20111026

It has been really funny weather – I took a day off yesterday as I had some guests and went off for some walking on the Moor. It was beautifully sunny in the morning and we had great time doing a pub walk for two and half hours or so. (But the pub was closed on Tuesdays – I have to improve my organising skill…)

Then it started raining, then started raining really hard then continued that way. All the roads were flooded (some of sloped roads were like rivers!) and it hailed a bit as well. So that was a lot of water since Monday, because it rained quite heavily on Monday all day as well.

And today, it was sunny and beautiful to start with, then it got very indecisive again. Sun, rain, sun, rain, both…

Anyway, Acer Grade is looking much nicer with more colours coming up (I will try taking pictures tomorrow!).

And I found this leaf on the ground near the entrance.

But it turned out to be a very familiar tree (at least the genus is).

Here is a giveaway….

Another give away would be a picture of the trunk (bark) but unfortunately this specimen is covered by Ivy.

It is Platanus orientalis cultivar. (Oriental Plane Tree)

20111019

They say it will be frost tonight...

HOPE NOT. (I still have the bloody cold!)

It is getting cold now, for the last couple of days. We had mostly sunny day with really heavy shower for about 5 minutes and tiny other showers.

so it brought us this :)

20111017

A big news is that.... I have a car!!!
It is going to transform my life here.

車を買いました！これで生活の幅が広がります。スーパーに買い物に行けます！

But I still have cold and high on paracetamol... so not much good thought process is going about at the moment. I think plant ID may be happening tomorrow so I will revise before bed and see what happens tomorrow.

でもまだ風邪ひいてます。あまり頭も働いていないので書くこともあまりない・・・明日はIDテストがあるかもしれない・・・

This is a photo from friday, I was up on a ladder, turned around and saw the garden from unusualy angle.

これは金曜に撮った写真。はしごに登ってみたらいつもと違うアングルで庭が見えてちょっとびっくりしたのよね。

20111013

I can feel a little cold creeping up on me…

風邪っぽい。

I think I am a little worn out from the seminar and…. Insect bites.

We had a great discussion over insect repellent today. I was trying cinnamon oil and I believe that I didn’t get bitten much today, but it’s difficult to tell if it worked or not because I was working in different areas today. Citronella oil was argued against by one of us. DEET stuff are good for mossies but not for midges etc. One of the senior gardeners recommended me a moisturiser by Avon called ‘skin so soft’. She says it works for her for midges (she gets bitten a bit otherwise) It was recommended to her by a forest worker in Scotland and I didn’t know that Scotland is famous for midges. (Is that true? I didn’t have problem when I was there – I wasn’t gardening then though!)

I hope my forehead clears up soon so I can actually tell which is new bites – then I can rate all different repellents.

The search continues.

（↑　昨日の続きから、虫除けのあれやこれ。）

Presumably a cat’s job. Poor little shrew…

猫にやられたと思われる、トガリネズミの死骸。かわいそうな子。森へお帰り・・・

20111012

Here is the collapsed wall. You didn't think it was this serious... did you?

崩れた壁の様子・・・けっこうな被害です。

I can’t stop taking picture of this strange yet beautiful stone structure in Bulb Meadow. It doesn’t look as good in the picture somehow. I was working here all day and my face was full of bites by midges. They are all in my forehead, lining up on the line where my hut ended. So I applied some cream on it and kept my forehead exposed today and I have this really bad feeling that I got more today…

なぜかバルブ　メドウ　にあるこの変な石の写真ばかり撮ってしまう。写真ではあまり良さが伝わらないようだけど。昨日ここで働いてたら、けさ顔じゅう虫刺されでえらいことになってた。で、今日は薬塗って、乾くようにおでこを露出してたら、さらに食われた。人相変わる・・・

If anyone know any good midge repellent (preferably ones that I can use on my face), please let me know!

なんかいい虫除け（こっちで買えるもの）あったら教えてくだされ。

20111011

I don’t know why I didn’t mention it yesterday – There was an incident while I was away. Part of the structural wall came down! It is the wall that supports Bowling Green Terrace, facing Tennis Court Lawn one level down. I even deleted the picture I took somehow. I will go back and take a picture tomorrow… It is another painful cost to the garden. At least there was no one hurt and the garden is almost closed to public. (It will close for winter at the end of October.)

なぜか昨日書かなかったこと・・・壁が壊れました。テニスコート　ローンの横、ボウリング　グリーン　テラスを支えている壁です。しかも撮った写真もなぜか消去してしまったようだ。また明日写真撮ります。怪我がなくて良かったですが、また痛い出費で皆さんくらあいお顔・・・

Today I forced (by politely asking) one of my mentors to walk around the garden so that I can ask about some things that were on my mind. I wanted to ask about Wild Flower Meadow we have and annual maintenance of the area. Being so low maintenance, it does not have anyone allocated to the area regularly. We use yellow rattle (Rhinanthus minor) to keep the grass under control. It is a common problem in wild flower meadow that the grass grows too vigorously and takes over the wild flowers. Yellow rattle is used to be regarded as one of the worst weed in farmland because it is semi-parasitic and partly feeds on grass roots and reducing the crop massively. It is now widely used to keep grass under control. Here in this garden we cut the whole area down in the autumn (sept – oct) after all annual flowers and the rattle had shed seeds. All the cuttings are removed to keep the nutrients in the soil low, which also helps to keep grass growth rate low.

今日はワイルド　フラワー　メドウエリアのメンテナンスについて教えていただきました。面倒なのでもし知りたい方いたら個人的におっしゃってください。基本的にメンテナンスが要らなくて、環境にも良く（昆虫たちに優しい）ガーデナーには嬉しいエリアです。いろいろと目立つ花がきれいに植えられているエリアとのコントラストもなかなかいいですね。

(please click to see the writing on it)