Thursday In The Garden.

I could not think of anything to write about today, so I thought I would tell you how my tiny little garden is getting on. When the weather is nice I like sitting out there, especially on Tuesday evenings at about 8.30. That is when the bell ringers at nearby All Saints Church have their practice. It gives you the illusion of living in a country village somewhere, and not the reality of living on the main road in a scruffy little town. 

Verbascum & basket.

One of my neighbours from three doors away gave me some plants last winter which I put in a big pot by the back door. He wasn’t sure what they were. They were small but grew rapidly and shot up a tall stem with tiny little yellow flowers. I took a photo and asked my Facebook friends what they are. Apparently, they are called Verbascum or commonly known as Mullein. They are used in herbal medicine in some countries. It is very educational this gardening lark! Further down I have got some unusual daisies that I do not remember planting. They are about three feet tall. I looked them up on Google Images and I think they might be called Leucantheum. They look great, but the downside that I noticed this morning is that there are a lot of blackflies on the stalks of some. I noticed ants on there as well. I looked for advice online and it said, ‘Blackfly, like greenfly, are members of the aphid family and they are breeding machines. They can reproduce both sexually and asexually and some aphids are actually born already pregnant. Ants are often a precursor to an aphid attack because they farm them in what is known as a mutualisitic relationship. Ants milk the aphids for a sugary secretion called honeydew and in return they protect them from predators and move them on to promising pastures’. 

This evening when I do my watering, I will put the hosepipe on spray and try and wash them off. I am glad I got a new outside tap because now watering isn’t a chore, it is quite good fun. As well as the blackfly I have also had trouble again this year with red lily beetles. They eat the leaves off the lilies and leave what looks like disgusting poo on the plants. I will deal with that problem later as well. Nasturtiums are turning some areas into a jungle. I never even planted any this year. This is from seeds that fell from hanging baskets from previous years. I might have to thin them out a bit because they are obscuring other plants. My Iris’s and foxgloves seem to have been and gone already. 

My sunflowers are just starting to bloom though. Also, I have got lots of Evening Primrose growing. I like watching the flowers on those unfurl just before dusk. My former next-door neighbour kindly gave me some nice pots just before she moved, and also a bracket for a hanging basket. I now have six baskets and tubs hanging up which gives a great splash of colour. One of the baskets has strawberries in, and I have had quite a good crop of those in time for Wimbledon. I wish I had more bees visiting, and I have only seen one butterfly. That is worrying. Also, I have not seen a single ladybird. I wish they would appear because they eat blackfly by the bucketful apparently. That will do for today’s garden update. Happy gardening!