response

I amazed again! Not just about the birth of my cordyline shoots but the fact that someone responded to the Blog! Thanks Bob, promise I will keep you informed. At least I now know someone reads the blog.

Also knew someone would comment on the "recklessness" of being among trees in a thunder storm! Thanks again Bob but no I didn't get struck by lightening. I am a recklessgardener but not so reckless as to stand "under" a tree in a storm.

Yes I will let everyone know how I get on with the babies, although I am mortified by the thought of having to prise one of them off the trunk to transplant. I will do this one at a time in case there is a fatality. I suppose my main worry is the root system. I know nothing about cordylines and I am still rooting through my books trying to get inspiration and support. Has anyone out there tried to grow one from a shoot?

Tomorrow is the end of the current Reckless competition - great response and thanks to everyone who has entered. The winner will be announced next week.

It would be nice to get a few more responses to the blog, so don't be shy, Bob wasn't.

Magic

Em was running the Cancer Research 10K at Tatton Park so I decided to take myself off with her. Tatton is one of my favourite gardens and I thought, well its about time I gave myself some fresh air.

As a result I found myself in a magic moment - you know one of those times that you will remember for some reason or other. Anyway, there I was strolling through the rose garden all alone, in fact I was the only one in the garden at that time in the day. Now I know what it must have been like to be Lady Egerton strolling through your estate and completely alone. Magic.

It was fine until the thunderstorm! But even that didn't deter me from walking through the lovely sweeping grounds to seek out the trees which will turn all beautiful colours of copper and reds in just a few weeks. So there I was - National Trust green cagool donned and zipped up, water dripping from my hood - but absolute magic. All alone, in the thunderstorm and I loved every minute of it. Suddenly the downpour gave way to patches of blue and then sunshine!

I wondered if the previous Lady Egertons of Tatton had ever experienced something similar.

Good to see the pineapple house looking so good, they have done an excellent job.

giving birth

There can be exciting moments in gardening and I have just experienced one! I have given birth or rather my Cordyline has - there are 4 new babies, green shoots smiling, and I am estatic. Although I know nothing about how to cultivate the shoots I will be sure to be quick to learn and have already started trawling through my library of gardening books to find out - when I do I will share it with you.

After some delightful days spent tidying up the left-overs of summer, in lovely sunny weather, we are today under darker skies and there is no prospect of getting out to garden today. I am sure that as a true recklessgardener I will break open a bottle of wine to toast the birth instead - far more sensible.

snail alert

While welcoming the rain we have also welcomed the slime-balls back into activity. I had stern words with the hostas yesterday imploring them to stand up to the various assaults. I even grouped them altogether rather like Wellington at Waterloo, but fear this will only serve to put cream on the pudding for the slime-balls.

I keep asking myself why these pests were put in the garden but then I see a small bird happily munching on one and realise that this must be the scheme of things. Already I am into my planning books for next year with this one hardly out of the window.It's hard to think it September already and time to go to the nursery to buy winter plants to pep up the patio tubs.

Anyway, I will continue to implore the hostas to keep a stiff upper leaf and not flag under the onslaught of a thousand little shells while plotting a more active strategy for next season nothwithstanding that slug pellets look mighty enticing from where I am sitting at this moment. Oh shame!

Dahlia joy

I have been spending a few days in the Highlands - the heather is coming into bloom and the weather was glorious - unlike the rest of the UK apparently! A visit to the Glenfiddich Distillery revived the parts that couldn't otherwise be revived although after a couple of glasses one's dexterity in the garden would seriously be impaired. And then back home to the garden to find some glorious Dahlia's all nodding their heads and waiting for me to stand back and praise them.

Despite the dry summer the recent rains have come at the right time for these delightful plants and we have been rewarded with a fine crop. It's always good to be able to bring flowers into the house which you have grown yourself, rather like eating your own home grown vegetables, and so a lovely vase now graces the kitchen. What does not seem to be so successful this year is the Chrysanthemums - one or two of mine have gone altogether and the other clump is not flowering at all. I wonder if anyone else has had this problem.

Some of the roses look a sorry sight due to black spot but this is an annual problem here in Cumbria so we just have to get on with it.