Insects – friends & foes

I have never had many house plants, I’ve certainly had them scattered about our home, yet with the extra time on my hands this year I’ve turned inside into a jungle as well as outside.

Always trying to work with nature rather than against her, I attract birds and beneficial insects into the yarden. Whenever things get too much I seek help using biological control.

Other than the pesky sciarid flies and aphids I have been fairly lucky and had little issues inside the home.

I hadn’t realised how quickly pests can spread, especially once the heating is in and plants are feeling the strain.

I’m not sure how they came to be in our home, however we are now hosts to spider mites and they seem to have happily taken every plant as hosts too.

I found these biological insects to control the mites on two fronts.

They arrived today and I have followed the instructions so fingers crossed that they will tackle the spider mites quickly and allow the plants to return to their former beauty.

Whatever you do, don’t be perturbed abs carry on looking after your plants and in return will look after you.

A day of fresh air

Had a busy day in the garden today with my parents.

I have really for many pictures to share.

The bees love the marjoram flowers.

I planted eight lavender plants, weeded lots of grasses and weeds. Pruned roses and trimmed back the hydrangea. It was sad to see the blooms go to waste. So I put them together.

I hope to get more done soon.

Few more pictures

Haven’t done lots in the yarden today. Thought I’d share pictures of the plants I have recently blogged about.

This is the Lathyrus latifolius ‘White Pearl’.

This is a very bad picture of these fairly tall Cyperus longus.

And here we have the Impatiens auricoma x bicaudata.

These are the beautiful Rhodohypoxis now potted up in terracotta.

Other than that I went for a trip to Ikea to get more plant pots and sadly after the hour queue to get in they had sold out of the ones I went in for.

I’ve hung the plants regardless but as you can see I need better plant pots!

This gives you the idea.

Speak tomorrow.

Rain, rain, drain away

So this morning was an early start at my parents.

Started off in the garage. Need to get rid of some stuff… tools no longer needed.

Then my second attempt at making the drain water from the greenhouse filter in to a bin. A tap has been added but yet to get some bricks / breeze blocks to mount the bin on.

The other side of the greenhouse it going to be blocked on one side. The other will drain in the bed. However the rain came as soon as I finished and think it will need to be done again.

Well that’s me making the garden more self sufficient but it’s an ongoing project as I’m sure you’re all aware.

Enjoy your green space.

Another rainy day

Here is the amazing reusable bag of peat free compost. I buy this from Bud Garden Centre – it’s Sylvagrow ‘Bag for life’.

These are the promised photos of the Thalia dealbata from yesterday.

The leaves collect the raindrops like jewels.

With the downpour I really haven’t spent much time gardening at all.