I'd like Jine to be a gentle month.
Weather permitting I will focus on the garden.
A romantic month perhaps..
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I'd like Jine to be a gentle month. Weather permitting I will focus on the garden. A romantic month perhaps..
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..in a good way. The vase is a charity shop find, the flowers are perennial conrflowers - centaura montana - and the foliiage Philadelphus aureus.  A parcel appears. Clever packaging. Beautiful isotoma, disappointingly tiny lime green petunias...We'll just have to see what we can do.    Getting ready for summer.... sweet peas, cosmos, ox-eye daisies, cornflowers and fuchsias. The greenhouse is filling up nicely.   Lovely sunny day. Overdid it in the garden. Will I ever learn!  The first perambulation, cup of tea in hand, is to look for what is new and what is beautiful, listen to the birdsong and perhaps pick a posy for the breakfast table. The second walk round with pen and paper is to make the to-do list, notingg what needs doing most urgently and trying not to feel overwhelmed by the tasks! It's important to me to separate these two walks..  and spanglings. The garden is beautiful in it's fresh greens with occasional scatterings of delicate flowers - a contrast to the drana of the tulips. Self sown Welsh poppies and tiny geranium robertianum 'Celtic White' on the floor of the greenhouse are a special delight.   Tiny lily of the valley with it's powerful scent.  The shed roof is spangled with clematis flowers.    Welsh poppies in yellow and orange.  The garden moves on to a new phase as tha tulips finish. They have been fabulous this year.  Sometimes they do! I had a notepad on which each page was headed Dream. Plan. Do. I really liked that notepad. I'm very good at the dreaming bit. Can do the planning though much of it is tedious..nearly done. And ready for the Do. Will report back next week. Meanwhile what are you dreaming of right now? What steps will you take to make it come true? Perhaps there is one little baby step you could take today?  Where did that come from?
I know I did not plant yellow in with the pink. A tiny arrangement of sweetly scented skimmia and a few catkins.  Did you know that hellebores could do this? On frosty nights they collapse to the ground then recover as the day goes on. I started lifting it in at night becasue I wasn't sure it could sustain this behaviour, but apparently they can!   Summer curtains in the bathroom, and yet more snow! It's quite hard to stay inn sync with the seasons..   I keep popping in and out to fill my eyes with the gorgeousness.   I keep geting my clogs in the shot. The astonishing tulips are as big as a hand.  ..by the tulips, the gorgeous weather and getting the grass cut today both in the back and the front gardens. I hope you all have a lovely Easter weekend.     A new watering can, gardening clogs and gardening gloves, and some pretties to grow on for the greenhouse in summer. I'm all set to go! The continuing sunny weather has energised me.     A splendid hellebore, a small sarcococca which is scenting the greenhouse beautifully, and a witch hazel will fill the gaps in my future winter gardens. Yet more sunny days!     Have switched on the heated propagator though I dom't know yet what I will grow this year, other than sweet pea 'Gwendoline' and more ox-eye daisies. Romantic...can be as simple as flowers at breakfast.   For a few months each year I feel my garden is very romantic. I think abundance is romantic. I have not one white bark birch but ten. Not three or five plants of ox-eye daisies but 25 (so cheap and easy from seed). I really lovee that I can pick big bunches without the garden looking depleted. Still looking for that floaty dress.   Nature gives me this romantic effect for free, every year, with wild orchids thrown in too!  My winter garden however, is not romantic. It looks like mud season here just now!
I used to advise clients and students to plant something special for winter interest at the far end of the garden, something to coax the gardener out on a winter day. Soemthing so beutiaul and exquisitely scented that made it worth the effort. It is time to take my own advice. I am on the look out for witch hazel, daphne, sarcoccoca, viburnum, winter flowering honeysuckle....suggestions welcome. We visiteed Anglesey Abbey winter garden on a still day and were intoxicated by the colours and the scents! See here. Anyone else feeling romantic? What feels romantic to you? The fence between the front garden and the single track road and down the drive has rotted away and I got rid of it before the winter winds demolished it completely. It was the same as this bit which divides the front garden from the back. All the Swedish houses in the row of 12 had these modest picket fences at one time and I like it very much. It suits the house in its rural setting and is suitably simple to my eye. But..replacing it is going to cost £1000 plus. (This quote is not for the fencing right around the garden but just part of it.)   I think I have 3 choices. To reinstate the original design. Expensive, not much maintenance required though I should probably avoid letting too many plants grow over it. To plant a yew hedge instead. It will need cut once a year and is slow growing so will take time to create a sense of enclosure. Considerably cheaper than the fence. Greener. Aesthetically pleasing once established. To use shrubs and plants as the boundary. I don't have a dog to keep in, or young childresn, and although I want to keep the deer out they can easily jump a hedge or low fence.. What do you think? I have so enjoyed visualising where you all live. Thank you! Please note that posts may be a bit erratic for a few days.... A herd of wild boar have been creating havoc in gardens in Strachur, a village on Loch Fyne 11 miles to the north of us and word has it they are heading this way! There are about twenty of them. I didn't even know we had wild boar in Scotland! I wonser if the soap trick works with wild boar.. Here is the beautiful viburnum plicatum 'Mariesii' in early summer.  It appeared to die a number of years ago then over the past five or six years floourished again, mysteriously. However there is no mystery as to why it is now a stump. The deer have eaten it! I don't usually get deer in the garden until spring, or when there is snow on the higher ground and I manage to deter them by putting down bits of strongly perfumed soap (works a treat to protect your tulips by the way). I suspect the decoratons on my wreath (see this post) are a bit delicate for the front door, exposed as it is to wind and rain. The wreath itself is sturdy enough but the leaves will just have to take their chance..  I have to get out there and enjoy it.  Coffee for ten in my small sitting room today! Our village Conservation Group got together for the first time since Covid to tidy Coronation Wood and plant lots of bulbs in tubs. It rained. But we are hardy folks, and it was good to catch up and get to know some new residents..
Click on Menu to see the story of Coronation Wood. ..make a lovely wreath. The days have been pretty wet and grey, but in a sunny spell yesterday afternoon I took apart the yellow wigwam which had the golden hop growing on it and made a wreath with the tangled but still supple stems. You just have to bully them into submission, tuck in the loose ends and leave flat to dry. I will also press some leaves under the rug to decorate it with later.   Is autumn as colourful where you are? If you are in the northern hemisphere that is! I'd love to know if readers from Australia and New Zealand are still with us...  Some large scale cutting back is going on in the garden, and much of it comes into the house for the few days it lasts This is azalea lutea. ..   |
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June 2023
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