I just love my new local wildlife

Apologies for the extreme slowness in posting...

Anyway, whilst not reporting here, I have been paying close attention to my 'garden' all summer. In particular I've really enjoyed the wildlife that it has attracted - mainly in the form of 100s of hoverflies and later on bumblebees. It has been great to think that my relatively small number of containers has still been found by them and that these insects have enjoyed and benefited from my flowers. In particular they seemed to enjoy the alliums, my shockingly pink/purple geranium and my nepeta/catmint.

Better late than never... here's a couple of the bees enjoying a feast back in July :o) Any ideas what type of bees they are? They're such a fab golden colour.

Meet my new Heuchera - Can Can

Well, as I've recently had my first month's pay packet I figured - what better way to celebrate than to pick out a couple of plants?!

So, I have a gorgeous smelling thyme - which i've yet to pot up - and a new Heuchera to replace the one that's just carped it. I'm hoping that this one fairs better. It was surprisingly hard deciding which Heuchera to choose - eventually I narrowed it down to either Silver Scrolls, or Can Can. In the end I went with Heuchera Can Can as I liked the more purpley tinge to the leaves - although the Silver Scrolls plants were more mature and had flowers which looked absolutely fabulous. I might end up adding a Heuchera Silver Scrolls to my collection yet!

I've just popped the new plant into the pot which the previous Heuchera had lived in... although looking at it I can't quite decide if its colouring clashes or not with the pot colour. I might have to switch it around, but I'll see how it goes... I've also relocated the pot so that it's nearer the door in the hope that the shadier spot will improve its chances of survival - not that the previous location (or indeed really any of my doorstep garden) is really that heavily bathed in sunlight!

A perk of the job: A chance to adopt! :o)

I'm starting to think that my new job at the nursery might have its advantages... a part from the ability to be able to buy plants on a tab, I can also adopt the odd self seeded specimen and take it home with me. We're currently preparing for our annual stocktake and so we're having to check and organise all the pots - which is how I found these primula seedlings in one, self-sown from plants around them - though which variety they are I'm not sure, it'll be interesting to find out.

I've now planted them out into various corners and nooks of my other pots. Aren't they sweet though?

I take it all back - Sir David Austin was right!

Patience has never been a particularly strong suit of mine - especially when waiting for a plant to finally bud and flower, or for seedlings to germinate. I check on seedlings, especially, so frequently that if anything they die of overwatering and too much 'love' and attention.

In this case definitely a few more days has made all the difference. Here are the photos of how my rose is looking now, and I think it's fair to say that the flowers have 'mellowed' and are now much more like those in the catalogue, so I can relax and be happy :o)

Rosa Harlow Carr: According to David Austin

Having seen and smelt the flowers on my rose bush now I thought i'd compare how they look to the pictures in the David Austin rose on-line rose catalogue... I don't know about you, but there does seem to be a slight difference. Although, perhaps as the flowers age they will look more like the Austin picture perhaps?? Admittedly my rose's flowers aren't totally open yet, unlike the picture on the Austin site. I do hope that the flowers look a bit more rustic/dishevelled as they open up further as at the moment they're a bit too alarmingly 'pretty pretty' and perfect - I was hoping for a slightly more cottage garden type look, nothing too perfect/formal.

Here's the picture on the David Austin website:

Rose Watch '09: The first flowers!

Well, the waiting is over and after watching the buds carefully for the last week I stepped outside this morning into the grey, drab, rainy day to discover that the buds had suddenly decided to open! Not very nice weather to welcome them, but the droplets of water do look really pretty on the petals. Believe it or not I have actually thinned the flowers by cutting out a good few buds to try and let the remaining ones grow bigger - although looking at these pictures there still seem to be lots of buds clustered together, so maybe I'll have to be a bit harsher...

Oh, and most importantly, I can also happily report that the scent is very pleasant indeed! :o)

Greenfly: It's time for an intervention - I'm bringing in the ladybird larvae!

Well, I'm getting kind of tired of squishing a seemingly neverending supply of greenfly everytime I go past my rose bush. They're really starting to annoy me, especially as the rose is now close to flowering and so they're interfering with my appreciation of the soon to be flowers, as each time I look at the pink colour of the bud I can't help but notice some green bug walking over it. Argh!

So, i've decided that it's time for an intervention and have ordered some ladybird larvae through a company on the internet. I decided on the larvae as a) You get more larvae for less money than you do adult ladybirds, b) I figured that they'd be less able/likely to go and eat other people's greenfly as they're not so mobile, being as they lack wings!

Today, they I found an envelope with this little box in awaiting me on my return from work:

I've followed the instructions and sprinkled them, in the evening, around various of my plants. Now i'm awaiting what I hope will be a greenfly massacre... although the larvae did seem very small so i'm worried that the greenfly might fight back. I'll just have to wait and see... here are two larvae on my rose bush off hunting aphids! (but you can see from the photos just how small they are...)