Never Complain About the Weather

It's Raining and I'm a Happy Bunny!

It's so easy to grumble when rain stops play, whether that's actual play, school sports days, outdoor performances, festivals, barbeques or whatever, but crikey the garden needs rain - real rain.

I live in the South East of England, and it's been over two weeks since we've had any precipitation, and even that was just a brief shower.

The grass is parched, the phlox are wilting and the blueberries are shriveled like raisins on the bushes, but the ones that worry me the most are my Carnivorous Plants. They must have a constant supply of water with a very low mineral content, the best source being rain water. I had gathered around 16 litres of rain water in empty drinks bottles stashed in my greenhouse, but it's been so hot and dry that I ran out over the weekend.

The Met Office have been threatening rain and thunderstorms for at least a week, but then they have repeatedly pushed their predictions out, eventually giving up on them altogether as the weather fronts move away.

In desperation I ordered 25 litres of deionised, demineralised water, which is due to arrive today.

Then yesterday evening, this happened...

Rain on the Potting Shed windows

These rain clouds mean business!

The fact that I photographed it shows what a big event it is.

We have a big water butt (*and I cannot lie), but to maximise our rainwater harvest I have also placed four tub trugs round the garden. I can strain and bottle this water specifically for use on the carnivorous plants.

"Umm, so why aren't you using the water from the water butt?" I hear you asking. Well, we drained and moved the butt to a new location earlier this year, and Mr PB decided to fill it from the hosepipe. We've had rain since then, but the mineral content will still be too high to safely water the carnivorous plants with.
"But the water has been sitting around for ages, it'll be fine by now. That's all we do to age water before we put it in our fish tank". Unfortunately it doesn't work like that for carnivorous plants. It's the mineral content that is the problem. Minerals such as Calcium, Magnesium, Sodium Chloride, Sulphate, Nitrate and Bicarbonate are held in suspension, simply 'aging' the water doesn't remove the minerals.

If you live in a low rainfall area - and let's face it, climate change means this will become more of a problem not less, you could buy demineralised water to keep in reserve for emergencies, or invest in a reverse osmosis water filtration system, usually used by people who keep fish and need high volumes of filtered water for tank water changes. Similarly if you are unable to collect rainwater (maybe you live in a flat/apartment), these really are your only options for watering your carnivorous plants.

NB: 

Demineralised water and deionised water (aka DI) are produced in different ways, but have very similar levels of purity, they are not to be confused with distilled (boiled) water which should be avoided as the boiling process can actually concentrate the mineral content rather than reducing it. You need to look for water with a mineral content of less than 50 parts per million (50ppm). Double check what you are buying before you buy it, some people mistakenly used the term DI when they are selling distilled water...all three methods do begin with a 'D' I suppose!


Well it rained all evening, overnight and well into the morning, giving me around 45mm in each tub trug...it's not much, but it all helps.
Love
Pumpkin Becki

*Funny pop culture reference

Garden Party and Panic Planting

We're having a family get together at the new house next Saturday, and I've been thinking about how things will look to our guests, most of whom have not seen the house in real life before.

I know the front garden doesn't look great, as it's really more of a Spring/Early Summer garden (before the trees have 'leafed-up'), but I thought the back would do me more credit...

Then I looked again, with fresh eyes...Oh dear!

So many garden jobs to do!

We still have half the garden as it was when the builders left, ie rubble and weeds. The fence needs replacing and there is still a pile of used Grow Bags waiting to be emptied into the raised beds. My answer to the weeds and rubble, was to pull a big tarp over the lot of it, the tarp is green, so hopefully it will camoflage the mess (cough cough).

I  knew the pretty side of the garden would cheer me up...oh...'x' has finished flowering and needs cutting back...so does 'y'...and 'z'...the slugs have massacred 'a'...and it looks like 'b' never grew at all. This is not good. The saddest loss is the big tree fern we bought last summer to replace the previous one that died. We've come to the conclusion that it must be something to do with the huge canopy of leylandii that overhang from our neighbours. The rain cannot penetrate it, and it sheds dead needles continuously to form a crispy, copper-coloured blanket over everything. The soil beneath, is just dust.

Urgent remedial action was required, so I went bonkers at the local DIY centre, and bought 2 trolley loads of flowering perrenials that should continue well into Autumn, things like Phlox and Pinks, and I also bought lots of Heuchera 'Palace Purple', which are such good doers, two Clematis to twine through the ivy on the fence, and a Fatsia Japonica to replace the tree fern. We've had one before, and know that it is pretty tough, so hopefully, once it gets it's roots down, it will be okay.

I had to do a surprising amount of clearing to make space for my new treasures, including uprooting and potting-up four or five nice Strawberry runners. The three clumps of Viola 'Rebecca' have had a bit of a haircut, and a slight repositioning. A lovely Heuchera, given to us by my God-Sister last May, had put on enough growth to be split into three decent plants. I love free plants!

The clump of Dahlia 'Dandy' which I grew from seed  a few years ago was looking really sad. I think again it is probably to do with the Leylandii. I decided that I would give the clump a haircut, and then changed my mind and dug it up, with the intention of throwing it away and starting again. However, the clump of tubers was enormous, and beautifully fat and healthy, so I instantly changed my plan, chopped off the top growth and split the clump into three. Hopefully this will reinvigorate the plants, and I'll get better flowers next year...fingers crossed.

After two evenings, working like a Navvie until it was too dark to see, the garden looks much more 'flowery'. The beds have been beefed up with the spent growbags and some manure, and if I keep diligently dead-heading, and watering, all should be well.

The front garden hasn't escaped this drastic action though - ooooh no! The block paved drive had begun to look like a hayfield, and we could literally have run the lawn mower over it. We decided that as this was the first impression our guests would have of the house, we needed to weed. So armed with a knife each and a bucket, we spent the best part of 3 days cutting out the weeds from between the cracks - whose idea was it to use 'rustic' paviours :-/

The effort was well worth it though, as it does look super. We also bought some low willow effect hurdles along the front of the short bed at the end of the drive, in front of the hedge. This means that we've been able to increase the soil level without it washing onto the drive in the first rain, and to put in some more new plants, including: 2 hebes, 3 Cottage Pinks, a dwarf Pink Echinacea and 2 Euonymous. That sounds like a lot of plants, but it looked a bit bare when I laid everything out in position, so I added 2 Heuchera 'Chocolate Ruffles' (split from a plant in another bed, and some 2 year old Hellebore seedlings.

I'm really pleased with what we've achieved, though we were dog-tired by Sunday evening ...now there is just the house itself to worry about!! :D .