Chemtrails and Rock Dust

It has been ages since I posted anything on my gardening blog although I have managed to get out there occasionally when the weather has been more cheerful, like yesterday.  I decided to move a spiraea 'little princess' shrub to the back garden from a pot in the front garden, and ended up creating a whole new flower bed along the edge of the lawn before replanting it.  Previously the lawn reached up to the stone wall of a raised bed, which made it difficult for cutting the grass and usually was full of weeds there anyway and wild stawberry plants, the latter having a habit of popping up in the middle of my lawn.  So the new narrow bed will help with lawn mowing and also soften the appearance of the stone wall.  I have ordered some more Spiraea shrubs from Amazon to fill the rest of the row, and found two unnamed Hebe plants in Morrisons' supermarket for £2.00 each, which I also planted in the new border yesterday.  

I then got carried away and decided to cut an even narrower bed all along the pathway as the lawn gets scruffy along the side of the path with really tough long grass that doesn't pull out easily.  Tomorrow I am going to order some very low growing plants to fill that gap before more weeds take up the space and decided on Sedum Purple Carpet (Stonecrop) and Hebe pinguifolia Pagei (evergreen, with grey green leaves and white flowers) to line that edge of my small lawn, which at least gets some sun during the day.

SEDUM PURPLE CARPET

Anywhere north of the lawn tends to be in too much shade because of the tree canopy, so it made sense to create more growing areas where there was a bit more sun than elsewhere in the garden.  In two days time a tree surgeon will hopefully be felling one of the holly trees, which being evergreen creates continuous shade as well as causing the stone wall to collapse that it is growing out of.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the weather will be fine enough for him to carry out the job on Tuesday.    Whenever we get a nice warm day with blue skies the planes are usually out spraying their chemtrails all over the sky for weather modification, and this has been going on all summer.  Some of my plants didn't bother to bloom at all this year, presumably still waiting for summer to begin.  My heart sank when I saw those planes up there again while I was enjoying gardening and the warmer weather.

I grabbed my camera and took some photos as I'm keeping a 'before and after' record of this whenever I notice it.  I don't have a strong zoom on my camera to zoom in as close as I would like, but the results are always the same.

Both (above) taken from my garden on Saturday (Oct 6 2012) when I first noticed them doing it.

And the sky the following day (Sunday) which is nearly all white, taken around noon.

And despite the sky being nearly totally covered with cloud, they were still spraying today - I guess there were still too many blue spaces showing up there.  I realise most people know all about chemtrails but exposing this is the only way I know to voice my opposition to it.  I watched a youtube video today where someone was showing us what we can build to knock them out of the sky, but I have enough trouble assembling flat pack furniture, so a Tesla coil or whatever it was is way beyond my building capabilities.  I was pleased that there were things around though that caused chemtrails to break up, so I'm hoping some scientist makes them commercially available in this country.

There was also mention of basalt, amongst other things, as being good at breaking down heavy metals in the soil, as the chemicals will land on our gardens.  This is what reminded me about buying rock dust for the garden to improve and re-mineralize the soil.  I'd heard about it ages ago and then forgot all about it.

So I ordered two different brands, one of which contains basalt.  Autumn is a good time to apply it, along with compost/manure.  I will probably have to wait a few months after applying it to see if I notice any difference.

There is still a huge amount to be done in the garden because I haven't been out there as much this year.  I swept the first lot of leaves and erected my new leaf cage, but will wait for the rest of the leaves to fall before sweeping again.

Cleaned and oiled the garden furniture to store away, not used once this year.

This happened to be the first year I really saw the appeal of bulbs, and my saffron crocus bulbs have started to come up already in the utility room.  I'm looking forward to collecting my own saffron to cook with rice.  They were free with my order of other bulbs, which I have yet to plant when the weather inspires me to go out there again.

I'm experimenting with coir compost for the bulbs, as a change from John Innes compost.  My aloe vera plant wasn't so keen on it though when I repotted it.

I planted lots of different bulbs in pots and also in the 'woodland garden' area at the very back.  The ground is very hard and compacted there and dry because of the trees taking up all the moisture, as well as being on a slope so the rain runs off.  I'm not sure where I'd be without a mattock, much better than digging with a spade.  In fact you can't even make an impression with a spade in that area.  When my rock dust arrives I'll apply the manure at the same time, and I still have gypsum to put down which I forgot to use last year, which help break up the soil a bit.  The leaf mould won't be ready for another year though, but it is primarily for this back end of the garden which I also want to create more of an acidic soil for.

Yesterday I also bought a new shrub, Sarcococca confusa (or Sweet Box), to put in a container by the front door.  The man in the market said it was his favourite shrub and convinced me I wouldn't regret buying it because it has a strong perfume that fills the garden in winter.  

I wasn't initially attracted to it as I was on the hunt for plants with white flowers for the 'woodland garden', especially viburnums and white hydrangeas.  He told me I was too early for viburnums and too late for hydrangeas, so I bought a few more white cyclamen plants and went back for the shrub later to give it a chance.

Not much point in planting in the back garden as I'm rarely in my back garden in the winter, and this one flowers from December to March.  It prefers moist soil and shade, and also copes well with dry shade and urban pollution too.  As most plants in pots are coming to the end of their flowering season now in the front garden, it seemed like a good idea to have something evergreen by the door.