Bugs and a Hollyhock

We're supposed to get some windy weather today as a result of Storm Evert, which is blowing ashore in Cornwall. It's going to be the first true test of my work to rig up the teasels. Fingers crossed!

Not much happened around here yesterday. I read, I went grocery shopping. YAWN.

Later, I was texting with Dave and eating dinner, sitting out on the garden bench, when I looked up and realized with horror that Mr. Russia was clambering around on the roof. It's quite high and quite steep, and he had no safety equipment. My first thought was, "We have no insurance!" (I'm not sure we could be held responsible for his stupidity, and he is part owner of the property whereas we are only the downstairs tenants -- but if he fell and hurt himself landing on the patio furniture, for example, could we be liable?) The Russians have been grousing about a small leak in their roof but they still haven't had roofers in to fix it, and it looks like Mr. Russia took matters into his own hands and installed some kind of jankety (that word again) patch.

Anyway, he didn't fall, thank goodness.

I wandered around the garden taking some photos of our insect life. Above, you'll see a speckled bush cricket on one of our roses.

Here's a bee, dining on the aforementioned teasels.

This wasp caught some sort of tiny green caterpillar on the teasels. Wild Kingdom!

And here's a bee digging deep into one of the burdock flowers. Can you see it, with its head entirely buried?

Also:

Some of our hollyhocks are finally blooming. These are the ones I grew from seed and planted out a couple of years ago. I think this is the last surviving plant. We had one flower last year, on a different plant that didn't reappear this summer. Overall, they haven't exactly thrived, but I think they needed a sunnier location than we gave them. If I get seeds from this one I'll try again and put them in pots on the sunny side of the patio.

Now, off to check up on the teasels-in-traction!

Five Minutes of Fame

Remember how I was just saying I hadn't seen many butterflies this year? Well, this peacock came around yesterday morning, checking out our butterfly bush. A welcome visitor!

And that wasn't the only excitement around here. Dave and I were officially notified that our garden video will air on the next episode of "Gardener's World," on BBC Two, tomorrow night! So those of you in the UK can tune in at 7 p.m. and see our little segment about "re-wilding" our garden by mowing less and allowing more weeds to grow. We're both in the video and Olga makes a brief appearance, too. (At least, she was in the footage we submitted -- the BBC routinely re-edits viewer videos so I'm not sure what will actually air.)

The only way I know of seeing the show in the USA is to watch it on Britbox, which is a subscription service. Some episodes do turn up on YouTube, so you might catch it there -- look for Episode 19 of the current season. I'll record it myself but I don't know if I can post it, since I think whatever airs becomes the property of the BBC. I'll look into it.

Thank goodness I filmed the video before the great teasel collapse of 2021! Yesterday I went to Homebase and bought some long bamboo plant supports, which I jammed into the ground around the teasels in order to tie them upright. I WILL DOMINATE THESE PLANTS! Originally I had them tied to each other, which I think is what precipitated the collapse -- a weakness in one plant brought all three of them down. Now they're supported individually, which seems more stable.

And yesterday, they endured...

...yet another downpour, and this time they didn't budge. They're upright as I write this. Again, in a high wind, all bets are off, but at least this fix seems longer-lasting. They're a bit droopy but I think they'll grow more upright over time. They've been traumatized!

OK, enough about the bloody teasels. I'm sick of writing about them and I'm sure you're sick of reading about them.

I also walked to work yesterday and made a visit to the library. I wanted to bring some of my finished books back and check up on the construction occurring there over the summer. The place is still a mess, but we've got two or three more weeks before we go back to work so the facilities people can still whip it into shape.

The Orange Fly

Well, my Day 8 Covid test came back negative, as I knew it would. I got the results just before setting out to Homebase to pick up a bag of compost, so I could walk among the public with a clear conscience. Back to real life!

While there, I also bought a couple of flats of coleus, which I love but haven't planted in ages. The monkeyflowers and calceolaria I bought back in May had both gone to seed, so I replaced them with the coleus. It's funny that Dave and I used to avoid planting annuals -- they're actually quite liberating to work with. When they start looking shabby, there's no need to go to heroic measures to save them -- they're going to die anyway. Just chuck 'em and plant something new!

I found this weird little orange fly on our wounded teasels -- which, incidentally, have collapsed again. We had some wind yesterday and that was that. Their days are numbered, but I'm leaving them for now, leaning on the bird feeder and some nearby rose bushes, while they continue to bloom and provide some insect habitat.

