August Blues

You might be surprised to find that August is perhaps my least favourite month. As I enter middle age I find that the heat annoys me, when I was younger I could sit and bask in it with little ill effect, now it just makes me feel sticky and grumpy. I think I even prefer February, at least you know where you stand weather wise and can always retreat indoors to a log burning stove. July is glorious in the garden as all blooms look their best, and September offers new late season flowers and a wistful mellowness, but August is just sultry and bad tempered. Then there are the flies, a constant bug bear to the gardener as they zoom around your sweat slicked brow, forcing you underneath a wide brimmed hat when it is too warm to wear one. Yesterday we went balsam bashing in the woods with the plants and nettles towering above our heads, and what do I get for my pains? An awful lot of mosquito bites and those mostly in the worst places, how do they know to bite you just under the bra straps! So forgive me the lack of inspiration at this time of year as my muse leaves me, all will be well again in a couple of weeks!

"If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito"
Dalai Lama

Cuttings And Snippets

Our work was varied and interesting yesterday at Norton Conyers, just when you think there is nothing much to do Giles pulls something out of the bag to occupy the time. I'm not sure I will ever be able to remember all the jobs the gardening year demands, good thing there are many books on the subject. We spent much of our time taking salvia cuttings, the original plants have grown too large and it is difficult to store them over winter so each variety had to be reproduced for renewed vigour next year. I hadn't really done this sort of thing before but after a few attempts you get a lot quicker, just as well as eighty cuttings had to be taken of each type. First you collect the cutting material and place it into a plastic bag so it doesn't dry out, then you cut below a leaf node and remove the growing point before inserting it into the edge of a small pot of compost. After a good water the cuttings were placed into the cold frame and covered with plastic to save them drying out and extra shading placed over the glass to keep the heat down. Hopefully in about a month they will have started to grow roots and by next spring be big enough to be potted on.
Other news in the garden; Whilst I was away on holiday the weather was so foul no gardening could be attempted so the bothy was cleared out instead. It has always been a chaotic space filled with junk and rats, but with a little care it is now really interesting. All the old equipment looks great arranged around the walls and maybe with a little work we could get the fireplace working again and have somewhere warm to sit in the winter months. I think the garden visitors would like to look in too.

Plant news, Giles is especially pleased with the veratrum flowering in the bottom border. He thinks the colour is especially deep and a little unusual. Who knows maybe we could  have a new variety on our hands, to be called Veratrum Norton Conyers perhaps?!

"Green fingers are a fact, and a mystery only to the unpractised. But green fingers are the extension of a verdant heart. A good garden cannot be made by somebody who has not developed the capacity to know and love growing things"
Russell Page

A new veratrum perhaps?