Forget the maples
Ok, so forget the maples. Mum has had another idea. She is all too aware that these hot dry summers are going to cause problems for a lot of traditional UK plants. It’s bad enough trying to get our crops through the summer, without looking at the garden plants too. We are lucky enough to have the spring in the top corner of the garden, which then becomes an underground stream, but even that has dried up this summer. We grow loads of different herb plants and many of those are Mediterranean. The good thing is that they can cope without being watered too often, even when it’s dry. They don’t cope so well when we get lots of rain, but as long as they can drain well, it’s not an issue.
What to plant?
Mum is starting to think carefully before planting anything in the garden. She wants plants that cope with an English winter but can also cope if we have a really dry summer. The maples might work, but Mum has had a new idea. Olive trees.
We already have two olive bushes in pots. They do reasonably well and we do get olives on them. Mum moves them to a more sheltered spot in the winter, but having read about what they need, that may be excessive. Now Mum is wondering about planting olive trees instead of maples. We may not get very far with growing olives, but then the whole idea of maple syrup had gone out of the window too.
Research trip
Mum is now claiming that her current trip is a research trip and not a holiday. She has found that we can’t grow oleander, but we can grow olives. I’ve suggested she could have done that without leaving her desk at home, but she says that is not entirely the point.
Love and licks
Wilma
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