Not really, but we have had so much rain recently and low temperatures, half what they usually are in a Scottish summer (which is tenuous at the best of time). It is disheartening and getting quite depressing. I'm wearing as much clothes as I do in late autumn or early spring, jeans, socks, jumpers and that's in the house in the evening! I even gave in and put the heating on last night. Given that we're not getting away for a holiday this year, sunshine and warmth during the day at the nursery would be appreciated.
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| Clematis integrifolia 'Rosea' |
Although rain drops are pretty on flowers and great to photograph, the flowers are all looking past it, drowned and drookit and now that we've got the watering system in place at the nursery, we haven't had to use it. Any way enough of my moaning about the weather, well it's what we gardeners do isn't it?
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| Who me? |
Tonight we had a handful of home grown strawberries with ice cream for dinner. When I say a handful I mean that, between 4 of us. The plants are still small after being moved from our last garden last year but the issue has been the squirrels! They have discovered we have a back garden and lo there are tasty strawberries there. Not only do they pinch the strawberries, they have the audacity to sit on the window sill in full view and eat them!
Our day off on Tuesday was unsurprisingly cold and wet, so no nice day out in the summer sunshine or catching up in my own garden. Instead we wrapped up and headed through to Glasgow to a plant wholesale nursery to pick up some bright and colourful plants to sell at the
open weekend this weekend. We then had some lunch out and bought some new fish for our aquarium.
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| Not the most exciting photo but it was blue sky, haven't seen any for days and days, I had to take a photo! |
On Wednesday the weather actually improved, still unseasonally cold but mainly dry and some sunshine! I spent the day tidying the sales area for this weekend, removing plants that have finished flowering and putting in some new ones. I also got the vintage wooden trays we bought on Ebay filled with the flowery plants we bought yesterday to entice people into the nursery.
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| Vintage wooden tray filled with bright colour |
Disaster in the greenhouse as next doors cat has discovered the trays of Nepeta (Cat Mint) cutting I took at work, for next years stock. I brought them home to put in the greenhouse to root a couple of weeks ago and when I went up to check the greenhouses the other night the cuttings were all over the place and many are no use any more. What gave it away? The cat hairs all over the trays! I have covered them in cloches but I suspect the local moggies will push them off in search of their fix.
Our open weekend is going well with 10% until tomorow (August 2nd) afternoon. Yesterday Sarah, a friend of David's visited and brought us some strawberry jam which was very kind, we had some on our toast for breakfast this morning. Today we had a visit from Angie at
Angie's Garden Diaries, it was good to catch up. The weather was not bad, but showery in the afternoon and still so cold. I tidied a bit more of the bed you can see on the left where the wheel barrow is in the picture above. The ground is saturated but I want to liberate the plants there from the weeds so they at least get some light and space this year. When it was showery I prepared some more stock for potting. It is so satisfying to to see the neglected plants we got with the nursery coming back to life with some new compost, TLC and water. They will make excellent plants for selling next year. I am working on the shade plants at the moment filling up the shade tunnel with sell-able plants and re potting the rest and putting in them in the new shade stock beds.
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| Allium sikkimense |
One plant that is in flower at the moment in this lull of flowers between early summer and late summer flowerers is Allium sikamense. A smaller Allium growing to 10 inches it has these wonderful blue flowers which hang beautifully even when not covered in rain drops. It is well worth having in the garden in a pot, front of border or a rockery type situation.
Well I am off to flop infront of the TV with some wine and chocolate. Been a bit lax on blog writing and reading recently with getting the nursery up and running and all that involves. Hope you have a great weekend.
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Sorry to read that you are not having a good summer Rona. It's not been that warm here either in the north west of England :( Drookit - what a fabulous word :)
ReplyDeleteHi Anna, its just been cold and wet and not summer like at all, wearing as many layers as I do in March or October, no short sleeves or sun cream for us.
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