Wilting Shoots in the garden at Casa Colleverde... Ebay to the rescue.

Unfortuantely no more lavender.

This year we lost a lot of plants in the garden. Three months of hot dry weather and no rain took their toll. The 'mediterranean garden' was looking more like a desert and I have been feeling a little brown fingered - the 'pollice verde' are not working.

In the spring we had started to fill in the gaps in the garden from the initial planting in 2011 and had planted some more lavender, in May the garden was looking great but then with the start of the hot dry weather we were hit with a root fungus which proceeded to kill off most of the 40 new lavender plants together with those we had planted last year. We then had a foliar/stem fungus which killed the 70 Cornus planted in the fito depurazione system, the roses were losing their leaves inspite of regular dousing with an anti  fungal and then the Magnolia died and one of the Cyprus trees is looking unwell. Could things get any worse... well to top it all the roses which were doing well were then attacked by a plague of caterpillars who proceeded to eat the remaining leaves. 

Things have come back a bit since the autumn rains but we are having to do a serious rethink on how to proceed in the garden.

I think I have to be patient. You cannot hurry in gardening, instant gardens do not always work. This is all very well but the garden at least needs to be presentable for guests.                                                     

Getting new soil in is not an option living on top of the hill at the end of a track. We can steadily        improve what we have and are composting but it will take time. Well lets take stock - what did survive?                                                                                   We did plant some Genista to help retain a bank which even with litttle or no watering or rain all survived and have grown well but they are ok in the wilder part of the garden but not particulary pretty. Other plants which sems to like our ex bulding plot are Gazania which have self seeded from last year and this year I have taken the seed to seed elsewhere.A white valerian has been successful and has also self seeded but I will have to be careful with this as it can become a bit of a thug. Having said that I am trying to get the red one going as well via seed as they do not like being transplanted and we will see what happens the seedling can easily be removed.The Acanthus mollis I transplanted from my old garden (another plant a bit fussy about moving) is still sulking but looks like it will be ok next year and then I can leave it to self seed. Rosemary seems to like the conditions as does thyme.   

The Agave and the Fico d'india seem happy and are both easy to tranplant or take cuttings if you are careful as they are a bit spikey! So maybe things are not so bad.

One of my favourite plants is Euphorbia Characias ( a woody  perrenial) which does well in UK gardens and I used it often when planting gardens there. But here it is impossible to find even though it is native to Liguria and the Cinque Terre! 

So Ebay has come to my rescue - I have been buying seeds a much cheeper way to experiment and hopefully these will establish themselves. so far I have planted Eurphorbia Characias (indigenous) and a Euphorbia Melifera (honey scented) and Erigeron.All are no more than 1 euro a packet including postage even if only one seed comes up it is well worth it.

I have also been looking to see what grows wild around the house and I am going to plant both wild versions of these plants and the cultivated varieties.A white cistus grows in the woods around the house in little soil and no water so that seems a good candidate the pink ones we had planted have survived. The wild herbs seem to be everywhere thyme, oregano, mentha and myrtle is common.

Helychrysum grows in the olive gove as well and I have transplanted a couple of plants which have taken so those also seem a good candidate. I am also taking cuttings although this maybe should wait to spring as they will more likely take better.

 Erigeron grows in the wall in all the old hilltop towns around me self seeds everywhere but is impossible to transplant. Once it gets going I am sure I will have it everwhere.

So slowy slowy we will get there and I am now looking forward to spring next year.

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ps I hope the sources of photos above once found at a later date

Olio Nuovo!

Well thank goodness we picked our olives last week. Since last Saturday the weather has been dreadful and windy and if we had waited a little longer we probably wouldnt have had any left to pick.

At Casa Colleverde we have an old olive grove which over the last two years we have given a good prune in the hope that we would get an improved crop.The trees had been left to their own devices for far too long with the result that though we have had few olives and have very tall trees we do have lots of wild flowers!

Last autumn we gave the trees a good prune and this year we gave them some organic fertiliser after which things looked good in May with lots of flowers and of these a lot seemed to set. But you shouldnt count your olives too early.

In June we had a week of very windy weather and then a hot dry summer - 3 months without rain.Come the end of October I had to put my glasses on to find the olives. We had about 7 trees with a good number on and the other 180 trees with hardly any. Oh well.

Here in our part of Liguria nets are tied under the trees to collect olives as they fall before picking starts in earnest. If only we could afford this luxury and investment in nets!

The weather was forecast good last week until Friday so we set to and picked them all - about six hours work for the two of us and Sam who watched. At the end we had 36kg of Olives and got 5 litres of green liquid gold extra virgin cold pressed olive oil. Yummy!