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Gardening

Although most of the peonies will flower later this month, the early tree peonies are really beginning to come out now;




I'm hoping that the rain forecast for later this week won't ruin the blooms. The Cornus are also beginning; China Girl is in leaf, and this one is a pink Florida;


I left some of the canna in the ground over the winter, under a heavy mulch and a fleece, and found the first shoots emerging this morning. Hopefully there won't be a ground frost over the next 2-3 weeks.
 
Our tree peonies are yellow and the first flower is about to come out. Always a moment to look forward too. We have two very mature bushes here that are getting harder to keep under control!
 
If they yellow peonies are the common ones - utterly beautiful scent and with a Russian-look-alike name (which cannot remember, or spell), they are short-lived, but usually set seed. Five years with you is good going.

Seed of peonies only makes a root in year one after sowing, a shoot above ground appears in year two. Otherwise, they are extremely easy from seed.

(Peonies generally make an awful lot of dud seed - a real seed is 5-6mm or so across, two flat sides but otherwise round.)
 
JensenHealey said:
Our tree peonies are yellow and the first flower is about to come out. Always a moment to look forward too. We have two very mature bushes here that are getting harder to keep under control!
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Are your tree peonies delavayi lutea, or suffruticosa?

Yellow may be the colour I like best for peonies - we have an intersectional Bartzella that is covered in buds and about a month away from flowering.
 
I have no idea what variety they are. First - I am NOT a gardener, not even a competent weeder! (I do the lawns), and Second, they were already well established when we moved here 18 or more years ago.
 
I only have one peony. It's a well known pink variety with huge scented blooms. Sarah Bernhardt? Sadly, even with staking/ support, the flowers usually wait for rain and either succumb to 'balling', or fall over.
I'd like a yellow peony, herbaceous or 'tree' and would welcome recs for a variety for a small garden.
 
Mullardman said:
I only have one peony. It's a well known pink variety with huge scented blooms. Sarah Bernhardt? Sadly, even with staking/ support, the flowers usually wait for rain and either succumb to 'balling', or fall over.
I'd like a yellow peony, herbaceous or 'tree' and would welcome recs for a variety for a small garden.
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The intersectional peony, Bartzella, that I mentioned above would probably be a first choice - it develops to maturity quickly, with many large, fragrant blooms, and intersectional flowers last roughly twice as long as tree or herbaceous peonies. There are other similar yellows - Border Charm, or Canary Brilliants which are also have their own charm.
 
We have three of the Itoh series of intersectional Peonies, all budding nicely and should be out in a week or two.

Sis in law stayed over last night, she’s surprised how much further along things are hereabouts. They’re barely an hour away in West Yorkshire (we’re in Manchester) but their Daffs are still in bloom (ours are pretty much all over) and the only trees in leaf are the Horse Chestnut, where we have Hornbeam, Beech and Lime all well out, ditto Silver Birch and Ash.
 
Anyone good at mouse control?
Little so and so's are digging down into raised veg beds to nest....grrrr.
Humane taps a good idea?
 
We’ve had them in our garden for over 10 years.
They come out and scavenge under the bird feeders at night.
Very entertaining watch and never been in the house.
 
Field mice is usually a local name for short-tailed voles - seriously cute, chubby-faced little things. Long-tailed field mice is usually a local name for wood mice - also seriously cute. Both far cuter than house mice and yet house mice got domesticated.

Voles are basically grazers, mice prefer seeds, insects and the like.

They are all territorial and translocating any is generally a recipe for a pretty horrible end to them. Use break-back traps and be far more humane. That said, at this time of year, there could very well be young in the nest. I would never have a "humane trap" used here - they are ultimately down-right cruel (as are glue boards, which I also would not use and see may well be in the process of being made illegal for most circumstances).
 
Well that made me feel better cheers Vin.
I put them in a copse full of hazel, elder, dogwood and thorn. Tons of food and if it were me, i'd take my chance. My garden has more owls a stoats than that copse.
It was 3 adults. If they have young somewhere now it isn't 18" down under my newly planted Peas and Spinach, so i reckon it was a fair compromise.
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
she’s surprised how much further along things are hereabouts. They’re barely an hour away in West Yorkshire (we’re in Manchester) but their Daffs are still in bloom (ours are pretty much all over) and the only trees in leaf are the Horse Chestnut, where we have Hornbeam......
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It's that old Palatine propagational precedent, I guess.
 
Here's what I'm doing right now. Grape the first up growing away and flowering now. The variety is Lakemont (green desert grape) and I guess the vine is about 15 years old. The greenhouse is only small so I have to keep it pruned hard.



Mini Munch cucs for the school lunches (by request). The string is buried under the root and tied to the top of the big stake such that the plants are supported by the string. 2 here in a 50 litre (?) pot



I always like to try something new so this year I've got a couple of Mangomels on the go. The experiment is one vertically on the otherside of the door and the other on the ground under the vine

 
the trap had a mysterious visitor last night. Houdini the tiny rodent. This AM check revealed no peanut butter, mouse droppings but....no rodent. It's an ld trap so i guess the little whatsit was so ting he didn't tip the scales. Anyway. No more holes in the spinach bed so that's the end of that.
 
Rockmeister said:
the trap had a mysterious visitor last night. Houdini the tiny rodent.
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Without seeing the trap, it is impossible to say but catch-em-alive traps should all have holes in them, or some other device, to allow any shrew to escape, as you need a licence to trap shrews. They would also, obviously, allow baby mice out too. Although shrews are insectivores, over the years I have caught the occasional one, very sadly, using break back traps baited with peanut butter.

I remember someone who I worked with, quite some years ago, punching holes in all his Longworth traps that he used for rodent surveying - it may well have come in at the time of the WCA passing into law.

Longworth Small Mammal Trap - No Hole (wildcare.co.uk)
 
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