Overdue Update

Well it's been a busy summer, not that you guys would know due to my lack of updates! In my defence though I did get married in August!

Me and my beautiful girlfriend of 9 years tied the knot on the 18th of August 2012, it seems like a lifetime away now!

Me and Gemma on The Big Day

But you're not here to read about that! On with the gardening!!!

The garden has been really sorely neglected this year. Well maybe I'm being too hard on myself there, I have done a lot of 'layout' work, moving earth from one place to another, putting in a border, putting in a bird bath and adding a couple of other things I'll talk about shortly. But planting and maintenance have definitely taken a back seat.

The main reason for this is having propagators all over the house last year left a lot of mess so I didn't do it this year which meant planting straight from seed which yielded little results. Eventually I gave in and set up one propagator quite late into the summer and managed to plant out a couple of the 'Tall Mix' that I planted and grew successfully last year.

'Tall Mix' and a bit of moss

You can see in the picture some of the 'Tall Mix' growing around the corner of the slabs and some more up the top corner, they aren't as big as last year but they've came through again which is nice.

'Tall Mix' growing up the drain pipe

 Also growing is this beauty which I at first though was just a blade of tall grass but kept out of curiosity! Sadly though after nothing grew from my straight planting into the border I threw out all the packets for the seeds so I'm not sure what it is. One of the things I learnt this year is to always keep a note of what you've planted!

Mystery plant

 These are some plants my neighbour gave me which should flower next year. They looked quite strong so I've planted them under the bird house since that area tends to get a bit trampled by pigeons so whatever is there needs to be quite hardy.

Plants under the bird house

The veg patch hasn't evolved at all. I ended up dumping all the grass I had moved into the corner back on top of the same section after I found out that granite (the rock my house is made of) actually seeps water so having a pile of earth against it can cause problems with damp. Took ages to move it all back as well since I couldn't get the shovel under it properly due to the branches I'd put underneath! All that I covered was a patch of weeds so it actually looks better here than it did.

Veg patch still looking empty

 This is the first year I've planted bedding plants as well. I thought it was cheating really to plant things someone else has grown but with the lack of space for growing I'm actually thinking it might be my preferred method for now (until I get a bigger house). Here is an example of the bedding plants round my bird path:

Bedding plants round the bird bath. Grass has been cut!

 Looking ok considering they were looking like this at one stage:

NEGLECT!

In addition to the plants at the base of the bird house my neighbour also made this out of some bamboo polls and string. Looks good! Hopefully it'll grow nicely.

Home made trellis out of string and bamboo

Also new in the garden, which I hinted to earlier, are these:

New toys and some bedding plants

That is a 220 ltr rain butt and an equally sized compostor! Beautiful! Ok, I know, we are in Aberdeen so we don't really need rain butts but you never know when there might be a need to be able to collect a large amount of water (remember this blog is about zombies as well yeah!) so I've always wanted one cause there is something cool about collecting a large amount of water.

The compostor is just another trial. I have a brown bin for putting my garden waste to be collected by the council but I'll put the odd bit and piece into my own one as well.

Other than that there isn't much going on. Here is a couple of plants I have in the house that are doing quite well. Except the top one that is, it was left in the cold frame whilst I was away on honeymoon and looked a bit worse for wear when I returned but I'm hopefully that it'll bounce back now that it is in doors under my watchful eye.

In for recovery

Potted plant (again, must keep names!)

Wife's Orchid, still looking well

Well that's about it. I also had my first accident in the garden this period but I don't think it's noticeable, is it?

Perfectly good plant pot

Oh and I add this to my little spot in the back garden:

Little hide away in the back garden heated by a chimenea

A little chimenea! It's really a one man one and just tucks away nicely there. I got it in a sale at Homebase after buying one it BnQ that was way too big for the space (I've kept it as well though, still planning on that new house so I can fit in propagators remember!) but this one is perfect. I love the great deals you can get on gardening stuff as the summer rolls to an end!

Well that's it, sorry for the delay but I hope you've enjoyed the latest. Not sure when the next post will be as I don't have any more plans for the moment. I do have quite a few pots of plants out back that I'm hoping to keep all winter so I'll keep you posted on how they are getting on.

Till then.