Some triangular planting

I shared a while back how we’d softened our gabion seating area with planting, and that’s working out well. Recently I’ve moved some self-seeded foxgloves into the baskets, along with some self propagated ornamental grasses, and I had plans to complete the planting, but hadn’t quite worked out how until recently.

The way we’d placed our gabion baskets in an almost curve meant that we had triangular shaped gaps in between each basket. My plan was to plant this with herbs, to soften the area still further. I thought I’d use the same membrane to line the space, but it was a much smaller space and trickier than I’d hoped it would be.

And so I paused. And thought. For about a year and a bit.

And then inspiration struck.

Compost bags, they would work, and so inspired, I tried it. And it was a much easier way to ‘line’ these spaces, look:

To act as a proper container though, the compost bags needed some holes for drainage. Cue some fun with a garden fork, a compost bag on the grass and my boot. Holes made and I was well away.

The bags were in place, filled with soil - some of the remaining ‘spare’ soil I have in a hidey place in the garden at the bottom, some leaf mould and some of my newly discovered compost on the top. And two, now rather straggly, camomile plants to complete the job.

And I think this could work.

I have just realised though that I haven’t checked on them for a while, so I’m hoping they’re fairly resilient, keep your fingers crossed for the camomile….

A wander around my garden

Our garden this year has taken a bit of a back seat with everything else that’s gone on, and with the warmer weather, but a few bursts of rain and it’s (thankfully) bouncing back, and growing some more, so today I’m sharing photos from my garden this month.

The herbs that I bought from RHS Hyde Hall in Essex in July are doing well, especially the mint - I clearly need some warmer weather back, as I’ve mojitos to drink... 

We’ve been treated to some pretty looking berries this year from the Chilean potato plant, usually the plant is tamed way before the berry stage, but not this year.  I’m hoping to buy a new garden ladder, and this is one of the plants I want it for so I’m holding out to use it for that. The berries have brought increased bird activity to this part of the garden, some of it unwanted, “fighting” pigeons anyone? They’ve also encouraged smaller birds, blackbirds, tits and robins, which have all been welcome, so I’m thinking there has to be a happy compromise for next year.

The ferns are looking a little crunchy, but no less pretty, especially against the slate.

Our honesty plants are also doing their thing, helped along I’m sure by the weather. I liked how these look already, and the detail that my iPhone has picked up.

Our lettuces are basking in the sun, and have mostly repelled the slugs and snails. We need to get on with eating it though, as I’m sure there’ll come a time when it’s a race between us and the mollusks.

My outdoor tomatoes are ripening, and with regular feeds the greenhouse tomatoes are coming on nicely. I know our tomatoes are usually later in the season, with our north facing garden, and they’re getting there, and are well worth the wait.

Outside the greenhouse, the heucheras from dad are thriving and their purple leaves bring a different shade to our garden. 

My succulent trug has got some invaders, but ones that I’m happy with as I think they’re self-seeded foxgloves, so when the weather is a little more forgiving I’ll move them to where I want them to grow as there’s nothing better than free plants. 

There’s some rather large pears on our pear tree, and I suspect they’re as hard as usual, which most probably makes them cookers. We never get to find out as the squirrels forget this and either help themselves and have a bit of a nibble before moving onto something more tasty. 

The strawberries have, on the whole, recovered and they’ll be moving on again once I sort out new pots for my growing space. 

The olive tree has recovered with some lush green growth over the frost-tipped leaves, so that’s a relief. 

Elsewhere in the garden there’s a couple of clues that autumn’s not too far away.

More berries, this time elderberries, but just look at the vibrant stems and the sedums. They’re not yet turning pink, but I don’t expect it will be long.

What are the signs that your garden gives to let you know it’s preparing for autumn?

A cautionary tale: Box caterpillar

We've been on box-watch the past week or so and keeping our fingers crossed that the pesky box caterpillar we spotted on one plant didn't migrate to our other topiary balls.

It's a case of so far, so good.

This is the third box bush, the one that's most visible from our patio.  There's a few singed leaves, but given the weather we've had it's doing quite well.

BOX NUMBER 3

The next box bush along, is topiary ball number two and in between this and the one above is the pot of white agapanthus, still just about in flower.  It's browner than the one above, but is greener than it has been over the past few months.

BOX NUMBER 2

And then there's the box plant that we spotted several box caterpillars on:

Yes, we took drastic action!

As you can see from the photo below, it really didn't look very healthy at all.

It was full of these pesky little critters.

Who are clearly greedy souls. 

Our plan is to remove the root from the plant that we've disposed of, but that was proving trickier than we thought.  Looking back we realised that the plants have probably been in these waist-high pots for the best part of fifteen years, so I suspect it's quite comfortable.  It'll be interesting to see just how large it is, and as you'd expect I have a plan for unearthing the root and I'm hoping we'll get that put into action in the next week or so, weather permitting.

When the pot is empty, our longer-term plans include replacing it with a fern that we hope will like the position in the garden alongside the conservatory.  We'll need some pot juggling too, as with two box balls and two pots of agapanthus, the single fern will need to be in the middle.

The remaining box balls have survived a couple of weeks since box-watch started, so I'm hopeful our drastic action has helped.

Fingers crossed.