HIGHER MORWELL GARDEN DIARY
19th July 2019
The weather dominates again! It has been very dry
- just 3.4mm of rain in 27 days from 20th June. It
only rained on four days, very unusual for Morwell.
The ox-eye daisies have faded in the wildflower
patch, but at a lower level there is a good display
of bird’s foot trefoil and several musk mallows.
The crop of cucumbers has been prolific but we
have some doubts about the potatoes in bed 5, they
haven’t flowered, plants are small and already the
charlottes are withering.
A garden check 9th July on
return from four days away
revealed damage to the plum
tree far left, all leaves
towards the end of one main
branch were brown and crisp.
We cut the branch off below a
bunch of green leaves and
burnt the damaged part. So
far no other parts seem
affected. The blueberry plant
looks similar, we’ve left it to
see if it can regenerate next
year.
Part of the hawthorn hedge on the south
border has suffered with the brown wilt too,
its immediate neighbours seem unaffected.
Although it has been very dry, and some trees
are shedding leaves to conserve their water
supply, these brown leaves just look more
likely to be affected by some air-borne virus
than just lacking water.
Our crocosmia “Lucifer” has responded well to being planted out and is
ahead of the other crocosmias in the garden. In the back ground are the
orange flowers of the hemerocallis transplanted from the front of the
gunpowder store. The flowers only last a day but there are plenty of them!
The base for the new
workshop in the
quadrangle is finished,
and the contractors are
hopeful for the building
to be in place by the end
of July. So are we.
Once completed we can
start work on taking out
the remaining grass, such
as it is, and preparing to
have the whole area
covered in pavers.