Week 7 of 52 - Amazing the rate of Growth

Week 7 of my 52 week project has now been uploaded, although it's only 7 pictures so far it's amazing to see the rate of change and growth in the garden.

In particular the various plants, I know one is a Clematis but not sure what the other two are (they're next on my list to identify!) growing up the fence on the left - in the first picture of the series it's practically a bare fence - now you can hardly see the fence.

Bellis Perennis - a Daisy by any other name

Another bargain buy from the discounted rack in B&Q, there have been some excellent bargains due to the bad spring - and just yards away people where buying plants that looked just the same for full price - always worth hunting out the discounted stock before buying anything else!

The label said it wouldn't expand to much and only grow to about 3-4 inch's high, needing partial to full sun, I planted it at the front of a raised bed that gets about 6-7 hours of sunlight a day in fairly well drained soil - it's done very well flowering constantly for the last couple of months.

On finally reading up about it I discovered that dead-heading is recommended to prolong the flowering, not something I've done to date although it's now starting to look a little past it's best so I'll try this and report back the results.

I've also discovered it's a Biennial - good to know as I intend to harvest as many seeds as possible this year and grow from Seed next year, In typical ignorant fashion I would have been wondering why it wasn't flowering!

The Bellis Perennis is a member of the Daisy Family (Latin: Asteraceae), it's leaves are apparently edible but bitter to the taste; it seems to be really an easy plant to grow and gives masses of flowers without invading the entire border - I may well try this in a pot in future years, I think this will make a good feature in my Patio Table!

Another visitor to the Garden

Appears we've had another type of visitor to the garden recently, whilst looking around the garden I noticed a number of area's where something had been digging, initially I thought it was a cat looking for a litter spot but then I came across an area between a fence & a raised bed where the digging was extensive and it had cleared all of the undergrowth - looking closer it seemed to have given up as I was just left with shallow dug out - I've never known a cat to do this, and I'm fairly certain a Fox would be to big for the gap.

After a couple of days I've also noticed that I haven't seen the mice recently who at one point were regular visitors, putting all the pieces together I'm guessing it might have been a Ferret or Weasel, an extensive check around the garden hasn't turned up the culprit so maybe they were just passing through?

Climbing Rose is Blooming

In the garden close to the back door I have a climbing rose which has been here from long before I moved in by the looks of it, it usually has quite a few flowers but by the end of last summer was looking very ragged and a bit sad so in my best ignorant style I decided to prune it back hard -  I probably removed about two thirds of the branch's leaving a couple of good new shoots that I tied into the fence in a bid to get it to provide a bit more fence cover.

In early spring I employed a little tip that I picked up somewhere (no idea where) and chopped up all available Banana skins and sprinkled them around the base of the plant, not sure why this works but it always seems to generate a lot more flowers than if left alone.

Once spring finally got under way the Rose came back to life with a vengeance, a profusion of new growth and more buds than I've seen before, the flowers are very delicate starting off with a pink tinge and then fading to white - unfortunately the delicate flowers are being decimated with the current heavy showers and gusty winds, with luck we may see a return to more traditional summer weather where we can enjoy the flowers for a little longer.

If anyone can help me identify this Rose I'd love to hear from you, at present all I know is it's a type of Rose!

Second Strawberry of the Season

My Second (nearly ripe) Strawberry of the Season, the first met an untimely end at the hands of my 3 year old daughter - after proudly showing her how it had turned red and was nearly ripe, I turned my back for two minutes, when I turned back around I was greeted with a beaming smile and a small trickle of Strawberry Juice running down her chin, oh well she assures me it was Gorgeous!

A second Strawberry, nearly ripe.

Lupins - now slightly less Ignorant

I have two Lupin plants in the garden that where an impulse buy from the supermarket early last year - I believe I paid a couple of pounds for them and they've done me proud.

I always seem to forget just how big they grow both in height and spread - note to self for next spring: give them a bit more room to avoid losing the plants next to them!

Plant one

Plant one is planted in a sunny spot - it gets sun from about 11am through to about 8pm and is always ahead of it's sibling in flowering.

Plant two

Plant two is planted in more shady spot, it gets good sun but for a shorter period of time, slower to come to flower it still produces masses of flowers albeit somewhat smaller than plant one. Both plants are in fairly good soil owing to bags and bags of compost in the raised beds although these sit of a clay heavy soil.

In my bid to be less Ignorant I've found out that Lupin (Latin: Lupinus meaning 'of Wolf') are perennial and good for locking in Nitrogen to the soil which is beneficial to other plants - in particular Cucumbers, Broccoli & Squashes. I was also surprised to discover that the beans can be edible and contain up to 40% protein which is close to Beef, however you need to note that in an unprocessed state the Beans are poisonous causing some pretty nasty symptoms - to render edible they need to be boiled and then washed for a week.

Further reading revealed that a species called Tarwi, (Latin: Lupinus mutabilis) is an edible variety without the risks of normal Lupins that can be easily purchased and grown - I think I'll be trying these next year!

I've always had a soft spot for Lupins, loving the bold spikes of colour they bring to the garden and the way little drops of water gather in the leaves reflecting the light, looks like next year I'll have the best of both worlds with flowers and food!

Jewel in the Crown

Apples Under Attack...

My Apple tree (hopefully soon to be an Espalier) is under attack! I noticed a couple of leaves were skeletal,  nothing left but the main veins, on closed inspection I noticed lots of little green caterpillar's busily munching away many of the appearing to hang by their jaws only - quite an impressive feat really.

Rather than squish them all or use a pesticide I detached the leaves which where a lost cause anyway and discarded to a wild bit of the garden where they can take their chances but will probably just become part of the food chain, on checking the rest of the tree I couldn't see anything resembling eggs so I'm hoping that's the last of them.

Leafroller Catapillars?

I've been trying to identify exactly what they are, lots of Google image searching for Green Caterpillar with Black Head on Apple Tree Leaf hasn't managed to confirm, I initially thought they were Leafroller Caterpillar's - that said I couldn't find any evidence of leaf rolling, might be they are too young, and the heads seem to be darker plus these have a row of black dot's down each side - can anyone confirm what these are?