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.