On my holibobs! Branklyn Gardens, Perth

Last week of August 2018

Branklyn Garden, Perth
We escaped to Scotland for the last week of the kids holidays and on one of the days a grandparent looked after Squeaky and Curly, we (my husband and I) visited an amazing garden on the edge of Perth. And it felt like it was a high edge when we overlooked the city from viewpoints in the gardens.

This garden has a collection of over 2,000 plants and has been looked after by the National Trust since 1968. So it’s older than me and the original owners had planted an amazing collection from this vast cornucopia of plants cultivated by the original plant hunters of the UK and contains some of the UK’s collections of notable species, including blue Meconopsis. It was the wrong time of year for those but I purchased some seeds...

This robin was following the workers.

We had a lovely scone sitting overlooking the garden, and unfortunately were targetted by wasps. This led to a chat with two of the ladies in the cafe who said it had been a terribly funny year and nothing is on target (which made me feel better about my OWN garden neglect...).
We met and spoke to the head gardener, Jim, and some of the gardeners working with him. He said that he had plans for reconstructing areas his predecessors had neglected! But as a novice gardener, I was very impressed. If I had any suggestions it was the use of some Slugaway I have been employing, however, my hostas are nowhere near as healthy!

We spotted lots of wildlife including the gardens robin.
I found myself buying plants and seeds which were distributed among friends during our week rather than expecting the plants to survive a few days carbound en route to home.
I have another garden to tell you about too, Jupiter Artlands, outside Edinburgh! More to follow...
PS: I am not going to name or caption the plants I photographed as there were so many different cultivars I will get in a species mess.

The information in the garden leaflet was really interesting.

Rock garden which was being reworked.

I loved the bark on this tree.

And breathe...

I am not looking! Sculpture in Jupiter Artland

A guide to Branklyn Gardens, Perth

6th September 2018

Kids are back to School!

I realize I have been quiet this week but even knowing it was going to be a weird week – 2 kids starting different schools and needing different things – I hadn't anticipated no energy to blog about our trip to Scotland.  We had a great week at the end of August seeing family and friends and places, returning to old haunts of my university days and revisiting the beaches and seafronts I love. But returning home was met by a familiar MS brick wall and I lost all energy or enthusiasm and I was reminded of how much I have had to ignore while recovering from surgery.

I can't ignore everything forever but it will be a slow return to my old normal.

I will post reviews of the 2 amazing and incredibly different gardens we visited, Branklyn and JupiterArtland, and how the holiday filled me with energy and enthusiasm, our annus terriblis felt like it was improving just that little bit more. But in case you think it is all good I walked round our garden this morning and despite the sun being out, it is a mess!

The house is a mess too, but as I still can't lift anything significant, I will tap away at my keyboard instead...

Fungus en route to school this morning!

Stats of blog?

9th August 2018

August rainfall...

On this damp and dingy day, I got up feeling a bit bleurgh! After shouting about a tidy house a bit to my daughters, I fired up my laptop and got a surprise.
On Gardening with Limits I have written 105 posts. I started it in March 2017 (posted first blog as Jan 2017) and I've had over 8,000 views... not exactly amazing but I am quite astounded.
I get some feedback but no comments, suggestions or questions so I don't really know what gets me views –  pictures or visits or my recent surgery? I do this for my own benefit more than anything else, but I am feeling a bit disoriented by the recent surgery and its recovery time. Those plans I said I was going to make have disappeared into the novellas on my kindle. It's not even that comfortable to read the kindle to be honest, as aches are constant at the moment. I wish there was an answer that took all my woes but it's a constant battle just to keep track of my paracetemol and ibuprofen intake if I'm honest!
Recently I have not found technology to be my friend, but I don't need that to lay out a plan for the garden. I just need an endless stream of fairy dust...

A new reality!

5th August 2018

Limitations have increased...

I wasn't expecting this! Strange but true... I have had operations before but never really experienced the likes of this! Lift nothing is scary to someone who usually muddles through and does what she can, but the pain is extreme now if I forget and try to be normal. And that is weird for an MSer to admit. I try to be as normal (what does that even mean???) as possible. I try to do what I can but two nearly three weeks in and the limitations I have are extreme. My youngest admitted to me today that she was scared when I was in hospital. Ouch!
The school holidays are going to be that bit stranger for the girls. Slinging a handbag over my shoulder (hurts), and speeding into town takes just that little bit more effort (not driving) and despite my best efforts we haven't got the girls signed up to anything, and that afternoon spent in Lister paediatrics, the Wednesday before my operation, took away the time I was going to spend trying to sign the girls up to holiday fun...
Granny has gone back to Scotland, and two weeks of being looked after are fading into a lovely memory. I am slightly more able but nowhere near enough to lift my impatience. I am sleeping better which means my long-suffering husband is able to sleep better too. If it gets too much he can always send me to the shed granny just vacated?
Piles of dry plants have been pulled up and I think we might need to look at getting our garden waste collected and pay, or we will be sending tumbleweeds over the town. The area we were clearing for a compost heap now has been filled up with cuttings and the brambles will take over if I can't lift them.
Talk has been made of a cycle ride (the other three, not me) but later on when I am likely to be bushed. Naptime for me then. Back to my kindle, perched on a pillow as I can't really prop it on my sore bits, and I am still having to lie on my back. This will improve/change, please?

