Long Mizzle Garden

 Hello m' hot scrumpies,   Apologies for my blogging absence. It feels work wise, mentally and physically I have been living in a pressure cooker for the past month This coincided with the hottest June globally on record. Hello El Niño - you arrived too soon. The garden sat thirsty for weeks on end. Some of the luckier beds received buckets of used bath water. A hose pipe ban has been in place in the South West since last summer. The reservoirs are critically low and the water company is scrambling to set up the desalination of seawater. Most plants seem shorter in height this year. The roses however seemed to love the dry heat.  Dog on quay dutifully watches over sea swimming owner Now there are reports of a potential maritime heatwave. Since taking up sea swimming, I can confirm the sea is still officially flippin' cold to my skin. My brother says 'knees, hips, nips and tips' is the way to enter the water without shocking the body. The nips seems to be the hardest s...

Alreet m' glossy dahlias,   Well I've been eagerly waiting for them to all pop out so I can give you a proper update on this year's Dahlia patch....Do you have your preferred tipple ready??? The sun is shining and I've started early on a classy Buck's Piss, with plenty of ice cubes to crunch when no one's looking. Back in March, the idea was to plant a small cut flower patch inspired by the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (original post here -  Flowers for Frida ).   Frida vase (a birthday pressie from Ol' Glass Eyed Mumrah) The small rooted cuttings that arrived in the post (from Halls of Heddon) all grew strongly and I just had to then battle with the slugs and snails. Twice they were completely gnawed down to the ground. I persisted and luckily they re-sprouted.     Yet again, my overwintered tubers were not a complete success. A couple of tubers didn't sprout at all and ended up rotting. Sadly, this meant loosing my favourite  'Totally Tangerine'....

 Hello m' dry Aprils, How are you doing? I shall keep my Long Mizzle correspondence relatively short and sweet this week. Less talking, more cuppa drinking, that's the way. I am worryingly behind on cuppa drinking and biscuit dunking. So have you got your cuppa? Brill. Let's see how the garden's growing today -  Forget-me-nots, 'Spring Green' tulips and apple blossom   Tree Echium Flowers Photinia 'Red Robin' in flower Forget-me-nots and Fennel Narcissus 'Rose of May' - beautifully scented! 'Green Wave' Parrot' Tulip Narcissus 'Smooth Sails' Last Friday I received a cardboard box through the post from Halls of Heddon, filled with little dahlia plugs. I loved the way they were wrapped in paper and sphagnum moss, as opposed to nasty plastic. The next day I potted them up and popped them on a window ledge. All of them perked up pretty quickly. Later on today, they will be graduating to the greenhouse.   What of the dahlia tubers ...