Friday 15th September 2023 - I Forgot, Lettuce, Geranium Rust, Cuttings and Pink Foot Geese
It’s been a busy few days, so much so, I completely forgot to write a blog yesterday. So, what have we been up to? Lots of gardening including Peter mowing the lawns on Tuesday before the winds and rain blew in. Once the wind died down, I cleared the leaves and picked up flower pots which had been blown over. The winds also blew over Peter’s runner beans, sweetcorn and Jerusalem artichokes, the latter two growing in containers. Everything is sorted now which led us to trimming our bay tree which stands about eight foot tall, well it does now it’s been trimmed. Peter has taken delivery of an additional composter which he has already started to fill with trimmings from the runner beans and will later add fallen leaves.
On Monday we visited the Garden Centre, to purchase some more lettuce seed and I couldn’t resist buying some cyclamens for the garden. Back home, I planted the lettuce seed and by Thursday they had germinated – that was quick. It may sound a bit late to be growing lettuces but these are destined to go into the greenhouse. This brings me on to the geraniums. They have suffered badly from rust on the leaves which subsequently turned brown. I looked up this problem on the internet and this is a fungus which originated in Africa. Without going into detail, I have decided all the geraniums will have to go into the brown bin; I will not be bringing them into the greenhouse this year, to overwinter. This means I will have additional space over the colder months where I will try growing lettuces, and maybe some other things too.
I have taken some cuttings from the dwarf dianthus plants in the flower beds. Yes, I know this is not the time to do this but by putting them in our heated propagator, I’m keeping my fingers crossed they will take. My bulb order arrived; the daffodils and anemones will wait a few weeks before they are planted outside but the dwarf tulips are now in pots on the patio. Indoors, I have taken cuttings from the Christmas cactus. I don’t know what I have done wrong, I don’t think I have over or under watered it, but just as soon as it has grown new leaves they have dropped. I have had the plant for many, many years; it always used to put on a grand show of blooms at Christmas. The photo below shows our Christmas Cacti in all its glory in December 1989, when we lived in Bucks. I would love to have it flowering like this again.
In between all this - we have been to the dentist. Our dentist has retired but the practice has a locum, who flew in from South Africa on Sunday - we went to the car boot yesterday where I purchased two large multicoloured chrysanthemums which look totally stunning on the patio – I have found time to sit and read a story with a fairly complicated plot which needs to be read in blocks of at least twenty to thirty pages otherwise I will lose track of the twists – and I have sat on the garden bench where a young blackbird has been collecting bugs and worms within inches/centimetres of my feet.
To round off today’s blog, and to cement autumn is definitely on its way, we heard the first of the pink foot geese fly over yesterday evening, whilst we were sat in the conservatory. Another villager also heard them and one of our wildlife enthusiasts told us this morning, the advanced parties of pink foot geese started arriving three or four days ago.
