what's new

This page hopefully will give an overview of what is happening on this website and in the garden. It should be a summary of what is mentioned elsewhere on the site.

A lot of tidying has been done in the garden, dead branches in the Rhododendron bushes, last years old withered leaves and weeds removed. On the slope, a circle which is kept weed free, is maintained around each plant until it is firmly established. Paths have been improved with wooden edging (from sustainable sources) to prevent soil movement. New gravel has been added. Five bird boxes of differing types have been erected, but have as yet been unused. Extra help has been had in the form of of young lady, Maria, who comes once a month for a day. She is a knowledgeable plantswoman herself and makes a great deal of difference to the garden in general.
A patch of Spiraea salicifolia has been removed on the side to make room for plants which need thinning out on one side of the house. A path at the far end of the garden is being extended to join up with the sitting out area on the side - this will result in a circular route (a big task!).
New plants from Crug have been split up, potted prior to being planted out to allow them to establish. Some of the herbaceous plants in the garden are being split and potted up to try in suitable sites on the side.

As usual, more plants have been bought from Crug - Disporums, Polygonatums - very exciting and hopefully the area under the Acer palmatum trees will provide an ideal humusy habitat; we shall see. Also a batch of interesting plants have come from Tir Mab Cynan, Brithdir. This is a superb nursery specialising in perennials - they have the National Collection of Geum pheum. Amongst a variety of plants, and through their kindness, Hosta 'Brithdir' was obtained. This is a speckled, mottled Hosta sport - very beautiful; may be due to virus, but so what.

The bees have unfortunately excelled themselves and have swarmed four times. This reflects the considerable productivity of this site. The swarms have been taken away to create new hives in Ty Newydd not far away. It will be interesting to see how much honey all these hives produce and the flavour.

Propagation of the more interesting plants continues and the last plant of Dactylorhiza foliosa hopefully has been saved. The back patio looks more like a plant nursery at the moment and even bought plants cannot really be put out as it is so dry.

Visited Chelsea flower show for a day - interesting, but still mixed feelings especially about the cost of some gardens, their suitability and their long term viability. I was particularly impressed by the quality of Sneeboer tools from Holland and bought some hoes. These are made as tools were made - made to last a lifetime. These can be bought also online from Harrod Horticultural who have a wide range of interesting products for gardeners. I have done my best to label all these photographs, there are still a few that I am not sure what they refer to - if you can identify any of these, please let me know.

A shorter domain name has been acquired which is forwarded to the present domain: http://www.mygarden.ws - how this affects the search engine spiders, I do not know; we shall see. Masking has been tried, but has an irritating effect of going back to the home page all the time.
Another batch of Hellebore seedlings have been obtained from a cottage garden in Minffordd. These originate from double and deep coloured strains - should be very interesting.
A collection of Polygonatum's and Disporum's have been bought from Crug - one just cannot resist the temptation! These are waiting to establish a bit more before planting out.
The bees continue to produce swarms, even though one of the three hives have been removed. Most of the swarms have been relocated up in Ty Newydd nearby. Update for May has been done. Honey has been taken off.
21st June - first rain for over 5 weeks breaking the serious drought, but still not enough. We need at least a week of heavy rain to replenish ground water levels.

July 2004

July 3rd - very windy weather, occasional showers but the spring lines are still not running. This shows the severity of the drought we have had. This wind is/has been serious - it has snapped off the top of my wonderful Toonia, very upsetting. Flowers and leaves have been badly bruised. This wind has also ruined an Osprey nest with chicks not far away from here. This is the first recent record of this majestic bird of prey nesting in Wales.
The local glass company have made an slab of glass with the quote "A quiet place in a troubled world" to be placed in the garden. From its proliferation in the gardens at recent shows, it would seem that glass is the material of choice at present. Indeed Hampton Court featured a garden made almost entirely of glass.
This feature glass panel was cast in an electric kiln at just over 800°Centigrade, transforming ordinary float glass into a sculptural screen. The mould, including the letters, is cut by hand from high temperature refractory material and placed on the bed of the kiln with the 19mm flat glass on top. The kiln is then heated slowly, over three hours until the glass has softened and taken up the pattern of the mould. The annealing process then begins, slowly cooling the glass over 24hrs, down to room temperature, stabilizing the molecules, which have been made fluid at high temperature. This is essential, to prevent the glass from cracking under the thermal shock of cooling, and to ensure a stable, strong and safe piece of garden art, that will last indefinitely.
Similar techniques were used for a large curved glass balustrade by Igloo, in Barry Mayled’s gold medal winning garden at Chelsea in 2003. At this years show Barry used five large cast glass platters by Igloo, to represent the Olympic rings, in the fountain at the centre of his garden, Blades.
More plants have been bought from Crug as usual - ferns and Deinanthe.

