Thursday 25th May 2023 - Car Boot Purchases, Jumble Tree and Chelsea Flower Show

It’s car boot day and today I have purchased a liatris plant, three cucumber plants and two small pots. The liatris is now in the garden and replaces a plant which didn’t make it through those harsh winter frosts. I have given it a good sprinkling of chicken manure pellets round its base to help it flourish and bloom throughout the summer months. Last week, I said, there were plenty of stalls selling cucumber plants, this week only one stall had them on display. I only wanted just the one to replace the seedling in the greenhouse which has keeled over and died, but the offer was three for £1, so I had to have the three. Would you believe it, putting the three pots in the greenhouse, the pot with the dead cucumber seedling is now showing leaves, from a late germinating seed, pushing their way up through the compost. If they all come to fruition, we could end up with a glut of cucumbers to munch our way through.

As for the pots, they are now hanging in our peach tree, or I should say; what’s left of it. Let me explain. Despite Peter spraying our peach tree quite a few times every year during its dormant period, with the recommended Bordeaux mixture, it always develops leaf curl and any peaches which set have subsequently fallen off. This year the leaf curl is exceptionally bad plus there are no developing peaches, so we have decided the tree has to go. We don’t want to take it out straight away, leaving a gap in our line of fruit trees, until its replacement, a fig tree, is big enough to go out into the ground. What we have done is, cut off all the stems with leaves, leaving the main trunk and branches. Peter purchased some bee shaped solar lights to drape around the bare branches and we are also going to hang bits and pieces on it. The two pots from the car boot sale, costing a grand total of sixty pence, are what will be the start of a variety of oddments adorning our denuded peach tree. I think I shall call it the ‘Jumble Tree’ as it will be displaying unwanted items in a hotchpotch fashion.

I have been watching the RHS Chelsea Flower Show on BBC iplayer. As the programmes always had segments of infills (waffle and visiting celebrities) which are not of interest, I have not bothered to watch the live broadcasts, but iplayer allows me to skip through these infills. The amount of money setting up the elobaorate show gardens must go into thousands of pounds and the skill of producing perfect blooms, some out of season, to display in the Pavilion show considerable talent. The main reason I am mentioning the Chelsea Flower Show is, garden designers Joe and Laura Cary from Holt have won the Gold Medal in the ‘All About Plants’ section with their ‘Talitha Arts Garden’. Some of the plants featured in their garden where provided by Natural Surroundings, which we visited at the beginning of this month (see my Blog for Friday 5th May). Owners of the centre, Simon and Ann Harrap, must be really proud of their contribution to this beautiful garden, which featured in Episode 4 on the BBC. If you would like to see more about Joe and Laura Carey and their Talithea Arts Garden, coverage starts about thirty five minutes into the programme.

Two photos, again, today. The first of the flowers, grown as green manure and backed by rape, in a field where we walk along the edge and the second is a closer view of the red clover. I have never seen this type of red clover before but from posts on Facebook pages, this is also being grown in other fields in the area. Personally, I wouldn’t mind having it in our garden.