A WEEK IN MY LONDON GARDEN / SUPPORTING THE RAMBLING ROSE

Oh dear. And this is why we do not leave gloves out in my home garden. It looks like the fox has had a bit of a party last night and he's eaten all of my gloves, which is very frustrating. Good morning everyone. Welcome back to my a lotment diaries. But today this is my garden diaries. So if you're new to my channel, my name is Emma and I vlog all about my a lotment plot in South London. And now about my little home garden here in London. So we live in a Victorian terrace. So we have quite a small garden. A lot of you said it's not that small, Emma. And I'm just being dramatic. It feels small, I think, in comparison to my a lotment. That's what I mean by small. I'm working really hard on my home garden this year. Last year I neglected it a bit. I think I've said this a few times, but I really neglected it. Um because I had the new a lotment plot to take on and it was just too much. My head was just I just couldn't do all of it. So, the garden got neglected. This year, I've really invested in my garden. And by invested, I mean, I have put a bit of money into it, but mainly like my time. Um, so I've made sure to like schedule enough time in the garden to get it up to scratch and to get it nice and to actually plant some things in here. And it's definitely I'm feeling the rewards now. I'm feeling the benefits of that time. Everything is looking so much better. And I'm just really enjoying going through little projects here um slowly and kind of figuring it out as I go. You guys know I'm no gardening expert. I don't really know what I'm doing, but I just enjoy it so much and I just love getting stuck in and giving things a go. So, I'm always going to say this, but if you are new to my channel, please subscribe. Um I put up loads and loads of gardening content. You guys seem to really enjoy my garden diaries last Sunday. So, so welcome, welcome. I hope you enjoy this vlog. Grab yourself a cup of tea. Happy Sunday. And um yeah, let's get stuck in with some jobs. Right, I do want to start by just showing you a little update on my shed. So you guys might know I painted it. So it used to be yellow. Now it's this lovely kind of rosemary. I think it's called rosemary the paint. It's kind of like a really light green almost verging on blue. Well, yesterday I painted the edging of the shed in the pink. the sweet pea pink that I've got in my a lotment plot and it sort of made it pop a little bit more. I really like it. You have to sort of excuse the mess in here. Um I've had a lot of suggestions for this. So like one of them was like to stick a mirror over the top and the other one was to put some curtains. So I'm still debating what to do. But I painted the little window planter in the pink as well, which I think just looks so nice. And then just all this edging, all this edging is in pink. And I just think it's made the shed really pop and just giving it a given it a bit more interest. I really like it now. I wish it wasn't wonky. We are still going to work on the wonkiness of the shed, but not today. But yeah, the pink. I mean, let me know what you think in the comments of that. Oh, the light in my garden is so highly contrasted. Like, like it's either brilliant sunshine or it's like really really dark shade. So, it's really hard to film sometimes. Um especially when it's really sunny. But, I am not complaining. I'm not complaining. exam, please stay out. You guys know that I am trying to grow more in pots this year. Um, I've become a little bit pot obsessed. I've gone potty for pots. Three of my pots have not worked. So, all three of these pots here have not worked the way I wanted them to. You can see the tulips were just not happy being moved, put into these pots. I'm not saying they won't survive if I take them out and put them somewhere else, but this nesters here, which is selfseeded, this has done the best, which is not a good thing. So, we're going to just redo these pots today. I have a couple of sunflowers here that I sewed from a seed. And I think these are a smaller variety, though I can't be totally sure. If these are not a smaller multi-headed sunflower, it means that they are giant sunflowers, which will not work in a pot, but will be quite interesting. Um, I did label them, but the labeling went out the window when I repotted them, and then I didn't releabel them, cuz I always forget you have to releabel when you repot. Are you surprised? No. Tell me you're an a lotment gardener without telling me you're an aotment gardener. Um, you find potatoes everywhere. Unfortunately, it's a bit green, so I won't be able to eat that one. But how funny. right, I'm not 100% sure what to do with all these bulbs now. Um, they don't look in bad nick and I know that you're probably shouting at the screen saying, "Keep them. Keep them." So, what I'm going to do is put them all in this pot and I'm going to let them dry out. And I'm going to try and keep the bulbs and save them and plant them again. Hello, Mr. Snail. Let's put you somewhere safe. Right, I've got these little seed bombs. Seed balls, I think they're called, actually. Not bombs. Balls. Yeah, there we go. Seed balls. Um, so they're full of like wild flower seeds. I'm going to put those into the pots. Right. I've never planted these before, so this should be fun. I think I'll put in one, two, three, four. I'll put in four. Somebody was asking me about these cuz I had mentioned them before. How many do you put in a pot? I genuinely don't know. I'm just going to go for it and if there's too many, I could prick them out. But, you know, plants fight to the death, guys. They will find a way to survive. Don't worry too much about overseing. So weird. Butter. butterfly seal of approval. Excellent. Do I have enough of this pink paint left? No. I have to use the green on this one, which is a bit of a shame because I wanted it to match, but okay, that's fine. That is fine. Yeah, I think it will still work. Right, this trellis has now had two coats and I think it looks pretty good. I think somebody said actually somebody said there was a rule. What was it 3 m? The 3 m rule. If it looks okay from 3 m away then it's okay. So if I go by that rule I think it looks okay. And this is going to go up along here. Um, I made this temporary structure for the rambling rose, but actually I don't think it's going to last. So, what I'm going to do is put some trellis up here and make it go up and over the trellis. I think it's just better than this sort of temporary structure, which is basically wire and some bamboo canes. But the rose is doing so so well. It's so happy. So, I really want to give it like a proper structure to go up. This is turning into a really nice little um what I did on Sunday vlog. It is actually Sunday today, so it's a week before you're watching this. And um it's just been such a nice chill day in the garden. We are going to