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Sunday 10 September 2017

I am Not a Gardener

First, fuschia pics.  Before

And after


The pics are not exactly to the same scale or from the same angle, but they give an idea.  On the left is a lilac that had been completely buried and on the left is the valiant yellow tea rose.  I think the fuschia was always going to be too big for the garden.

I was hoping that it would have enough growing time before winter set in to get some regrowth, but today is very dark and windy.  It feels more like late October than early September.  I need to get the winter pansies in.

Hester - father would absolutely have done that.  Or rather, he would have bought something small that wasn't supposed to grow more than a few feet and then get all surprised when it got caught in the telephone wires.

We used to have a buddliea when father first moved here.  I liked it on one level because it kept people from sitting on our wall and blocked out noise.  There were always a lot of butterflies and I loved seeing them.  However it needed to go.  My mother planted it, and she passed in 2003 while father came to live with us around 2010 so it had grown, and even though we hacked it back each spring we did have to do a second prune around about late summer or it would interfere with the telephone wires.  The base of it was becoming enormous and I was worried about how far the roots were getting.  It was massive.  Father hacked the branches off with a saw but my lovely next door neighbour and his sons had to pull the main trunk out.  Most of that flower bed came with it.

Then there was the time when I planted Russian Vine.  I cut it back one weekend, measured the new growth the next weekend and it had grown nine inches.  It took father a lot of time, effort and several gallons of weedkiller to get rid of it and we reclaimed about a quarter of the garden.

Meanwhile the honeysuckle that I planted a few years ago in the hope I could train it to screen the bins has managed to grow four inches.  I'm not giving up, though.  I'm determined that I'll get a decent garden sorted next year.

1 comment:

  1. Oh dear Sybil you are not having much luck with this spot in the garden. Russian Vine is not for the feint hearted! In Scotland we have self seeded fuchsias everywhere and they mostly grow to about 15 feet even when clinging on to our banking! Maybe a Hydrangea or Peony?

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