London again

We got back to London to find the garden suffering from drought! While we'd been in France, very little rain seemed to have fallen on London, which was not good news for the plants I'd moved before we left. Some of the transplanted strawberry plants looked very sad, other plants had died completely - and the water level in the fishpond was down by several inches.

My first tasks were to give everything a thorough watering (usually the precursor to a downpour!), clean the pond UV filter and top up the water level. After that I continued the task begun last month - preparing the area where the new conservatory will go. The composter will need to be moved, so I've added compost accelerator and thoroughly mixed the contents. We'll not add any new material now until after it's moved.

The loganberry will be lost completely, so although it's really too early in the season, I've started to layer new shoots to propagate a replacement plant. I'll try several at different times in the hope that at least one will "take". The original plant will be left where it is until after this year's crop has been picked. It might be possible then to lift and replant but I doubt it.



One week on from watering the dried-out strawberry plants which had been moved under the pergola, most seem to have recovered. Others remained in the ground but most have now been moved into temporary homes - containers - until the autumn. Earlier in the season I rooted several runners into small pots; they have almost all survived and may go into a strawberry barrel in the autumn. There will be so little garden area left once the conservatory goes up that many more things will have to grow in containers in future.

The corner of the garden next to the workshop was planted with mint, and had become invaded by lemon balm. The mint (two different types) has been moved into containers, and I've now cleared the area which will house the composter currently in an area destined to be part of the conservatory. We will level the area first and pave it before moving the box - there will be plenty of paviors which we can lift and re-use. In fact the pathway next to it has dropped so we will re-lay that at the same time. There were some self-set shrubs (possibly mahonia - I'm not sure!) growing in this patch too, and I've moved them into the front garden, into the area which looks bare, where the tree used to be. In time they may mask the view of the bike shed from the road.

The recent transplants looked very sick for a while after being moved, despite being given plenty of water, but they have now started to recover, so I'm hopeful that they will survive. Still wondering what to do about the bay tree though... RHS recommends semi-ripe cuttings but it's too early to do that; perhaps in August.