Worm worries

I opened up my compost bin last week and found worm city central. There were dozens of them, all sizes but I think mostly the same species. I have never seeded the bin with any worms, so they have arrived naturally but why were they so far up the bin?

Why were they under the rim? Are they trying to escape? Aren’t they happy? Could it be too acid? Too wet? I live on a vertical bog and it had been raining for weeks when this pic was taken.

I’ve had plastic compost bins for as long as I’ve been gardening (nine years) and have never seen the worms so obvious at the top. It makes me worried that the lower layers are inhospitable.

Since then we have had a cold snap with a week of frosty nights. I opened up the bin this morning and there wasn't a worm in sight. I guess they were all deep down looking for insulation.

The cold, clear weather produces some fabulous sun rises.

Some soft and serene,

some dark and dramatic,

The freezing temperatures have brought more birds into the garden. There are now five blackbirds, three boys and two girls. They don't share food. I can't work out who is top bird but the two girls are definitely at the bottom and constantly being rousted off titbits by the boys. They'll regret it in the Spring when someone is birdy-no-mates. I suspect it will be this lad. He seems to have missed the class on posing with attitude which the others have all taken. I know it's not a good pic but I was laughing as he was jiving, so there was a lot of shoogle.

These cool boys show Daffy how it should be done.

Lavatera.....again

Not these rain dodging divas, though a week of sun has inspired them to a final flourish. Too late, they are going to join the foxgloves mulching quietly in a heap of black bin bags, waiting for an empty compost bin.





No, I’m talking about the poor tree mallow, Lavatera Barnsley. The one I planted in the most exposed position in the garden; the one that bloomed prettily for one season then spent the winter with its root ball alternately frozen or rocking in salt winds; the one that for most of its second year was a cluster of wizened twigs with an occasional yellow leaf drooping off it; the one that ended its short life two weeks ago in the wheelie bin rather than the compost, in case it was diseased.

Sigh. It was a pretty plant. So pretty in fact it inspired my neighbour to go online and order one for her garden. This arrived, a healthy little plug plant, in the spring and responded rapidly to the care of a competent gardener. In a couple of months it had achieved almost a foot of growth and was covered in buds.

Then Angus ate it.

All of it

There was nothing left.

Not even a twig to propagate.

Oh, the wailings and gnashing of teeth. Angus had his hairy bottom soundly spanked. (Perhaps I should point out that Angus is my neighbour’s puppy, not her husband).

We commiserated with each other but were both aware there was one more Barnsley tree mallow in the village. This one was in a garden right by the shore and was thriving, obviously well adapted to its salty, windy habitat. The elegant flowers could be seen, blushing daintily, over the fence as less fortunate gardeners drove by with hot, hungry eyes.

The temptation was too much to resist. Last week my lovely neighbour stopped her car and asked the lavatera’s owner if she could have some cuttings. Gardening and generosity seem to go hand in hand, as the cuttings were happily supplied and four of them have been passed on to me.

I have no doubt that my green fingered neighbour will get her mallow established. I’m less certain that my brown, blighted thumbs will have similar success. Time for a quick prayer to the patron saint of lost causes.

Gormless Update

My poor scalded fuschia is recovering from its encounter with the detergent. Mum informs me that it was my Great Gran who used to treat plants that “misbehaved” with dishwater and it was definitely soap flakes, not detergent in those days. Apparently Lux is the stuff you want, mixed into a very weak stock solution, so that it looks a bit like wall paper paste. This is then diluted 1 in 10 with water to make a hand spray. I’ve tried it on roses, surfinia and fuschia, with assorted pests, and it works a treat. Doesn’t seem to kill the plants but washes the greenfly off and so far they haven’t re-established.
While we’re on the subjects of surfinia and fuschia tubs and baskets, for the second year, mine are very slow to bloom. They’re looking green and lush but putting out flowers does not seem to be on the agenda. This happened last year with petunias and pelargoniums. I thought I had just over fed them, encouraging them to put out foliage rather than flowers. So I was very careful this year, they had some slow release food at exactly the manufacturers recommended amounts when planted out and nothing since. I bought them as well established plugs, potted them on and they grew vigorously, so they haven’t had a set back. Now it’s nearly August and still nothing from the fuschias or pelargoniums and while the surfinias are definitely blooming, you could hardly describe them as trailing. I used to plant tubs and baskets in Tilly that would have been a riot of flowers by now. The climate is milder and wetter here, but we have had a fair amount of sun in May and early June. Does the slight difference in sun levels really have so much effect?

The weathered look

Well, the wind blew through yesterday with torrential rain showers and flattened my beautiful mallows. Yes, I suppose it was a gormless place to plant them but I thought, they're summer flowering annuals, they won't be around for the worst of the weather, surely a six foot high fence and an enormous pampas grass will provide a sufficient windbreak. Lesson learned, pick the right plant for the position.

A tale of two mallows

I don't know what I did to this tree mallow. Pruned it too hard? Planted it in the wrong place? Something very gormless no doubt. That position is the most exposed in the garden and does get blasted by the wind when it howls up the loch. I guess I'm just going to have to find something tough to grow there. I wonder if one of the burgandy elders would survive. It's a pity. I planted the mallow last year and it grew vigorously through the summer producing masses of pretty white flowers with rosy centres.

In contrast this annual mallow, Lavatera Mont Blanc, is romping away, coming through just as the foxgloves and verbascum are dying back. It's buds, when tightly furled, are blush pink but they open into masses of intense white flowers that gleam like spotlights in every corner they are planted.

The only problem is the butterflies and bees are paying no attention. I thought because lavatera are always present in wildlife seed mixes they would be a good souce of nectar but perhaps the white variants don't look or taste as good as the pink ones. I should have gone for the cosmos. I'm just a sucker for tall spires covered in bell like flowers. I've a hankering for some hollyhocks but have a strong suspicion that they would only get covered in rust in this climate. I shouldn't complain though because what I miss with the cottage garden plants is more than made up for by the spring show of rhodies, azaleas and camelias which love the wet, acid conditions.

Two things that didn't make me smile yesterday. Someone is eating my pansies and I don't mean the butterflies. ******* slugs!

And some more gormless gardening. This poor fuschia was covered in aphids. I have no pesticides but thought I would try an older remedy. I had heard Mum mention that Gran used to throw the washing up water over infested plants rather than letting it drain down the sink. I had no used water to hand and didn't want to leave the plant, as it was covered, so put a drop of washing up liquid (well, OK, several large squeezes) in a hand spray and gave the plant a good dousing. That poor, burnt stick-thing is the result . Doh. I wonder if Gran's dishwater had soap rather than detergent, which I don't think was widely available until the late 1940s. Now I think about it, the organic pesticides use saponins rather than detergents. Doh again. Anyway fuschias and Coop antibacterial washing-up-liquid do not mix. Looking on the bright side I can use the rest of the spray as a weedkiller.