Summer Solstice

Today is the longest day! The beginning of summer! Woohoo!! Guess what? Its raining!

I remember as a child how the 6 weeks of the summer hols seemed endless and hot! We spent nearly everyday outside, playing in the garden, going for walks or even playing on the beach (we lived closer in those days), mum always had a paddling pool filled and warmed for our return from school! Dad loved the Bar-b-que so we had many! So whats with this global warming, doesn't that mean it should be getting hotter?
I planted my tropical/jungle garden as the plants I had where suffering badly in the hot summers.
So here we are today




Looking better than when I first planted but still behind what it should be!

It is time to order the coal for the winter all 2 1/2 tons of it and just to wind you all up its 6 months and 4 days till Christmas!!!!!!!!!!

Running off very quickly!!!!!!!!!!!!!................................

RE-Designing

I am so fed up with these suckers that are basically destroying what could be a lovely flower bed that I am considering some re-designing!!!
I have taken a group of pics of basically the same area to give you a rough idea of the plan!!!
I think the plan is to extend the chicken run out towards the bits of fence and trellis and wood you can see.

Move the plant that is growing up the obelisk!



and make a path around to the left of the fence using stepping stones and grass. That way I can mow off the suckers, (hysterical laughter!!)

The 'Down' side to this is you get to walk next to a grotty and very old fence! I lose part of a flower bed.
The 'UP' side is the chickens get a bigger run and I hopefully should beat the suckers by cutting them off every week!!!
Still to be decided!
I thought I would show you some of my baby Brugs that are currently thriving!

and a little friend who watches over the pond!

Good News!

My Brugmansias are fine! How brilliant is that! I joined ABADS-America Brugmansia and Datura Society and posted pics on there forum and the concensus of opinion is that they are healthy plants its probably the up and down weather temps we have in the UK!!!
Smiling broadly here!!!
I went out this morning and took pics of about 6 of my brugs that have flower buds on, but when I came in they where totally out of focus! I wasn't going out again as it was only 7C quite chilly! So far 6 seeds I bought from Ebay have grown, I shall let them get a bit bigger before potting on.
In the mean time K has been digging her heart out and has cleared all the suckers from the plant in my neighbours garden, that prefers to be in mine and because it is so rampant, we keep digging up my plants to make sure we get all the roots out so my plants never really get going!!!

you can see it the other side of the fence. This is the bags of roots and sukers she dug out

I seem to have a flying chicken in that pic!!!!
Further down she cleared out a plant that had been taking over

so now we or probably I will take the opportunity to paint the fence and even look into getting some, bamboo rhizome barrier then dig down about 2 ft and pop it in. Hopefully then the neighbours plants will remain in her garden. I have plenty of plants to fill the gaps, but today we are going off to the shops to have a browse and a bit of retail therapy.
K's boyfriend is coming for a week tomorrow, so may take the opportunity of using his muscle about the garden! Must remind her to remind him to bring some old trainers and not his white sparkly ones!!!!!!