GARDEN SNAPS IN MAY.

Just a few snaps of the garden during May. I am belated at posting a blog post but lots of gardening is being done mostly by Mike. I am slightly side tracked with my spinning and weaving projects. See my other blog https://orangecottagescrafts.blogspot.com/

So many weeds ground elder and bindweed predominantly, but the plant height detracts from the weeds and gives pleasure.

The box is surviving the Box caterpillar using regular spraying of Topbuxus. I grew all the box plants from cuttings many years ago so I was devastated to see the damage from box caterpillar a couple of years ago. 

The catmint Six Hills Giant works so very well in the Box boxes with the roses.

The vegetable beds are flourishing thanks to Mike's diligence.

I always feel sad when I see these empty seats they need our six grandchildren to visit but visits have not been quite so often for a variety of reasons. The wooden and iron seats, benches and table were given to us by a kind neighbour and Mike refurbished them all.

I love Hosta and earlier this year I put all my pots on copper pipes because slugs and snails will not crawl over copper. I have to be careful other plants don't bridge the gaps.
But I also discovered that garlic spray also stops slug and snail damage.

Quite by chance I realised the garlic spray was drifting onto the lilies and clearly preventing the red lily beetle invading them. Now I spray deliberately along with other plants such as dahlia and hanging baskets. I haven't seen any signs of the lily beetle this year.

Meg was determined to get in at least one photo.

 So far so good the Hosta in this little bed is sprayed regularly with garlic spray and I have only seen two slugs on my regular nightly vigils.