O/T VS Gardening Thread | Page 12 | Vital Football

O/T VS Gardening Thread

Bitter sweet discoveries in the garden this morning. A dead baby sparrow in our new pond. But a strange phenomenon with our Kniphofia Flameco plant. It's already a star in my eyes for having seemingly fluorescent flowers of yellow at dusk. But this morning its second bloom appeared in a surprise orange colour. Amazing, two colours from the same plant ? The yellow one is almost finished but this orange one makes up for it.

We visited the pond centre and came back with two more marginal bog plants to go in our marshland area behind the pond and some more pond weed.
 
My 3 hibiscuses are coming in nicely...HUGE blooms on them. Will take a picture of them when they do so again. We planted a Autumn Blaze Maple as well, simply cannot wait until fall to see it's leaves turn colors!!
 
Real Deal said:
NRD how are the plants coming along?
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It's been a fascinating summer having so much time to observe the plants. All have educated me in their own way. Some have exceeded expectations with pleasant surprises. Some have been cut back after flowering as recommended by various advisory sources.
The new ponds have given a new dimension and interest. Some prefer complete underwater roots, others are marginal and like boggy soil. With the constant water supply some grow very fast, almost worryingly fast, it makes me wonder if I have undercooked the size of the environments !!
One surprise today, one of the new pond plants, my Golden Buttons as shown in the photo, had an accident in transit with a small branch being broken off, we just submerged it on it's own in the pond, tiny white roots have sprouted from the stem after a few days....will it survive ? If so we can take cuttings from the main plant and propagate lots of new plants.
Away from the ponds, the ornamental grasses are doing very well with most seeding and some even having offspring appearing after I scattered some seeds in a plant bed we made this year. Tiny little shoots appeared after about a month and are now establishing themselves. I'm not sure when to lift and pot them, there is no room for adulthood for them.
The Dianthus has come back with new flowers after dead heading, I wish I had bought more now instead of just one. There are two species of plant that impress me much....both with giant leaves over 12 inches across. Fatsia Japonica and Heuchera Purple Palace, quite prehistoric and as close I'm getting to those giants at Kew Gardens for now. The primitive wood ferns and doing well in the rockery which is in shade almost permanently so needs the right plants used to shade or dappled shade. The front edge gets sun which is where the Dianthus and Phlox are along with 3 Purple Palaces.
The pond had its first non insect inhabitant sighting the other day. A black Leech crawling over the rocks, not a slug. We have to remove some weed slime algae stuff called string algae I think. It clings to the pond weed and will proliferate if left. Water snails eat it so we may have to buy some.
That's it for now.
 
Beautiful 80, my wife is a little down with our garden with its Autumnal decline. I did get her some more Ferns for the rockery and some nice large earthenware pots to transplant the seedling grasses into when they get bigger. Also a speckled laurel shrub again for the rockery. The pond plants are still ok with the golden Buttons plant still in bloom. The wetland plants have all been cut back now. Most of the work is tidying and cutting back now, not very exciting.
 
Nick Real Deal said:
Beautiful 80, my wife is a little down with our garden with its Autumnal decline. I did get her some more Ferns for the rockery and some nice large earthenware pots to transplant the seedling grasses into when they get bigger. Also a speckled laurel shrub again for the rockery. The pond plants are still ok with the golden Buttons plant still in bloom. The wetland plants have all been cut back now. Most of the work is tidying and cutting back now, not very exciting.
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Yup. Not my favourite time of year but there are some surprises.
 
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