Blue and beautiful
Despite the late spring and heavy rain the blue Meconopsis grandis are in flower on cue at Dunham. Since my parents were up this weekend we took a trip out there to have a good look. My own four 2 year old plants have no apparent flower buds on them yet this year, but I do have 60 young seedlings from last year so perhaps next year it will all happen.
The ones at Dunham look a little paler and more electric blue than mine were last year.
The planting combin- ation with the persicaria and white geramium works perfectly.
Drowned at Dunham
A small band of plucky gardeners braved the downpour this morning for a walk round Dunham Massey. There were some beauties - the meconopsis grandis are just in flower, as is the Magnolia wilsonii. The air was sweet with Azalea luteum and the lush foliage under dripping beech trees gave the place a slightly otherworldly, lost feel. But in the end we all got too wet and peckish and headed to the restaurant to warm up and dry out.
Back home the rain has been almost relentless and I'm resigned to just taking a few cuttings today (my first batch overheated last week in the propagator in the conservatory - no chance of that today).
I'm trying to keep my small veg plot a bit prettier this year - hence the blue bean poles. And the bottom photo is Magnolia wilsonii at Dunham, taken last May when it wasn't raining...
A catch up...
What with the rain and work I've done almost nothing for a week. Had a bit of a catch up today after it stopped raining - planted out the french beans and did some potting up and weeding. The tomatoes are ready for final planting out too - just need to decide where to put them.
Looking forward to meeting some of the BBC Gardeners MB contributors tomorrow at Dunham Massey. I had meant to pot up more plants for swapping, but it's not going to happen in time. A few new pictures:
Geranium himal- ayense 'Gravetye' This is such a great plant - trouble free, repeat flowering, pretty foliage.
Thankfully the orange tulips shed their petals before this peony flowered.
I'm not sure precisely which montana var rubens this is, but it looks pretty against the brick wall
Although unplanned, this azalea tones beautifully with the young leaves of Corylus maxima purpurea behind it.
So much for going part-time...
Since Monday 8th when my replacement started I've had precisely 2 hours in the garden. The lawn is 4" high and covered in dandelions. The beans are rooting themselves into the polytunnel floor and the weeds are winning.
It's just been one of those spells with more going on at work than anyone could have expected. And we had a wonderful couple of nights away in the Lake District at the weekend too so I'm not complaining. It should only have been one night, but a slight altercation with a sharp stone left us with one flat tyre and one damaged one, which meant staying over till Monday. And a lightning strike on a customer's telephony system required all hands on deck today while we worked on a solution.
However, I did get the runner beans planted out tonight - almost in the dark by the time I finished. I shall take some photos tomorrow with a bit of luck.
Anyway, on the drive back from Penrith in relentless rain I heard that Surrey is now under a drought order. Seemed a bit ironic at the time since it had been raining non-stop here for 24 hours. I don't plan ever to move back to the south east.
Hot, but not bothered
Another warm day today reaching 25C outside and a worrying 38C in the polytunnel, even with the door wide open. Must remember to open the other end as well.
As luck would have it, I spent most of today in a windowless classroom but we did get out for half an hour on a weed-identification hunt.
Back home for an evening potter in warm sunshine. I sowed more peas - I think the ones I sowed in pots in the polytunnel got cooked last week. Planted out some more new potatoes in a spare spot and sowed some fennel. And No2 and I dabbled with blue paint, but more of that later.
Oh, and I handed over to the new Tech Manager at work yesterday. Still keeping in touch by phone and email, but handing over the baton was a huge relief. So, I'm hot, but chilled.
Trillium's first Trillium
My Trillium grandiflorum chose a cool wet afternoon to open for the first time. I'm chuffed as I thought I'd lost it.
The rain that was forecast for yesterday finally arrived today. Still no matter. I had two important jobs to do today - both indoors.
1. Clear my desk for my replacement at work who starts tomorrow. A new life beckons.
2. Take a load of softwood cuttings. I filled the heated propagator and more besides. Just as work expands to fill the time available so plant growing expands to fill a gardener's available space.
It may not be the optimum propagation time or method for some of these plants, but if there's juvenile material, I'll have a go with it.
My weather station is better than the BBC
The BBC's forecast was for heavy rain for Saturday. My weather station predicted cloud. It was right and they were wrong. However, thanks the Beeb's erroneous prediction, I got into the garden early, expecting to be rained off and had an almost wall to wall day outside.
DB cleaned up the barbecue and cooked our first outdoor meal of the year, with salad leaves and basil from the garden.
A few new pictures:
Clematis 'Early Sensation' Its first buds were burned off by frost, so it's not that early, but I love the colour and the foliage is pretty.
In anticipation of a fig-fest later in the year.
OK, so I do like orange and purple together. But I am desperately hoping that the orange tulips drop before the magenta peony behind it flowers.
Heat and hydrangeas
And I thought Wednesday was warm. Today we reached 27.9C. Me and my fellow Dunham volunteers spent the morning pruning the hydrangeas (yes, still loads more to do) with a hot wind blowing and being rained on by cherry petals. Odd.
Almost summer
Today the temperature reached 22C - by far the warmest day of the year so far (I forgot to open the polytunnel properly and that reached a scary 36C). My replacement at work popped in for a pre-joining briefing, and as predicted by me several weeks ago, the weather improved precisely on cue with his arrival. Uncanny. So although today's glorious weather largely passed me by, in a couple of weeks I'll be out there somewhere, with luck.
We got our results today at college - I got a pass with commendation for part one of the RHS Level 2. Just the other half to go now in June. We studied plant nutrition this afternoon. All I can say is it's amazing that anything I've planted has ever grown. At least I know what's wrong with the lemon tree - it's iron deficiency. (it's got interveinal chlorois, if you're curious)
The ones at Dunham look a little paler and more electric blue than mine were last year. 
The planting combin- ation with the persicaria and white geramium works perfectly.
