Topic: Do you ever get these Days?

[Tee Gee]

Today I went out in the garden to do a bit and within half an hour I was demoralised to the stage of thinking I will phone up a Concrete company for wagon load of concrete and cover up the whole bl**dy lot.


I am putting it down to the weather 'Climate Change" if you like!

Particularly these unseasonally warm Springs!

Everything in my garden is "dying" despite my efforts.


I have seen this coming for the last few years and I have been gearing up for the changes 'Weather Change' would bring in so far as I have been giving my garden a complete makeover.

Where before I could ride out the seasons and sometimes that was very difficult,  but if I say so myself I don't think I did to bad a job of it!

But now I am finding that it is not only my garden that needs a makeover but my mind also needs one!


It would seem that over the last six or seven years 'The seasons' have got right out of kilter! Hot when you expect cold and cold when it used to warm!

In my opinion this is having a great effect on plants and wildlife in general, for example; I think we will have to move away from many of the indigenous plants of the UK and replace them!

But with what?


I loved my Spring garden and always have but not any more, last year I was disgusted with it because most of my Daffodils ended up blind.

This I put down to the weather in Spring.

The plant tops died back within a couple of weeks rather than the five to six weeks they got in the past, meaning the bulbs beneath them were never charged up again.


This morning I went out and all the new Daffodils & Spring bulbs I planted out had more or less died back, so I envisage more blind Daffodils next year again.

Then I looked at my bedding plants and found that most of them have died, and the ones that are surviving are very poor plants indeed!

Then I saw my Camellia & Magnolia flowers have browned with the cold nights!

By this time I was becoming more and more demoralised!


Then I looked at plants (mostly perennials) that I have taken from cuttings, and new plants that I have bought and these are not taking too kindly either because of the heat.

The air is too dry there is a lack of humidity in the air something we got a plenty during the 'April Showers' of the past.

So some of these are frizzling a bit in their pots, simply because I can't plant them out until my spring bulbs fully die back, which I have to move to fit in with my new planting plan!


OK the obvious things is move them in and out of the greenhouses and coldframes which is laborious work if done daily, so I chose to leave them there!

Why I hear you ask? Simply because of the extreme daily variations in temperatures ( it's been up to a 100 °F during the day and down to 40 °F at night and that's only because my greenhouse heating is set to 40 °F)meaning it could go lower if I had not catered for such an eventuality!.....my Magnolias & Camellias are testament to that!


I could go on and on in this vein but I do not want to bore you any more with my problems, so I will now go  and" Lock my self down a self-isolate!"

Sorry for the rant folks but as it stands you are the only people (fellow gardeners) I can come to at the moment who might understand my situation.

Bye!

Tg

[peanuts]

Oh well understand Tee Gee.  Perhaps you need to go back out there and find just a couple of things (different things) that  give you joy and hope, however small, and concentrate on those for a few minutes?  Through it does seem at the moment that you nave too many negatives out there.  Dare I say, perhaps your early dying back daffs are trying to cooperate so you can get your bedding plants out earlier?

I think we are all struggling in different ways, and the stress is getting to us in different ways, and that is really hard.  I'm certainly finding that.  Then I think about the wonders for us of WhatsApp (we don't do facebook etc) and am so grateful for it at this time, as it is our contact with our kids and grandchildren in the UK, without which we would feel even farther away. 

Keep going,Tee Gee, one day at a time.

[Tiny Clanger]

Chin up TeeGee. These things happen. I'm moving over to more container growing. Also mulching with whatever I can find. Ive run sonme branches ( 2 - 4 cm) through the shredder and using that for mulch, keeping it as damp as I can. My garden is really too dry to grow much in the way of bedding plants, but there are a few oerrenials tgat survive with a bucket of water now and then. My rises are surviving, but it took 2 to 3 years to stabilise, I have loosestrife and toadflax, the aconite is doing well in a semi shady corner. There are other things that seem to survive but I don't know what they are.

Arum lillies are now in containers - doing really well. Will not survive in open ground. Vegetables are out of the question, but I've got some spare garlic cloves in a large tub.

I'm isolating too, but going to the lottie for my exercise. While you are on lockdown, give some thought as to what WILL grow in the dry conditions. I know it won't be what you want, but it will stretch your ingenuity and put to use all that fantastic knowledge you have amassed over the years

Herbs will grow: thyme, oragano, all the mediterranean stuff. Get some tomatoes out in pots. I grow Italian style varieties and with a good sized pot, a bucket of water and a drop of tomorite......
No-one is better placed than you to redesign and adapt. It may not be quite what you want, but you will have a great garden - just different
xxx

 

[Hector]

The weekend we were away and cows trawled through wet  garden and left it like a wet lunar landscape was “ my day” . So rant away.  With retrospect it pushed us to replan from scratch and we enjoyveg garden more now. I am sure you willreplan and have even more glorious displays and enjoyment.