chance to take a short walk around the field.  The male fallow deer were located out in the centre of the field, I think they are starting to get used to me as they don’t react too much now.  I was hoping I would start to find some flowers in the field but its either too early or too many herbicides have been sprayed so they haven’t had a chance to develop yet.  I did find a lone lesser celandine.  In the garden there is a male goat willow tree, in the field down near next doors garden, is what I believe to be a female goat willow.  

The birds that nest around the house have been much more visible around their nest sites, the jackdaws are in the chimneys and the starlings are taking nesting material into the roof 🙂

There was a bee checking out holes in the garden wall this evening, it has taken me a while to figure out, but I have finally narrowed it down to being a hairy-footed flower bee.  The first one I have ever seen 🙂 

April 15th – this morning I found my first brimstone moth, just sat on the wall outside the front door!  

April 18th – Whilst tidying the raised bed I noticed all the small creatures starting to appear in the vegetation.  The first one I spotted was apion frumentarium, next up was a tiny dark bush-cricket (Pholidoptera griseoaptera) and then a clover mite.  My last discovery of the day was a phalangium opilio spider.  I had never seen any of them before so this evening I had to do some research into what they all were!

Now I seem to have missed the nesting season this year!  I don’t know how; has all just happened earlier this year? or have I just been occupied with  growing plants and missed it? today I saw a starling take food into his nest!  Tomorrow I aim to pay a little more attention and train my camera on the nest hole to see exactly what is going on.  

April 19th – The starlings are 100% feeding in the nests at the back of the house, I watched both parents visit one after the other.  They both had at least two items of food in their beaks.  

There were more 7-spot ladybirds in the garden this afternoon and an orange-tip butterfly landed on the garlic mustard 🙂

April 20th – today I was concentrating on concreting the patio, however I couldn’t miss the common frog that hopped out of a hole underneath the raised bed and off across the patio.  He had been disturb as I had put sand over the top of him as I was filling in a hole and I hadn’t seen him!  I moved him up next to the small pond so he could hide under the plants.  

April 21st – there was a moth on the window, a Lunar marbled brown (Drymonia ruficornis).  I got out in the field for a walk this morning.  I heard my first cuckoo of the year – it is so nice to know he has returned safely.  I didn’t notice a lot of other birds, I don’t know if it was because I seemed to be noticing the insects or they just didn’t seem to be about.  I did have a companion with me who does make more noise than me when walking so it could have been a factor!  I did hear a woodpecker drumming.  

Since I have been following #Wildflowerhour on Twitter my botanical skills have improved greatly.  It is nice to be able to identify my finds without now having to spend hours trying to figure out what they are!  I want to take note this year of what is growing in the field so that next year I might be able to add to the population by growing them from seed and planting them out.  Today I identified, ground-ivy, red dead-nettle, cuckooflower and garlic mustard in the copse.  I was pleased to see the amount of garlic mustard there was as I know in the copse it won’t be cut down when the crop is harvested, hopefully it also explains the orange-tips who were darting around close by.  I need to go for a wander amongst it to see what else is growing in there!  

The time I save not having to look up flowers is definitely spent on the insects and arachnids!  After a lot of work identifying (I hope correctly) I found; Helophilus pendulus, Cucumber spider, Corizus hyoscyami, nomada sp. unknown, Nursery Web Spider, notostira elongata, Eupeodes sp. unknown, Pied Shieldbug (Tritomegas bicolor) on host plant white dead-nettle, Yellow Dung Fly (Scathophaga stercoraria), Flesh Fly (Sarcophaga carnaria), what I think is a pterostichus cupreus eating a harpalus affinis, Peacock butterfly and my first Dark-edged Bee-fly (Bombylius major) of the year!

When walking back up past the copse the fallow deer appeared in front of us.  They decided that is was safe enough to run out of the copse and into the field stopping a safe distance away.  I like these types of encounters 🙂

April 24th – I’m sure I saw a swallow this evening; I don’t think I was imagining it but it was only a fleeting glimpse.  I happened to take a photo of the garlic mustard and only noticed afterwards that there is a orange-tip egg on it 🙂 I hope we have some more.  It is nice to know that all I am trying to do with the garden is helping some of the garden visitors.   

April 25th – The starling chicks at the front of the house have started calling – across the garden and the neighbouring house I think there are now three starling nests with calling chicks. 

April 29th – The field was being sprayed when I got there this evening; I assume with pesticides. The male fallow deer who were resting in the middle of the field didn’t move until the machinery was two runs away from them. They ran off but then stopped short of the copse, they eventually disappeared.  The starlings are still calling and I heard the cuckoo again this evening 🙂

 

My Patch – A Garden update: April 2019

Posted on by

This month I have concentrated on trying to get the garden into a tidier/cleaner state for the planting out of the flowers when they are ready.  It has meant a lot of work so other aspects have suffered a little! 