Brambles have been giving
lots of fruit for my youngest to eat.

Second blooms for the rose bushes...

Hubbie checked these
are not weed type lilies... 

August already!

1st August 2018

Wormery or compost bin?

I never thought that might be an option, but my mum is spending another week here and has been pulling up overgrown areas I haven’t touched in the months of our annus horribilus that 2018 became. We now have bags of weeds and they should go somewhere. The leftover wood from the extension has been hidden from the main path.

I really can’t lift anything for six weeks (entire school holidays to most parents) and it’s going to be tough. On a positive note, deadheading those roses has given us double blooms! There are positives in the wizened and dry landscape. And boy do we have bees, I counted ten on the lavender bush yesterday. I got some gardening magazines while in hospital and it’s really inspired me to think the small steps I have taken are part way towards turning the garden into more than a football pitch. We must,however, make it safe, the littlest ended up with a sharp splinter in her foot a couple of days ago but again it’s knowing what to target first.

My hubby has shown an interest in helping me with the tech of my blog, maybe positive change is afoot after all. My surgery has left me tired and uncomfortable but it’s not taken my spirit!

F

A shrivelled up garden!

30th July 2018

Still on a roller coaster!

Two weeks after surgery, and I am getting used to a new reality. I have had some scary moments and some laughs. Family has pulled around me and brought me through the worst times of my life. Surgery is healing but it’s all painful. We’ve just had the hottest weather since UK records began and I’ve tried inside and outside to stay regulated. But it’s hard going and I’ve scared a lot of people, with unexpected reactions to things, and our plans diverging so much.
Outside we have beautiful hot orange calla lilies and wild eryngiums, or thistles, creating new corners to excavate. And the garden needs excavation when I am fit again. For now, I just have to look at what I can’t do...

Surgery with MS is no simple thing. Even the medics were scared by my reaction, and I have a different diagnosis of intolerance no one predicted. Opioids are quite dangerous but for me they were a game changer. Never again! I have absolutely no tolerance for them and it nearly didn’t get sorted. Then in later discussion, you find a family intolerance and it all makes sense.

It’s two weeks now and it all still hurts but patience willing, recovery is going to happen. Summer holidays see the desertion of the UK for far-flung destinations. I wish that was us, but I’m being patient. The kids have been following a job chart so I’ll be broke by next week. My mum has been a star, feeding us and chivvying me into my new normality for now.

I forgot to say, the greenhouse was blown over, causing great consternation - largely missed by me - and the drought was followed by a day of rain, so much more like the summer holidays of old than the 32 degrees. We have to look at the garden again and think of how it can work. Not a quick fix, but a life work! Gulp!

Blimey!

This image was sent to me from Russia, from a clinic helping my
friend with MS. I send my blog back with Love! 

12 hours and counting!

I had that last MRI, that one that had contrast, and nearly tipped me over...

I was lying flat on my back, with my legs raised over a box, and two heavy mechanical blankets over my chest and tummy, earplugs and ear defenders on. Easy Peazy! And the fan blowing cold air into the tunnel caused my legs to feel like I was being sprayed with ice!

As I say, I had ear plugs in and they placed ear defenders over my ears. Then the bed moved in and out a few times, before somebody spoke to me? Mumble, mumble, hold your breath till mumble mumble! What?!? And then the tube moved again. Breathe out, mumble, mumble, hold your breath. Eh?!? This happened a few times and I squeezed the help thing.

What’s up? I am freezing and I can’t understand the instructions! Or hold my breath that long??? We’ll put the sound up.

A blanket was draped over my feet. And a few more goes of moving me and giving instructions I couldn’t understand fully, either they gave up on me or got something usable. And the bed was rolled out of the tunnel seconds before I pressed the damn button again, or threw the really heavy mat things off!

Fifteen minutes? That wasn’t fifteen bleeping minutes and I was so close to screaming. I didn’t have - I was not even close - anything close to a panic attack. I have friends whose panic and anxiety is very real, but today I really came close to understanding the escape reflex that they must get. Hopefully, the plastic surgeon now has the images he needs and I never have to go through that again!