Annual Spending Review - 2017

Here's the annual look back at where all the money went during the year.  A flurry of snow this morning put paid to plans for a final round of golf in 2017, and so I'm now unlikely to spend anything more until 2018 ... 

click on the graphic for a larger image ...

As usual, the columns are ranked highest-to-lowest from left-to-right, based on the 2017 spending, and include the equivalent 2016 and 2015 spends alongside, for comparison.   

Brief Garden Review - in Pictures

one of the young pear trees - lots of
blossom but didn't set any fruit ....

tulips in the new bed ...

Investment Review - September 2017

Here's the combined portfolio spreadsheet as updated on Friday 29 September, the last business day of the third quarter :- 

Time to order specialist seeds for 2018 ?

Late summer might not seem the time that thoughts should turn to seed sowing and propagation, but if you want to grow any out-of-the-ordinary species next year it may be time to order the seeds now.

There's nothing more frustrating in early spring to find those exotic seeds you've just received come with growing instructions that require them to be 'stratified' for several months to break dormancy.   

This usually means a long period of refrigeration to fool them into thinking they've been through a cold winter, so they'll be ready to burst into life when you eventually put them into warm soil.  

Some may even need an initial warm spell before they experience the cold, and then they'll germinate in the warmth again next year - in this case, first keep them somewhere warm in the house for a few months before popping them in the fridge.

If you leave the seed ordering until next year, it means they may not be ready for sowing for a long time, and then it could take a couple of months afterwards before they even germinate, so you've effectively lost a whole growing season.  Any seedlings sown later in the year might also not have enough time to become properly established before the cold weather arrives, which could easily kill them off.

So get thinking now about those trees, shrubs and palms etc you want to start off next year, research their propagation requirements on the internet and if necessary order the seeds soon.   

When you receive them they can go into the fridge over the winter, you can forget about them for six months and they'll be ready to sow indoors early next year.

Investment Review - June 2017

Here's the spreadsheet for the combined portfolio as updated on Friday 30 June :-

Hedging our bets ...

Our mixed native hedge on the western boundary, planted in early 2013, is maturing very nicely and is now a high, dense barrier.   

There's only one problem - it's deciduous so we only have a full privacy screen from May to the end of October.

So we decided to supplement it with a parallel evergreen screen, by trimming the existing hedge back to half its thickness and then planting another hedge in front of it, i.e. on the eastern side.   The plan is that eventually the existing hedge will be totally hidden by the new evergreen hedge. 

Of course, the best time to have planted an evergreen hedge would have been four years ago, but we didn't and so the next best time is right now ...

We're a little unsure of how well a new hedge will grow in this position, but reckon that early summer is the best time to try - there's still a good five months of growing season ahead this year - and in any event if it fails to take then we've still got the deciduous hedge so we'll be no worse off than we are now.

Half-barrel Planter for our Palm Tree...

We've quite a large Trachycarpus Fortunei palm which used to reside in a ceramic planter, but the roots had outgrown the space and it had become potbound.  In addition, the planter was not very wide at the base, with the result that the palm would frequently blow over in strong winds.

To give the roots more room to grow, and to provide a much more stable platform against high winds, we decided to put the palm into a half barrel.

The local garden centre sells old oak half barrels for £25, but I found an old knackered one for a fiver that had been used as a mini-pond for goldfish.   

 

as purchased ...

The bottom of the barrel was hanging out and needed refitting and some reinforcement, but the rest of the treatment we gave the barrel we would also have done even if we'd bought one in better condition.