April 1st – the basil has started to grow 🙂

April 2nd – as it is meant to be frosty for the next few nights I thought I would leave my cowslips and garlic mustard outside to ‘chill’.  They are meant to have a period of cold to start germination so I thought it can’t do them any harm as they don’t seem to be doing anything anyway! I tidied a little more of the glasshouse and found another five terracotta pots I will be able to use.  They will all need a bit of a clean, I just need to work out if I have any shorter plants which I can put in them; probably birdsfoot trefoil and sweet williams.

April 8th – tonight I potted on some of the sweet pea, sunflowers and borage.  I know I should have probably potted on the sweet peas earlier but I wasn’t sure where to pot them on too!  I knew I needed a deeper pot, I still have more that need rescuing from their small trays.  

Last year I removed a purple/red coloured steamed plant from the raised bed as it was in the way of the bird feeder!  I put it in a pot as no one knew what it was – thanks to @porridgebrain on Twitter who posted an image of her peonies I discovered what it was! It is still alive! I have removed all of ‘weeds’ from its pot and moved it to a sunnier spot – I plan to put it back into the raised bed but in a more suitable location.  

April 9th – This evening I decided I needed to take some images of the garden before I started to tidy/clean.  It does look a bit of a mess and its starting to make me stressed!  I know gardening isn’t meant to create stress it is meant to reduce it, but when there is so much to do it gets a bit much.  

I also potted on more of the borage and removed the ‘weeds’ from all the pots in the left garden.  The mint looks much better now I can actually see it is growing; I think it will need to be re potted this year.

April 10th – I finished potting on all of the borage today; I think I should have potted them on when they were a little smaller.  I have 73 plants in total.  I was going to sow some more though I think that will probably be more than enough for this year! 

April 11th – my common fleabane has started to sprout 🙂

I have only just thought about taking photos of my seedlings so I know what they look like in future years – I hope the flowers will seed themselves in the garden so next year I need to know what they look like so I know what is growing!

April 12th – So today I jet washed the left side of the garden’s patio; it only took 10 hours!!

April 15th – the mint has started to grow 😊  I have sown more rudbeckia as for some reason it hasn’t germinated.  

April 16th – sowed red campion, tall marigolds (I collected seed form the garden last year so I don’t know exactly what they are!) and perennial flax seed which I also collected from the garden.  

April 18th – painted the left fence, ‘weeded’ the raised bed and one of the love-in-the-mist has sprouted.

April 19th – was also a busy day, I moved the garlic mustard from growning in the right hand patio to the raised bed in the hope that it will survive, jet washed the patio, looked at repairing the garage guttering so a water butt can be fitted; we had to remove one of the branches from the hazel tree as it had caused the guttering to break.  I also potted on 62 cornflowers, potted on the rest of the sweet peas and put up a bee hotel 🙂

April 20th – I concreted 90% of the right hand patio – it took all day!

April 24th – Potted on 37 cornflowers and  33 teasel, the marigolds, red campion and the new batch of cornflowers and rudbeckia have sprouted.  I wasn’t expecting the perennial flax to germinate but it is doing quite well.

April 25th – Potted on 36 teasel and 21 sunflowers.

April 26th – Tonight I tweeted a photo of a tiny daffodil looking flower that is located in one of the window boxes.  @Mark_Couper replied to let me know they are daffodils; a variety called ‘new baby’. At least now I know what to do with them when they are relocated out of the window box, as at the moment they are surrounded by ‘weeds’ and very little compost!  

April 27th – today I visited a nursery sale with my Mum.  We went last year; this year I was going with a list of what I wanted to buy.  I managed to find only one plant on my list echinacea, I did also buy martin’s spurge as I thought it would look nice against the green of the fence and also add some foliage in the winter as I believe it is evergreen.   

April 29th – tonight I concreted where my potted plants are going to go so I will be able to start moving them about later in the week.  It will be nice to know some are planted up and are ready to just grow!  I have a few large pots that I assume had shrubs delivered in them, the pots have been kept for years so I have started to utilise them.  They aren’t the most attractive; black with handles on the them but I intend to hide them behind the more ‘attractive’ pots!  Tonight I put some borage in one of them.  I have probably made a mistake when putting 3 plants in one pot as I have read they can grow rather large, I think it might just be trial and error this year!  I also thought I probably needed to plant out the Martin’s spurge as their roots were coming out of the bottom of the pots.  I know they will expand and fill the pot; maybe when they do they can be separated into two pots.  By potting the plants out it meant I had some more small pots I could then use for potting on the remaining sunflowers 🙂 

Also throughout this month… the strawberries, field forget-me-not, garlic mustard, red campion, lilac and choisya ternata have all started to flower 🙂 

So far this year; total number of plants grown from seed and potted on…
99 cornflowers
73 borage
27 sunflowers
69 teasel