go on a little post dinner walk now to a place called Non- Such Park. I think I have taken you taken you there once before, but not like properly shown you around. So, I'm going to show you around Nonsuch Park. It is a beautiful place. So, I'm going to go in, have some dinner, and then go for a nice post dinner walk. Get everyone away from screens and stop us from watching TV. And I think it'd be really nice. So, let's go. So, we're currently just walking around Nonsuch Mansion, um, which is the big mansion here. You can get married there, and I know a few people who have got married there. It's very beautiful. Um, this is sort of like the grounds of it. So, it goes right around here. It's like a little forest. Yeah, this is like a little forest around it. And we just like to walk around the pathway. It's like takes you all the way around and it's just so pretty. Um, I love this part. This is my favorite part with all the trees. And at the moment, all the blue bells are out and all the cow parley. How gorgeous is that? I didn't even know it's blue bell season, but apparently it is. And it is just glorious. And the cow pasty. My god, I've never seen so much of it. This wisteria I cannot get over. It is huge. Absolutely huge. It's so stunning. You can just smell it from like well the whole place you can just smell it from. Just gorgeous. I've never seen it before where it's not climbing up something. And look at it. It's just stunning. I am probably in the least appropriate attire to wear in the garden that I've ever worn in my life. I actually have to go to the dentist soon, so I've got myself ready nice and early. I'm a little bit nervous about it because I hate the dentist. So, I thought I'd come out and do a bit of gardening. Um, I'm very happy with the garden this year. It does seem to be going really, really well and I'm really enjoying being in the space. So, I must be doing something right. I've also got a builder here as well who's renovating our front room and it's just so noisy and dusty in there that I cannot stay in the house. So, it's a good time to get out and about. The weather this week is insane. It's blue sky. It's a heat wave. It is gorgeous. And it's the first time that I've been truly truly happy that I've actually put some effort into my home garden. Last year, I feel like because the weather was so bad, and it was such a bad year for the weather, I didn't really miss the garden because I just wasn't using it as much. Looks like I chose the right year to work on the garden because my goodness, I'm feeling the benefits now. So, I painted that trellus that needs to go up. Um, job can we do today in the garden? You know what? There is a plant that's not looking very happy that I put in recently and I spent a lot of money on. So, I think we're going to go and investigate that first. Let's go and have a look. This is what I mean by inappropriate outfit, by the way. Look at this. I mean, it's ridiculous. It's a white a white linen shirt and then some snazzy trousers. I mean, my goodness. But you know what? I've never really been scared of getting my clothes dirty. I just wash them and I don't spend that much on them to be honest. So, right, this is the plant I'm a little bit concerned with cuz it's not looking very happy. Now, firstly, I don't want it here cuz a lot of you said it gets very big. It's called Irish luck. And apparently it gets absolutely huge. It's really sort of used for hedging, which I didn't realize when I brought it cuz it's sort of quite neat, isn't it? Like a little ball. That's what I thought. I might trim it into a ball actually. That'd be quite cute. But it's not looking happy here. The leaves are going yellow. It's just not a happy bunny. So, what I'm going to do is dig him up and put him in a pot. I think he might need to go into a temporary pot. To be honest, this is probably going to be too small for him. But, you know what? I think the problem is he's not happy here. So, if I put him into some kind of pot and move him about a bit and find where he's happy. Yeah, let's just do that. This might have been the pot I brought him for because it fits perfectly. And you know what? When I took him out, he hadn't even rooted into the ground at all. So, he's really not a happy plant. What does this mean? Oh gosh. Oh, what's wrong? I found a slightly bigger pot here. So, we'll repot him. And then what I'm going to do is he's going to become a potted plant. So, I'm going to buy a bigger pot. How many times can I say pot in a row? Um, let's find out. I'm going to buy him a bigger pot, keep him up here, and then try and contain him. And I might do a bit of clipping and make him into a neat little ball or something. Yeah. Does that sound good? there. There. Yeah. Heat. Heat. Right. So the issue that I have now in the garden is that this here, you see this plant coming up the trellis here is a clemetus Montana. Now they like the top of themselves to be in the sun, but the bottom to be in the shade. So, what I really need to do is put some planting in front of him so that the bottom is going to be in the shade, which sounds to me like an excellent excuse to go to the garden center and get some more plants. Always happy to do that. So, I will look in the garden center soon and see what I can get to go in front of the clemetus. Um, yeah. Cool. I think the structure before was too temporary and a rambling rose is quite a permanent plant. So, I need something substantial for it to climb up. I've also got an aphid problem. Um, I was kind of hoping the plant would take care of it itself, but it doesn't seem to be. So the plant is sort of covered with little creatures. I don't know if it's greenfly or a I suppose it is aphids, isn't it? But what they will do is suck the rose dry and kill it. So the best way to remove them, I read online, is physically with like a really strong jet of water. So I'm going to try that before I start any before I start putting any sprays and stuff on it, if you know what I mean. I'll just try and physically remove them. Unfortunately, the ladybirds have not yet come to the rescue. So, we'll blast them off. I was a little bit worried that doing this would actually harm the rose and I'd snap it. But actually, I'm wearing these gloves which are cool job. There's a link in my description always with a discount code. They're completely waterproof. And what I'm doing is I'm holding my hand behind it like this and then spraying it. Sort of keeping the rose intact when I do it is quite a good way of doing it. So they're all all the bugs are flying off, but actually I'm looking after the plant at the same time. This will wake him up, won't it? Right, my time is up. I'm off to the dentist. Um, I'd like to say all that relaxed me a little bit, but I'm still nervous. Takes more than planting a few things to make me calm about going to the dentist. But anyway, I will see you again very soon.