I have no idea what kind of fly this is. I'm sure I've never seen an orange one before.

I also saw this the other day -- a big hornet hoverfly. It looks a bit scary, which wards off predators, but it's completely harmless.

We've begun a routine with Olga where we give her a can of dog food every evening. We used to do it only occasionally, but she loves canned food so much and gets so excited that we figured, why not daily? Well, last night, as I went to fetch her food, I realized with horror that we were out -- so I had to leave her standing in the kitchen, puzzled, while I zipped down to Waitrose. I bought two cans of dog food and a bottle of red wine, and as the clerk was ringing up my purchase, I said to myself, "I hope she doesn't think this is MY dinner!"

I watched the first two episodes of a TV miniseries from the '70s called "Holocaust," featuring Rosemary Harris, James Woods, Michael Moriarty, Tovah Feldshuh and a young Meryl Streep. I remember watching it when it came out, in 1978 or '79, and finding it riveting -- and watching it again has not been disappointing. What strikes me now is the similarity of the Nazi rhetoric against Jews to the way many modern conservatives contemptuously speak about liberals and Democrats -- and let's face it, among some anti-semitic people on the far right, those are essentially code words for Jews and the old tropes about Jewish conspiracies. It was chilling to make that contemporary connection.

Jankety but Upright

I'm free! I'm free! As of today, quarantine is officially over and I am able to go out and have a life. The only complication is that I still haven't received the results of my Day 8 Covid PCR. I'm sure it's going to be negative, but I wonder if I'm supposed to wander free before I know for sure? Then again, people coming into the country from the USA just a few days after me not only got to skip quarantine but didn't even have to take a Day 8 test. So I guess I'm fine.

The NHS didn't call me at all yesterday. I've been dropped like a hot potato. Like a bad date.

Believe me, I wasn't waiting by the phone. I had plenty to do. For one thing, I decided to try to tie up the collapsed teasels one more time -- and I did so, as you can see above. I anchored them to that heavy garden chair. So now they're tied up from three sides and they seem pretty stable. I'm not sure what's going to happen in the first high wind, but at least I've tried.

To what end, I'm not sure. I guess I just want them to live and bloom a little while longer. I saw bees on the flowers yesterday evening and got some satisfaction from knowing that I'd spared the plant long enough for more insects to dine.

As Dave might say, they look "jankety" -- haphazard or badly constructed.  I love that word. It's not one I ever used until I met him, but it's very handy. My teasel rescue is admittedly jankety.

I texted Dave to tell him I'd saved them, but my phone's autocorrect changed "teasels" to "readers," with the result that I told him, "I tied up the readers again."

I guess that's YOU. I've tied you up. Sorry about that.

I haven't mentioned our canna lilies much this summer, but they're both doing fine. One of them is quite big and blooming (above). The other one -- the sad little pathetic one -- is still small, but it's looking healthier than it was last year. Hopefully by next summer it will be more established.

Food-wise, I'm surviving quite well. I haven't even had to do take-out, at least not since Dave's last night in town, when we ordered sushi. After he ordered it, he got a text saying "Eduardo" was on his way. I said, "It's so London to have your sushi delivered by someone named Eduardo!"

And speaking of food delivery, here's a discarded pizza box I found while walking Olga. I was amused by the name. As far as I know, English homes don't have "yards," they have gardens, and as a result the English also don't have "yard sales." They have car boot sales, when they bring their junk to a common location like a schoolyard or car park and sell it out of their car. I suspect whoever named this pizza outfit was trying to sound American.

Finally, remember the jackhammers I've been hearing? This is what their operators are working on -- channeling the street to run fiber broadband lines. This is on West End Lane, which is normally a fairly major roadway, and Finchley Road is also closed off, which is an even bigger traffic artery. Makes me glad I don't drive.

I've been catching up on movies that I've had saved for ages because I knew Dave wouldn't want to watch them. One was "What Happened, Miss Simone?" a documentary about the troubled life and career of jazz singer Nina Simone. Last night I watched "The Treasure of San Bosco Reef," a Disney movie from 1968 that was mildly amusing. It was a mystery set in Italy and it reminded me of "The Moon Spinners" with Hayley Mills, one of my favorite childhood Disney films, which was made a few years earlier and set in Greece. I'm always up for a Disney adventure set in an exotic locale.

