99 in the shade

The weather here has been absolutely amazing and just recently it has really gotten way to hot for this time of year. The temperature has regularly hit well over 100f in the past few days, and a couple have hit an amazing 115f!!!

almost of the scale!!

i said last time that i would show you how i made the water feature and here is how. It's quite simply built using gravel boards, the same as used in the raised beds. I cut the boards into small sections with a 67.5 degree angle at each end. This gives you a nice octagonal surround to the tub that will sit inside. I originally made it three sections high, but it soo became apparent that that was too tall.



Is there anyone in there??!!

I had to cut the sides of the tub down to fit the surround, but again this was very easy to do.

The pump we had was okay but much too powerful for the tub and didnt really look right. We purchased another one from good old e-bay for a bargain of £25 including postage for a brand new one. It came with different attachments to give different fountains. We also started with a mesh over the top of the tub but inset into the surround, and then covered with pebbles. This has changed now to having the tub half filled with stones which actually saves on the amount of water needed in the tub.

The water feature looks amazing, especially as the plants around it have grown up so much. We have also added a couple of marginal plants into the water feature too. These are Geum rivale and Carex muskingumensis and they sit in basket pots just below the surface of the water.

 
The feature really blends in now, surrounded by columbines, yellow loose strife, Delphinium, wallflowers and lobelia, to name but a few.

The whole garden has transformed recently, with so much growth and of course a lot of new plants have been added. We have planted out potatoes into two potato growing bags, an early crop 'foremost' and a main crop of 'desiree'. Three hanging baskets have been partially planted, one has strawberrys planted and the others are purely floral.

 

I took the last two pictures this morning at 9 am. Everything looks so lush and green, with spatterings of colour. The mexican orange blossom is in full bloom as is the banksia rose on the back wall. Unfortunately we lost the honeysuckle that was next to the rose on the bank wall. yet again the mildew set in and this time it was all over the plant. After some research it turns out it was due to bad positioning. The banksia rose has bloomed for the first time in two years

Just one more picture to end this posting I think. My tulips have bloomed and are looking stunning. It's such a shame that i didn't plant more!