WHAT ARE WE DOING IN THE GARDEN TODAY 2023

A week ago last Saturday my wife & I had our flu jabs after which we got the bus downtown to do a little shopping. When we finished in Sainsburys I put the trolley away & as I turned to go back to my wife I felt pain in my left hip. Though I'm not one for worrying about little pains this left me almost 'out for the count' during the weekend & it has only got better during the week. Today I still have a little trouble with my movements but I'm almost back to normal.

Today I spent half an hour or so on the balcony. I first repotted the Cyclamen I bought on Saturday & put in it on the balcony railing along with the other 10 - not 9 as I had counted (wrongly!) during the week! Now I have an odd number!

Then I started my usual game of 'plant merry-go-round'. I moved the Geraniums, that I had taken off the balcony railings when we were forecast so much rain a couple of Fridays ago, that were on the balcony floor impeding me moving around, & put them on the shelving on the balcony wall. But first I had to move the Amaryllis that were there! I did that by moving a few empty pots from behind them & pushing them further in. Many of the leaves had died off & the few remaining ones will not suffer from a little reduced light. Then I put the pots of Geraniums in their place! Now I have more room to move around on the balcony again!

I then noticed that a few leaves on a couple of the tomato plants were looking a little droopy so I had to water them. I also watered the pots of Geraniums as they were very dry. Then my last job was to find another place for the 'Calla Lily' pot, so I wouldn't fall over it as well! After a few minutes surveying the balcony I spied the place where the clay pot, that now houses the new Cyclamen plant, was empty! By moving the tray of Carnation seedling forward a inch or so I managed to 'shoehorn' the 'Calla Lily' in behind it!

It's like living in a constant jigsaw puzzle trying to fit things in!

 

One thing I did yesterday was to cut hard back the Dragon Tree in our living room as it has had a bad Mealy Bug infestation. We have had it for getting on for 20 years & it has never had the slightest problem. It even survived the budgies nibbling the leaves off! I've cut it back at least 3 times over the last few years & have a "forest" of Dragon trees I've rooted from it!

I've had to do the same with 3 other pots, 2 of which I cut back by half over a month ago after the Neem oil solution I used on them caused most of the leaves to fall off. The plants are outside on the balcony & are still alive but have no growing buds yet. How long they can last this way I have no idea. I will have to bring them inside during November to avoid them being killed by the cold.

The other pot that has been kept in the bathroom since I first detected the Mealy Bug infestation has 3 small trees in it & didn't lose many leaves after the treatment. But as the mealy bugs continue to live I took the decision to cut the 3 trees back by half as well.:( For the moment it will stay on the bathroom windowsill.

The mother trees still has mealy bugs in the places where the 3 main branches come out of the trunk. I didn't notice them till much later. They are in a difficult position to get at. I imagine if I don't find a way of getting rid of them they will continue to feed on the trunk over the winter & I won't have done the tree any good if they multiply in the spring again! :(
.

.
Dragon trees in bathroom window 16th October 2023
.

.

.


.

 

A small brush and dab the mealy bugs with Meths @Balc, you have to be persistent but it kills them on contact.

 

That's interesting, pete. The woolly scale on my citrus trees has given way to mealy bug this year. They're b******s to get rid of. The experiments with making 'neem' extraction have been fairly successful against leaf miners but not the mealy bugs.

 

Meths is usual practice against mealy bug for cactus growers.

 

I've got a few bottles of meths and some small brushes dotted around in different places. I use them often on cacti and other plants too. I also put badly infested plants out in the rain for a few days. Mealy bugs don't like to get wet.

 

Moving pots against the walls and into corners, closing the blowaway greenhouse, tidying up anything moveable and crossing fingers.

First peep from storm Babet is expected tonight, then a lull and then full wack on Friday.

Thankfully the situation here is not expected to be as bad as across the border in Scotland.

 

I think it may be the best thing to do if I leave my pots of Cyclamen inside the balcony so they don't get soaked for several days.
Rain is forecast again this pm as well as longer & perhaps heavier rain on Friday pm.

 

Hi,

Rained off here too; I'll install phone & Ethernet cables so the day won't be wasted.

Kind regards, Colin.

 

This morning I spent about an hour on the balcony tidying up some of my plants, preparing them for putting in the plastic greenhouse when I put up the big round table in the corner. I mostly removed damaged & dying leaves, cut back a few stems on different plants & removing debris caused by the hailstorm we had a few weeks ago. If I leave it in the pots it will only rot & perhaps cause health issues in the plants. In the plastic greenhouse there will be little ventilation even though the door is normally left rolled up unless the weather is particularly cold/frosty.

Unless something drastic happens before the end of the month I plan to remove the tomato plants, put up the big round table, reassemble the plastic greenhouse & put it on the table. I will do it inside an old plastic mattress bag as I have done for several years now. This acts as a 2nd layer of insulation should we have exceptionally cold/frosty weather during the winter. This has served me well for several years but it hasn't been tested against a winter like we last had in 2009/10. (Let's hope we don't get any more winters like that!). I will also plant up some of the little bulbs I've bought recently in £land. Then it's a case of moving pots further inside the balcony, up against the windows & getting out the fleece wrap to give them a little protection should we have hard frosts.

 

Having caught Covid last week, I've just been staring at all the tidying jobs that need doing. To be fair, the weather has been very wet anyway. It'll be good to get out there again, tidy up, and get some fresh air.

 

Hi,

Not the best of mornings; shopping very early; Morrison's; Aldi & Home Bargains whilst the rain bucketed down and back home by 8:15.

With the rain still coming down I thought I'd run the new Ethernet cable from the recently installed BT router located in our front bedroom to the office; my desktop computer isn't friendly with Wi-Fi.

Start in the bedroom by pulling up the corner of the carpet intending to drill a hole through the floor then run the cable under the bungalow; with my usual bad luck I thought I'd better check the cable connection first; of course it doesn't fit into the BT router broadband socket. I'm now using my Laptop computer which is Wi-Fi enabled; why can't cables be standardized; I've got so many different types of cables for my computers and recording gear etc.

Not on topic but I'd rather be digging stumps out and removing masses of ivy than playing around with all this electronic kit. It's all part of life's rich tapestry.

Kind regards, Colin.

 

Harvest the squashes now the plants are going over remove a lot of the annuals that are finished or nearly so and then plant the wall flowers to replace them.
Also weeding and check greenhouse plants.