Greenfingers' Outbox

I just dig it into the beds, shame to waste it.

It's a Speckled Wood Butterfly. It landed on our garden sun brolly and posed quite happily for a photo. Oveer the last week or so, we have been inundated with cabbage whites, 5 or 6 at a time - hope my neighbours veggies haven't all been munched my these!

And he moves very well, if I say so myself! LOL.

Had a FAB time in Majorca - can't believe that leaving my garden for 1 week has made such a difference. Tonight is the 1st night I've managed to get out in the garden and started to get things back under control.....sort of. The lawn was nearly knee high with the combined rain and heatwave last week whilst we were away!
There's so much to do but working full time gets in the way - I'm exhausted but the weekend is nearly here then I can overdose on weeding, deadheading and trimming things back! Can't wait to get my greenfingers back!

NOTHING can put us hard-edged chocoholics off.....even the most prickly, ugly, green/brown/orange micro aliens. I sniffed a mars bar today, and luckily found out I was not allergic to choccy, so ate the whole thing just to be sure....yum.

No wonder it makes you sneeze - just looking at that Dandelion pollen makes my eyes water!
Luckily I don't suffer from hayfever and the thought of those pollen 'aliens' up my snout is not very inviting.

Happy Birthday Chummy! Lots of love and licks for you. x

Is it a mesembrianthemum? They open in the sun and close up again at night? They come in lovely bright colours.

I layered mine a couple of years ago and very easily increased my stock. Just scraped a little bit of the branch to reveal a little bit of the insides, then with a piece of wire, pegged it into a pot buried in the soil, after a few weeks, checked what was happening and, voila, a new plant for FREE! Those who know me will know I love free plants!

They're also called Granny's Bonnet.

I have a few Clematis now, do I need to snip off the little fuzzy heads once the flowers have flowered to make them flower more, or just leave them on? I quite like the look of them, so tend to leave them on, but am I sacrifysing flowers?

It surely is. It was originally bought as a houseplant, but I dared to put it in the pond a few years ago and it's been there ever since. It grew bigger every year and it was huge last year, goodness knows how big it will be this year. Usually we only get one or two flowers but there's quite a few on this already waiting to open.....more pics will follow no doubt.

A few drops of rain and they're all over the place. Dreadful reatures, why DID God invent them?

Just checked my lavenders and they're covered in it! Yuk! All sticky!

...and not a single slug hole! Well done!

I agree, why does she feel the need to go braless and poke those hideous things in Alan Titchmarsh's face all the time? If Charlie is reading this site, take advice from an older woman - wear good support at all times or you'll soon be kneeling on them whilst you're weeding. LOL!

Whahay, quite a tropical day you'll have then, hope you've got the suncream ready! LOL! I'm one of those 'odd' people who are always cold. When I was younger, my mum thought I was a bit odd too, I'd wear jumpers in the summer and t-shirts in the winter! I get very sad when it's cold, I hate being out in the garden on a cold day, unless I'm raking the lawn, that makes you sweat!
Glad your plants survived....looking forward to seeing more pics.

I believe they have rebranded and are now on chanel 265, now called UKTV Home, tomorrow (Wednesday) from 11am there's an hour of Ground Force and again from 5pm-6pm - I think they've run all the gardening programmes and can't seem to find anything new and exciting to put on. I think my hubby is secretly pleased as it was the ONLY chanel I ever watched. Great news for me though, coz I'll be able to spend more time on GoY! Yippee!
I think we could all get together and make a very informative gardening programme....what do other members think....with all the knowledge and tips on this site we can have a gardening chanel all of our own!

Oh no Newfie! Not more snow! It's been really warm here today (sorry), our summer is just around the corner now. I thought all your snow would be long gone by now after seeing all your lovely plants coming to life. Keep your thermals and sweaters handy! When will your weather improve enough for a t-shirt?

I think the little green bug inside is called a froghopper. From what I gather, they do no harm to the plant and the froth is to protect them from the birds and other beasties that like eating little insects.

They may have been attached but look more like they are suspended in the water. They look like tiny white pinheads, the girlie fish gets hassled by the boy fish, they chase each other round, the boy fish nudges into the girlie fish to release her eggs, then the boy fish swims over the eggs and coats them with his cloud of smoke....there ends my birds n bees talk! Ha. Lst year in the big pond they were chasing all day, then later that evening I saw loads of eggs all over the pond, only one survivor, but with Koi (who eat everything you put in the pond) I'm surprised he survived at all. I have heared that when fish are spawning, you can hang a bottle brush (the kind used to clean a babies bottle) in the pond for them to attach them to. Then if you want to, you can transfer the loaded bottle brush to a safer pond for them to hatch and do their thing without the worry of them all being eaten. I'm no expert but we must be doing something right to have babies. Good luck with yours.

Beautiful, hope we have as many flowers on ours this year, I can already see 2 buds forming, cn't wait!

This is lovely Chris.

Halcyon is meant to be a slug resistant one, what's your opinion Spritz? You know how many slugs n snails we get in our garden.....billions and gazillions! Always on the lookout for plants which slugs/snails don't like to devour.

We have a plague of snails and slugs in our garden every day and night. I have grown some Hostas this year from bare roots, I have them in pots at the moment sitting on the edge of the little raised pond we have. Ideally I'd like them either sitting just in the margins of the pond or in the actual garden itself, but I know it would be about 30 seconds before the slugs and snails sniff them out and munch their way happily through the whole lot. I may just pop them in bigger pots and keep them where they are, at least I know they'll be safe. I got 5 for £2! Bargain!
The 4 pots I have growing look just like yours, unfortunately the roots were not labeled and I had no idea what they were going to look like when I planted them. I also sent off to Gardeners' World for their special offer collection - I have Big Daddy, Invincible and Tokundana. My fav is the Big Daddy, big chunky leaves and pretty slug/snail resistant according to the write-up. Here's hoping.

Ble Moon,
I saw you standing alone.....
Enough of my singing - this is lovely FF.

Very nice FF.

We have exactly the same here FF. I noticed a few 'eggs' in the new pond last weekend. The fish were chasing each other around at speed all day - they must have been exhausted afterwards! It's easy for their scales to become a little tatty after what they go through, but they will make a full recovery, don't fret.
In our big pond we noticed a baby fish a couple of weeks ago, he/she's about 2" long, black/grey colour. The only survivor of last years' shinanigans, we've named him Nemo - took us a while to 'find' him.

This photo should win awards, well done.

Ooo lovely Goozgoggs....I used to pick them in my granny's garden and eat them before they were cooked! Yummy!