Non-Gardener builds an Observatory, Garden Railway and even Dabbles with Plants!

It's all looking good but I bet your back aches by now!

 

1st May 2025

At the start of May, we were packing to go away to Jersey for a week for our 25th Wedding Anniversary. All my little plants were prepared for the inlaws to look after them, putting many in trays or dishes to help with watering.



Most were removed from the cold frames, as the end of April and early May were really hot. They were placed against my workshop wall, near the back door. Here, they would be shaded from the hottest part of the day, getting sun in the late afternoon and evening.



Unfortunately, the inlaws over watered everything, so that two of my four Lupins died and several other seedlings rotted in their pots. Overwatered everything except the pond plants, which dried out and some of those died.

 

3rd to 9th May 2025

The holiday in Jersey was great, 'though getting there and back was a nightmare. Going out, we were delayed over four hours after our plane had a mechanical failure. As we sat in Newcastle airport, we knew it wasn't great after tracking our replacement aircraft, at the South coast, heading further South.



Having eventually become gardeners, we spent quite a bit of time noticing the local flowers.



Coming home, we discovered the big airline that we were flying with, over sold our flight to Heathrow by seven seats, so us and five other people had no flight. If you ask me, it's grossly stupid to over sell seats from a small island with limited flights out. As a result, we would all also be missing our connecting flights.

Instead of getting home on the evening of the 8th as originally planned, it was now going to be the 9th at the earliest. The airline rep then had to bump other people off a flight to Gatwick, so we could all get back to England, albeit the wrong airport. We arrived at Gatwick late evening, a 40 minute Uber ride to Heathrow, four hours to try and sleep in a hotel, then up at 4:30am to catch the 7:20am flight to Newcastle.

Back at Newcastle at 10.00am, we rushed home, because I was packing to go away to York later that day, for a 1940s show. I made it, but was in bed in my tent by 9:20pm that evening! I was really tired all weekend, but survived.

 

13th May 2025

By the time I got back from York, the Bluebells were flowering. Sold as English Bluebells, I was wondering whether they really were, as some of the flowers didn't all hang to one side of the stem. They did have the narrow leaves, the tubular flower shape, the correct coloured pollen and were the correct height, so I'm wondering if they have become slightly hybridised with Spanish types. Regardless of what they are, they're staying now.



The bulbs that grew under the Dogwood finally flowered and my plant app tells me they are Giant onions ( Allium giganteum ). I've never noticed them before, as by the time they flower, the Dogwood is in full leaf and they are fairly well hidden.

 

The railway was full of colour, with many of the plants flowering. They've all spread really well, compared to how bare it all looked in April last year when first planted. I'm really pleased with the way this turned out, but I still need to get some more topsoil, to fill in under the conifer, to give a little more planting room at the back left.



The kitchen border has really filled out too, almost looking a bit over-grown. The Canterbury bells, started from seed last year, have really sprouted this year, so I'm hoping for some good blooms. The Thyme around the stepping stones could do with a trim. The Silver dust has also gone crazy. I think I'll let them flower, but then remove them and put something smaller in their place.

 

What nightmare journeys! Glad you survived.

It's not easy looking after someone else's plants and you have a heck of a lot! At least they watered them.

 

After getting back from the holiday, I planted the Hollyhocks and Achillea at the bottom of the wood. I guessed they'd have a better chance of survival if they stayed in their pots while we were away, rather than planted out and forgotten about at the bottom of the wood, particularly with the weather being so hot and dry.



There was another nice sunset to finish the day, where I'd also done some general garden maintenance, in addition to just wandering around photographing everything!

 

Despite our lack of experience, our neighbour gives us the responsibility of his greenhouse and allotment when he's away!

 

15th May 2025

I didn't get much done in the garden after getting back from York, as I needed to service my Dodge truck in time for another wartime weekend away in Blyth on the 17th and 18th. During my wandering to water stuff, I also noticed that the Bigroot geraniums were starting to flower in their new position at the back of the wood. They never did this when planted at the top of the lawn.



