29th October 2017

Halloween weekend
We have started in the UK to do Halloween in a way that I dislike: one of my reasons not to be at home for October half-term

On a tape rerunning in my head...

when I can help it... I dislike fake blood suddenly being OK and little girls being encouraged to dress up in skimpy vampire schoolgirl outfits with lots of eye makeup!
Escaping to the garden is one way of sticking myself in the (not so sandy) earth, figuratively. Meanwhile hubby lies on the sofa nursing his swollen jaw and puffy face after wisdom tooth extraction. I remember how painful I found this and don't really have the allowance for self-pity myself at the moment and I must console myself with the kids' return to school tomorrow!
Yesterday I planted a couple of little hellebores and more allium bulbs and poppy seeds: if nothing gets built in the meantime I will have attempted to redesign the colours in my north-facing front garden and I have some more Slugfree pellets to add to the front borders to try and stop the advancing snails. I hacked away at the rose bush overtaking the front path, which the neighbour told me has started to become wild rose... It'll be gone by next year (or is that wishful thinking?)...

Bulbs and seeds...

Alliums are a form of onion and the seed heads can be so dramatic,
better than the thousands of daffodils planted in our garden.

Black dog descends...

28th October, 2017

Halfterm hijinks don’t help with the gardening!

You probably don’t expect my trip to the British Library to see a Harry Potter show to have anything to do with my gardening blog but... it did and I found reference to another of my favourite plants, helleborus Niger, which I do remember appearing in the books and being surprised. I was pleasantly surprised by the background knowledge, from mandrake to folklore to props, that went into the whole 7-book series, and going to this exhibition raised the books in my eyes. Such that some little hellebores were brought home from the supermarket today...

Planting this afternoon? Bulbs and seeds desperately needing planted too. I also chopped a lot of the hawthorn before the holiday and the green bin was emptied so there is room for me to fill it again.

And what was one reason I raised the black dog earlier? I was wiped out after our 12k steps on a London day and woke at 3 am on Thursday and 5 on Friday which doesn’t help me get through a school holiday normally but in stopping my medication (Rebif) my moods have been (largely) more positive. But I turn over lots of things in my head when insomnia hits. We have had builders quotes and I so much want to get started it’s not funny. I desperately want to have a home I feel proud of but which mostly smells of damp. The bedrooms needing plastered have affected our breathing and having sent jobs out for prices we need to discuss what gets done... again this added to my ‘black dog’ moment! 

We are also looking after our little ‘borrowed’ black doggie and it has meant gardening has not been possible but he goes home tonight (owners flight permitting) and yes I’ll miss him but my feeling that a dog of our own at the moment is not a possibility will be reinforced by my poop picking this afternoon...

Memory lost: appeals for a new one?

Middle of October, 2017

September bloom

Apologies are due to just about everyone...

MS plays with you at the best and worst of times. I have lots going on, and its hard to keep track of my desires and needs and appointments when it seems like everyone has been taking a piece of me too.
I have a 10-year-old going through secondary applications, and I want to support her choices in the best ways I can. School is different for me as I was in the Scottish system through to university, and despite studying in the US and London, I feel I want to understand the English system and how it affects my children. Herts has some amazing schools and it's hard not to fall into the competitive world of 'will she/won't she' get into the most sought-after schools if she chooses them.

 However, that is a preamble to admitting my eye was off the ball and I missed an event I was planning to go to at Shuttleworth, and the friend I was going with had to do jury service... we had a bit of a technology fail as the booking I should have made online disappeared, the tickets I had didn't have dates on them, and it was maybe fate stepped in and I missed the lunch with the Head Gardener.

I had so many questions, and was planning to try to use them to write another blog. If you want to see Shuttleworth Swiss Garden I did show you the peacocks much earlier in the year.
While sitting here, I realised that the gardeners next door have deposited the sleepers our neighbours' have given me. But I didn't realise the noise was related to the huge timbers being deposited into the garden. Not where we wanted them but c'est la vie! there are enough bits to do a huge raised bed. Its happening, slowly, but things on my wishlist are appearing in the garden.
Meanwhile, builders' quotes for the work we need doing in the house are ranging from the sublime to the astronomical... a seating area to help with the groundwater drainage will have to involve our own hard work, but it may help the damp!
It never rains (when the roofers are doing their thing)  but this October it has poured in Letchworth!

Shuttleworth residents

Bulb planting!

9th October 2017

Oh, the anticipation is over... some of my purchases at the NEC can finally go into the ground... And being the compulsive shopper that I am they will be joined by an array of recent purchases! I've got some blue alliums and spiky christophii alliums and purple-grey poppies! Blues and purples and pink! I will plant those tomorrow as the rain is threatening (as well as first school pickup)...
The dilemma is, of course, do I plant them in existing borders or dig up some grass to make new flower areas!

I've had so much thrown at me by builders, structural engineer, and architect during September, regarding the elimination of damp in our wee hoose, that my ideas of a sunken seating area with special soakaways are starting to take on a life of their own and its hard not to think of them as things that will happen!
But where do I put my purchases that they will end up growing next year and not end up in a skip...