Busy getting the garden into shape - it is almost presentable! A lot of plants have been planted out which will of course cause problems during periods of dry weather - if that happens, we shall see. Little has been done to update this site over the past two weeks ( writing this on the 18th August), "real" gardening has been the priority rather than the usual "virtual" version. Computers aren't everything! Photographs have been taken, processed and stored on DVD ROM. Catching up with this backlog will now be the problem! New gravel has been put on the back patio - Cheshire Pink Granite.
Three oak half barrels have been planted up; one by the front door with Agapanthus 'Snowdrop', Echium candicans, Eucomis 'Zeal Bronze', Imperata cylindrica 'Rubra Red Baron', Begonia aff. sinensis BWJ8133 ; the second on the back patio with Hedychium connineum 'Tara', Parochetus communis 'Golden Triangle form', Imperata cylindrica 'Rubra Red Baron'; and the third in the alcove at the back of the house, Hosta 'Brithdir', Hosta yingeri BSWJ546 and Hosta 'Harry van de Laar'.

Planted a collection of Polypodium australe - cambricum and vulgare varieties from Dr Levers excellent Aberconwy Nursery on a specially prepared rocky outcrop near the bottom pool on the side. Hopefully they will prosper.

A selection of Hydrangea serrata varieties (Kiyosumi) have been planted on the side including wild collected varieties (BSWJ4817) from Crug. Hydrangea involucrata 'Hortensis Plena' has also been planted near the top pond in moist ground.

1st September - attended the RHS event in Crug. Bleddyn was at his best a really excellent slide show on his plant collecting adventures last year. Everyone was enthralled. Afterwards plants were bought by everyone, the temptation was too great and I succumbed to buying the fabulous Tetrapanax papyrifera 'Empress' BSWJ7135. I posted a question on the discussion group Oasis on how this should be treated and other peoples experiences of this species - amazing - this caused a flurry of threads with some very useful comments as well.

Bird feeders have been put out mid way through this month - coconuts filled with suet and seeds. These have been placed on the wall of the garage and on the Malus tree on the side (a total of 8 ).

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5000 Crocus tommasinianus, 1000 Crocus vernus 'Vanguard', 1000 Narcissus obvallaris and 1000 Narcissus pseudonarcissus lobularis are being planted mostly in the border and grass verge near the road with some on the side.

1st October - Welsh version "A quiet place in a restless world" "Hafan dawel mewn byd aflonydd" of the original glass pane has been placed in the garden close to the lower pool on the side. This was made by Peter Shields from the glass company Igloo.

More bird boxes have been placed around the garden - another 4 making a total of 8. Hopefully these will weather and be ready for the birds in early spring. The original 4 boxes were not occupied this summer by birds only by dozens of millipedes! Two bat boxes have been put on the ash trees and a short eared owl box in the bowl of a branch high up a sycamore tree on the boundary.

24th November 2004 - the garden is very quiet at the moment. Autumn colours have not been as spectacular as last year. Most most the leaves seem to have had no chance to colour having been blown away by some of the amazing gales we have had. Last week we had our first taste of winter with temperatures down to just above freezing. Snow was also a feature above 700 feet and the mountains were thickly covered. However by Sunday the temperatures have risen again to 13°C, very mild with similar night time figures. The Ceanothus still continues to flower as well as the Fuchsia. Mahonias are now at their best and are being worked by honey bees. Camellia sasanqua 'Narumigata' has just started to open its wonderful white tinged pink flowers, very beautiful. The birds have been emptying the peanut feeders and eating the fat balls at a tremendous rate. During the very cold weather a bumble bee was seen on a Spiranthes orchid flower.

Nomenclature of plants is now being checked against names used by the RHS Plantfinder CD ROM. Numerous mistakes have accumulated, mostly as misspellings, a few, the incorrect species name has been used. Names of plants - genus and species have been put in italics, varietal names in parentheses, but not italicized. Misidentifications is another problem not so easily solved and it is very helpful when people do contribute and point out the error of my ways. Please do e-mail me if you think or know something is incorrect.

All these 'errors' do have an important consequence, they are picked up by search engines and therefore the importance of getting naming of plants right, is of a high priority.

Two maximum minimum thermometers have been bought, one is placed near the Tetrapanax and the other near the top pool. Readings from these should provide a more accurate picture of the temperature distribution in the garden.

More bird feeders have been bought, these are supposedly squirrel proof as the grey squirrels destroy the feeders if made of plastic, within a couple of days.

A voice recording attachment has been purchased for the iPod. Why? - to make voice memos as I go around the garden. I am apt to forget important points - old age!! Now I will have no excuse (except for the batteries going flat!).

A Dynax 7D SLR camera has been purchased just before Christmas. In many respects this has been very disappointing, bright conditions over expose photographs badly and white colours can have an unfortunate colour cast to them. I would not recommend this camera to anyone - a very expensive mistake!

New pages have been added giving information on Llanystumdwy and Criccieth hopefully to put this garden in context with the local area.

P. S. This is the RHS Bicentenary Year - a very important event whether you are a member or not - there are a wide range of events throughout the country and interactively on the web see the RHS website.