Watching the gardens at Chelsea on the telly!Finding shrimp and tadpoles

Ashwell Springs with the Beavers

Shrimps and Tadpoles in buckets

23rd May 2018

Wednesday night involved pond dipping with Beavers and seeing muntjac deer babies. I was scared I'd end up on my bottom totally soaked but it was my youngest who filled her wellies with water.
I had gone to a support group afterwards and had an appointment for an MRI today, so I am finding myself fully immersed in kind people and survivors who are giving me the benefit of their experiences.
My health being currently as it is I also didn't get my act together to get tickets to see any of the flower shows... but I was kind of shocked to hear Rachel de Thame explaining her absence from this years' Chelsea as being down to her recovery from breast cancer, a slightly prescient thread in my own life. Being able to be in the garden last week was also the tonic I needed to forget about my impending tests and ultimate surgery, so I will be trying to get into the best areas of my own wilderness to practice some of the tips and garden advice to keep myself from getting glum.

My daughter loves the blousy scented peonies! 

Some of my favourite plants were shown on tonight's tv, and explain why some of my favourites just won't work or would do amazingly in our garden, so if there was a fairy godmother out there, can I get a tree fern (and a digger) or some airpots to grow me some eucalyptus? As it is my hubbie has said already that my 2 silver birches were maybe an ambitious/wildly silly tree to plant in the centre of the garden? Oops, I did it again...

Alliums are everywhere at the moment!

Very diddy silver birch

Last years perennials

Acquilegia in bud

I really must find a solution for the grass taking over the beds again – its definitely a couch grass issue and I've spotted mare's tail in the front again, and our council has stopped taking garden waste unless we pay a yearly fee, so a compost heap is definitely becoming a necessity sooner rather than later, but it's not happening while I am incapacitated by surgery... hmm, it has been said that we took on a big overgrown garden when we bought this house, and in my enthusiasm I hadn't anticipated the work would be held up by ME! However, I just have to start rethinking how to get things to happen. Any ideas gratefully received...