Hermione Laake
I grow through error; sometimes. I wish I’d known that as a teenager. For some reason, I used to believe that everyone knew everything, almost by osmosis. It wasn’t until I finally went to university – the first in my family, but not in this generation; two of my sisters went too (all at different times, studying different subjects at different universities), a dream I’d held since attending night school (I put on hold while raising a young family) , that I realised that there was so much interesting research and history to learn about. It wasn’t all binary, after all.
Why have I started my blog thus? Well because I want to write about my watering error, brought on by unusual weather.
Watering
This year, in South Glos’, Bristol, which used to come under Avon, a long time ago, which is why there are so many signs, dotted around here with Avon on them, and why you sometimes have to select Avon on applications for jobs. (We’re perhaps a bit slow at altering things.) I digressed. We had three months of dry weather. Being someone who has spent a great deal of time outdoors, apart from five years when I rented a cottage in North Dorset, I am sure this dry weather is unprecedented in Spring. Because of this dry weather, I began watering the front garden with a watering can. This gets the water right at the roots of the plant.
Unfortunately, I got tired, had a great deal to read for my MA and used a hose for a week. This decimated the garden, churning up the earth, and covering the plants in an unsightly film of earth. See the photos. Still, I’ve learned something. Which is watering with a can and aiming mainly at the roots not only creates healthy plants, but will avoid the mess I was left with, and a whole lot of replanting. Of course, the tree has taken off and created even more shade , so I’d need to rethink the plants anyway, or prune the birch. Best to wait till the end of summer to prune the birch. See saplings, How to.
More on the birch later, although the lavender is still thriving.
Before:
Damage done by the hose which churned up the earth, in July, and followed by less watering with the can, and sap fall from the tree covered the plants.
hermionelaakeloveslavender.com 