The second half of the turf was delivered today, and Stuart completed the laying. It’s starting to feel like we have a garden now!
Lawn progression
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Monthly Archives: May 2012
Whitebeam progress
Now that the leaves have opened on the whitebeams, they are wasting no time in growing – it’s amazing how quickly the stems are increasing in size. One of the trees is even sprouting rowan from the base – no doubt coming from the rowan root stock that the whitebeams are grafted onto.
Four of the five trees seem to be doing well, but the growing tip of one isn’t growing, so it will likely need some remedial action.
The older whitebeam in the front garden, though apparently a different variety, gives us a good idea of what we can look forward to.
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- Whitebeam sprouting
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- Whitebeam sprouting
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- Rowan sprout
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- Inactive growing tip
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- Active growing tip
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- Aspiration
May flowers #2
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- Hawthorn blossom
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- The ceanothus by the garage, which isn’t doing so well, still manages to give a great bloom
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- This ceanothus was pruned very hard last year, and seems to be doing very well
Sweet pea planting
As the garden starts to take shape, so do the beds that now need filling. This patch has been planted with non climbing sweet peas.
Sweet peas planted
Currant update
The Ben lomond currant seems to be doing well, though it looks like most of the flowers succumbed to the strong winds recently. Still, we weren’t expecting much fruit from the currants this year. Big Ben doesn’t seem to be doing so well – it was really stripped by the deer. However, there are signs of new shoots from the base, so hopefully it will still be able to get in a good year’s growth.
The best of all, is a flowering currant which had self seeded in an overgrown gutter – now we just need to decide where to plant it.
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- Ben lomond
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- Big ben
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- Flowering currant
North west sunset
Heading towards midsummer, the sun now sets in the north west.
North west sun set
Rhododendron flowers
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- Rhododendron bud
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- Rhododendron flower
Turfs up
Finally the day has arrived to transform bare earth into lawn. The first half of the turf arrived today, and Stuart worked hard all day getting it laid down. Even incomplete, the transformation is clear.
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- The lawn to be
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- The turf arrived on a palette – this is about half the total turf we have ordered, the rest will come in the next few days
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- Turf rolls
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- Stuart hard at work laying our new lawn
Escallonia problems
Since we bought the house just over a year ago, the escallonia hedge has steadily deteriorated in condition. One particular area was very bad, and two plants there have died and been removed. But the yellowing of the leaves has continued and is spreading to all parts of the hedge.
There is a disease which has started affecting Escallonia in the last few years – Escallonia leaf spot. The symptoms look similar, but not identical to our leaves. Hopefully it is not leaf spot as there is not much which can be done for leaf spot infection other than keeping the plant well fed and watered and hoping.
Escallonia leaves
Laying out veg beds
Using some old wood from the dismantled decking, we scoped out the size and position of our veg beds. The area isn’t wide enough for 3 full width beds with sufficient room on all sides, so we will probably end up with two 80cm beds on the sides and a full width 120cm bed in the middle.
Potential veg beds