Walnut Bombs and Teasel Collapse

We've come to the season when I spend way too much garden time picking up walnuts -- and this is why (above). Every summer the squirrels ravage our walnut tree, racing around, chirping and squeaking, breaking off leaves and sticks and feasting on the nuts, which they drop half-eaten onto the lawn. I don't mind, really, because we don't eat them ourselves. But a green walnut is a fairly heavy thing, so I try not to linger under the tree!

I spent yesterday morning tidying up the garden, lightly trimming so I can more easily move around. I also cleaned the house and took Olga for her walk.

She got into a scrap with her nemesis the cat-behind-the-door, who managed to slash her nose. This is not the first time and believe me, it won't discourage Olga. She'll just as eagerly go after that cat next time, too. They've both been at it for years.

I thought you might like to see the results after the garage guy hammered the "No Parking" lettering off the street -- and painted it over, too, from the looks of things. Still seems like a lot of work for dubious gain.

In the afternoon, I decided to take Olga to the cemetery. After all, today's my last day of quarantine and I figured I could go that far without interacting with anyone, and she needed a longer walk at least once over the weekend. But the gods had other plans, because no sooner did we get there than it began to thunder. I brought Olga right back home again, and almost as soon as we crossed the threshold the heavens opened.

I took some video to show the intensity of the rain, and elsewhere in London there was once again flooding -- for the second time in a couple of weeks. We had some minor damage here at home. In the video you'll see that the very tall teasels by the birdbath in the garden are leaning to the left. Well, yesterday evening they collapsed entirely, RIGHT ON TOP of my dahlias!!

I went out and tied them up with twine, using the bird feeder and a nearby bush as support, which wasn't easy because I think they weigh about 30 pounds...

...but this morning I see they've collapsed again. So, sadly, I may have to just cut them down entirely. We have plenty more teasels, so it's not a crisis.

(Oh, and the dahlias, surprisingly, are fine.)

Bon Voyage to Dave

After I posted the photo of the crocosmia buds the other day, one of my commenters mentioned that he wanted to see it when it bloomed. So here it is, with some of our hydrangea bushes in the background. This crocosmia is a popular variety called "Lucifer."

Here's a picture that might be a little clearer.

And here's some other garden stuff going on right now:

Our purple sage, a variety called "Amistad," is blooming.

Quite a bit of this has appeared alongside the cornflowers in the wildflower bed. It's called pale flax (Linum bienne) and I assume it came from that wildflower seed mix I sowed.

The spiny flowers of the burdock are blooming.

And speaking of spiny, here's a seed pod growing on the jimsonweed. It's approaching the size of a ping-pong ball.

I just saw Dave off on his trip to the USA -- a car came at 6 a.m. to fetch him and take him to the airport. (This is the difference between me and Dave. When I went to Heathrow, I took the tube. Dave called a car service! I'm a cheapskate, but Dave doesn't have a problem spending money to be comfortable.)

As I mentioned before, he'll be gone three weeks, at a professional development event in Texas, visiting family in Michigan, and going to Drum Corps finals in Indianapolis. I believe this will be the longest we've been apart since we got married 11 years ago! I felt like my own two-week trip was pretty long, so I can't imagine how he'll feel after this one.

Olga was nervous when the suitcase came out. I think she's relieved that I'm still here.

Meanwhile, I'm going to have to re-learn how to feed myself, since Dave usually does all the cooking. I'm seeing a lot of peanut butter in my immediate future.

White Teasels

The teasels have started putting forth their tiny blossoms -- and all of our large teasels appear to be blooming white, which means they're probably descended from the ones we planted several years ago. Those had white flowers too. All the wild-type teasels I've seen around London are purple.

So, more of the same yesterday. I read, did some light housework and spent time in the garden, where the temperatures have cooled. It's 61º F out there now (16º C) and rainy. I'm staying inside.

At least Olga had some high-quality garden time yesterday:

As you can tell, things were quieter -- the jackhammers weren't going for some reason. One of the Russian boys upstairs was whooping it up, though.

I am so sick of this quarantine. Today I'll take my Day 8 test, and assuming it's negative, I'll be set free on Tuesday. You never really realize how long ten days is until you have to stay home all that time, not even going out to the store. At least during last year's lockdown I did the grocery shopping and made occasional runs to the gardening center!