Quite a few, in fact 5-10, terracotta pots have been cracked over the last winter. Mainly around the rim.

This is (or was) the biggest of my phormiums in B1. I reduced it quite a lot by cutting all round the base. Unfortunately the inner leaves have responded by flopping as badly as before. Perhaps I’ll get some new growth.

Last year I had so much water soldier I was giving it away and putting armfuls on the compost heap. This year it had all disappeared. I saw a few remains covered in great pond snails, and again suspected their delinquent behaviour. See here and here.

I put a plant kindly donated (returned) by Annie in the pond yesterday, and today shook these snails off it. There were no snails on the plant when I put it in the pond. I’m afraid they went on the compost heap.

Next day

Not as many as yesterday, but still a substantial number. And at least ⅓ of the plant has been eaten.

The hypericum ‘Hidcote’ in F2 put on a terrific display, but they’d got too big and dominant. See these pictures from last year. There were originally four plants here. One I dug out in 2019. I removed another today and cut another right back, leaving just one untouched.

I had plenty of sun loving perennials in pots to plant out in the gaps.

The santolina clearly likes it here. I’ve taken some cuttings, and I’ll try to reduce it’s spread over the pavement. Perhaps it will grow a bit from the base now its no longer covered by the hypericum.

The summer jasmine which I pruned so heavily in July has recovered better than I would have thought possible, but will it ever flower?

I had a really good go at the clematis montana at the front. Perhaps too good. We’ll see.

The clematis Montana and rosa Albertine stand out from the fence rather too much, inhibiting the plants underneath. There’s another piece of rope holding things back, and I’ll keep an eye on things.

This is the second year of flowering having been left in their pots over winter. Very tall, but easily supported by wigwam of bamboos. Lily beetle irritating but not serious. Adults and larvae are quite easy to see on the very open foliage of thin leaves of regale. I go round once or twice a day squashing the adults, which I see very rarely and are extremely tough. I also squash the larvae, trying to forget what the red-brown goo they cover themselves in is.

See also earlier post.

I keep removing brooklime where it spreads into the ‘open’ area. Also the occasional piece of water soldier. The purple loosestrife has completely finished flowering and may be cut back if the old stems don’t look attractive.

Whatever this plant was, it was not saururus chinensis. It never flowered, and there were never any white leaves. Now we’ll never know.