It’s fruit picking time and there have been bumper crops of Japanese Wineberries, Blackberry ‘Oregon Thornless’ and Redcurrant ‘Rovada’ to freeze, make flavoured gin, brandy & vodka, and for pies, ice cream and sorbet.
I am slowly building up a collection of daylilies. I have always had a few ‘fulva’ which I have split and replanted over the years but have recently acquired ‘Dad’s Best White’, Stella d’Oro’, ‘Kwanso’ and an unnamed creamy white. I also managed to grow H. lilioasphodelus from seed several years ago and it flowered for the first time this year. I felt triumphant!
I Have had some blue water pipe in the shed for many years, probably going back to Geoff Hamilton’s day when I was keen on growing my own veg and had visions of Geoff’s cloches on my raised beds. So, this year, during ‘lockdown’, I decided it was time to make them.
Calabrese ‘Ironman’ in one and Purple Sprouting ‘Rudolph’ in the other. Probably not tall enough!
I have never been quite sure whether I like this Clematis ‘Alba Luxurians’ or not. It looks decidedly odd, a freak, a hybrid gone wrong. It certainly does well for me and reaches up into an old apple tree every year without fail.Odd though!
Don’t leave your expensive galvanised Haws watering can outside full of water over the winter! It froze, expanded and reshaped the base into a dome! Now it won’t stand up!
An Orange Tip butterfly on Hesperis matronalis, a rare sight in my Cotswold garden but fortunately not on the endangered list…yet!
Davids Garden Diary 
Another great and informative post with some terrific photographs.
Lovely Post, David – your veg/fruit are way ahead of ours, only a few miles away but definitely higher on the hills!
Yes, the clematis is interesting, I think I like it, but I can’t be sure. Lovely daylilies and your harvest looks incredible!
How did you make those cloches? Did you just cut water pipe to the right length and stick the ends in the ground or is there a lot more to it than that?
Hi Nate. You push the pipe over a short cane pushed into the ground. That’s it!
When I tried to make a tunnel or cloche, I just shoved the ends of the pipe into the ground. The screen I used didn’t look nearly as nice as yours.
I like the idea of using water pipe to support the netting. I really need to search the bins for discarded irrigation pipe. (our bins are communal and not like the UKs). Apart from the normal household rubbish we leave things there we don’t want and more often than not someone will find a home for it.
Sounds like a plan!
Great Six. I did the same with one of my galvanised watering cans a couple of years ago