Also in that area, I noticed the Orange ball tree ( Buddleja globosa ) was flowering. Being at the back of the wood and the woodland not seeing much work until the end of last year, I've never noticed this before.

 

20th May 2025

I had Monday the 19th off from doing anything, trying to recover from the holiday, Dodge servicing and York and Blyth camping trips. Yesterday, I started on finishing the slate area.

The Montbretia that we dug out, had spread quite a bit since planting four years ago. It was poking up through the weed membrane all over the place and had got quite out of control. To hopefully solve this, I dug a hole big enough for a bucket, which was buried in the border. I added a few slates in the bottom of the bucket to form a spacer and then added the second bucket, with the Montbretia planted inside. This allows the inner bucket to be easily removed if needed and should stop the bulbs from spreading. A new weed membrane was fitted and glued to the edging stones and bucket with gutter sealant. After this picture, I covered over the edge of the bucket with additional slates.



Another new piece of weed membrane was glued to the first piece, extending to the Showy stonecrop and partially covered in slate. The area not covered will have some small holes cut in to plant various colours of Aubrieta, before back filling with slates. Today I plan to continue the weed membrane along the edging to the end of the lawn.

 

21st May 2025

Today, I got the second stretch of slates raked back to expose the weed membrane. I added a load of new topsoil to build up the height, as the ground fell away here behind the edging.



A length of weed membrane was glued to the edging and also to the original weed membrane, carefully cut around existing plants. I raked back some of the slates to help keep the weed membrane in place while the gutter sealant cured, as it was quite a windy day. There's a four inch strip up the edge of the patio that needs weed membrane fitting, as the original stopped short of the paving, allowing grass and other weeds to grow along the edge.

The next step is to buy some plants, plant them through the membrane and rake the rest of the slate back.

It's been so dry this year, I've been struggling to get the grass seed to grow. With little signs of life since scattering the seed on the 26th of April, despite daily watering, I've covered one side in a clear plastic sheet to trap the moisture in. This appears to be working, so once the first side has taken as is growing properly, I'll move the plastic to the side you see here.

 

In other news, wildlife continues to trigger my trailcams and by mid May, Rabbits were frequently in the garden before dawn. However, the best surprise was on the 10th, when the trialcam caught a baby fox, a foxlett! a fox cub!!! Better still, a few days later it caught a pair of foxletts!! Too cute!



It appears that the forum software won't allow embedding Youtube shorts, so here's the links to the fox cubs and hedgehog from a few nights ago.

Fox Cubs - https://www.youtube.com/shorts/62hywiQflWE

Hedgehog - https://www.youtube.com/shorts/YT9nQvenoEw

The rabbits were added as a full video, so that should show below.....



There's also a bird survey I did at the start of April, to see what birds used my pond for drinking or bathing. It was quite interesting to see what birds visited and which were the most frequent.

 

23rd May 2025

A couple of garden centre trips across the 22nd and 23rd, brought us a number of plants for along the edge of the slate area. In order for a neat edge in the weed membrane, that hopefully wouldn't fray over time. After sticking duct tape over the membrane, the soil was dug out of the hole. I cut the top off some plant pots, which were then attached to the membrane with gutter sealant.



The plants we bought were a mix of Campanula, Phlox, Aubrieta and some small white flowers which didn't have labels, but my plant app guessed at Silvery yarrow or Cream flowered sneezwort. Five were planted to the right side of the Showy stonecrop.



There were seven plants to the left of the Showy stonecrop, leaving a space for an existing Rose campion around the centre position.

 

The plants on the railway bank have come on really well.

I enjoyed the video of the birds at your pond. If you don't mind me splitting hairs, those recorded as Great Tits I think are Coal Tits. Great Tits are bigger than Blue Tits and have a black stripe down the front of their body. Coal Tits have a striped head and plain buff coloured body whereas the Great Tit doesn't.

 

It was too late to change once the video was published.