nearly 14 June 2017

Birthday Season!
All those Gemini friends, I love surprises as will you, and this year do I detect a garden theme already? A plant has arrived wrapped safely in sheets of the Daily Fail –  one of my least favourite newspapers, but what a great use for it! – and I just have to plant it out under the trees at the back.
It's a polygonatum multiflorum, which I looked up on Crocus, which is a fabulous website for plants. I think I need to pull out some overgrown weeds under the big trees at the back of the garden as it suits a woodland site. Mmm, do I have time before Birmingham? I also think it is a similar shrub to some of the blossom shots I posted...

Hovering in the house to make sure I don't miss an important delivery – my birthday pressie to me! – more later!

update

Mares Tail Update
This stuff I abhor is fiddly to get rid of a bit like the snails that chomp my hostas (in the front garden - the blighters haven't found my back garden treats!).
I have started to realise why we never saw this when viewing the house, because it grows around everything a bit like the greenery a florist adds to a bouquet. Maybe I just have to think of it as a backdrop until we find a way to eradicate it!
The grass is so easy to cut now I am fighting my oh off the grass, and he even likes doing the strimming!
PS We also need to pick the lovely plump gooseberries before we lose them...

PPS The front hedge is trimmed and more of the weeds are pulled: ivy, mares tail and sticky willy and some culls of those truly PINK flowering shrubs that I hate... seriously I moved a clump in February and I should have binned them. No flowers in Feb to make me aware of what I was moving...

Osteospermum

Anenome.

Cornflower

Rhubarb leaves so big they look like gunnera

All blossoms here!

Poppy?

the much more controlled grass

Bee attractors

Bees love this blossom and it smells nice too!

I think this may be blossom to an Itchy Coo but I
have no idea what that is called in polite society!

A new buy for how to plant and grow herbs...

... I suspect this one will help me identify
what smells so sweetly at the moment.

This bush was pruned and the blossom is the result...

This is pictured in my new book, I think, variegata di bologna

as is this one, but i am hugely conscious that there are
thousands of rose cultivars and I am judging by pictures

Needs identification?

           

10th June, 2017

Managing to identify some of the contents of the flower beds 😊

I have bought some secondhand books with some birthday money sent in advance and they are helping me to identify the inherited plants! Yay! The stripy roses especially. 

(I also worked with some of these authors a long time ago in my working life!)

But it's also the case that the garden is blooming wildly at the moment, so I suspect hard pruning has been helping with growth, and the bees are currently attacking the blossoms in their droves. So the maintenance, and hard work, as well as overflowing recycling bins are showing results. I am even getting help with additional grass cutting due to the spend on the lawnmower and strimmer. It's a win-win scenario!
However, it does mean we are in need of proper composting bins (also on my list) to actually get the garden's ecosystem working. I do have plans but as we now have Heritage consent for our building work, the serious garden work will step to one side, possibly!
I also go off to Birmingham this week for the Gardener's World show armed with phone camera, iPad and chargers to try and get as many pics and ideas as possible. I so wish I had a decent point-and-shoot camera but that was the casualty of my wobbly hands and my other digital camera is a heavy beast... I may ask my friend whether she has one and she can get digital credits? 

Lawnmower charging!

4th June, 2017

Cutting the grass!

Our new lawnmower is charging! We drove up to Melbourn and picked up a strimmer and a lawnmower before lunch. Think we could be on cheese sandwiches a lot this summer...

But the real test was this morning when I managed to cut the front grass and back singlehandedly! A wise buy: the lawnmower is light and pushes easily, the battery charges in an hour and does both gardens. The battery does the strimmer, too, so it's very easy to monitor and run the two appliances.
it's strange how I now feel less inclined to dig it all up and grow things! But never say never...
Happy, happy, happy!

Prior...

Little red geum

The grass will need some tlc
but at least its not savannah-like anymore.

Flymo stripes 

Stately homes and gardens

My oh is allergic so this is as
close as he gets to the donkey!

             

These dark red spires look fluffy
but they are anything but...

A useful quote by Kipling - I'll use that sometime!

Everybody needs plans and records, not just me!

2nd June, 2017

Looking for my favourites!
This half-term holiday has seen us travelling to a new (to us) National Trust property and revisiting an old favourite. We have been members for a long time and we continue to make full use of local and more distant homes and gardens. The gardens at both were a veritable feast to a keen Gardener and the flower fairy hunt meant our youngsters were taken round one property we have visited but not gone into the house, usually ending up at the farm instead.

To enter the walled garden...

At Melford Hall, there was a small formal garden with beautiful perennials, extravagant flag irises, and lovely hedging as well as croquet and a haha. Formerly visited by Beatrix Potter creator and illustrator there is a little exhibition of her sketches and paintings. My pictures seem to be hiding...

However, today was a return to Wimpole, which was restructured since our last visit and it was much easier to get about between the farm and adventure playpark and the enclosed gardens which were looking truly beautiful and abundant. I was able to see examples of even blousier peonies than our own, and heritage roses, and even I think the pink roses in our garden may be similar to Gertrude Jekyll cultivars at Wimpole.

Alliums and Californian poppies were in full show throughout as well as geums and sissinchrium.

There was even a delightfully decorated gardeners cottage with examples of diary entries of daily tasks and long ago images of what the estate might have looked.

My lawnmower is officially caput!

RIP Hover! 1/6/17
I am holding a wake for our hover mower. It had a good life until I sliced off the plug. Now thinking of upgrading to a selfpropelled petrol mower - any recommendations?
I actually had a friend round who offered to put the plug back on and (after establishing that the blades and mechanism effectively don't hover anymore...) he has advised me to go for something a little bit less hard work! A Mountfield or similar which gives a little help to a less able person. still hesitating before hammering my credit card...

ps. my husband disagrees...

This was taken a couple of weeks ago...

Roses

Sickeningly pink!

Very deep pink.

I have to say I have never seen one like this?

     

White and blousy!

31st May, 2017

Halfterm roses
The garden is getting overgrown and I have been spending too much time musing on what to do with it!
We have to get our building work underway but permissions are applied for. As it involves a new toilet, the permission was actually free. There have to be benefits to having this unmentionable disease!
The garden is a riot of colour and I wanted to share with you some of the rose varieties we have. I really don't know how to care for them but they have been in place for a long time I think and having given them a hardish pruning last year there are lots of blooms. Unfortunately as the wind whips through our ornate metal gate, the blooms fall off quite quickly too.

These are the ones most like the Peace
roses grown by my parents.

I havs six different coloured roses... some smell nice, some like granny's perfume... but odd to have so many types! Some have been grafted I think.

Two shades of yellow on one bush_think we have some grafts?