February 22, 2009
· Filed under Drainage · Tagged Drainage, Pond, Trench
Finished digging the trench/pond around the bird table at the end of the garden that is meant to help drain the part that I now call the ‘wetlands.’ Whether it will work I don’t know, but it adds a bit of interest, and I shall dress it up a bit in the months to come. Very heavy work, and knocked me up a bit, as I am so unfit these days. Yesterday was a beautiful, spring-like sunny day, after all the snow we had at the beginning of the month, which means the daffodils still aren’t quite out. Just like an old-fashioned winter! The heather below the patio is a fine sight, though
January 29, 2009
· Filed under Daffodils, Spring · Tagged Daffodils, Spring, Weather, Winter
It may still be January, but there are signs of stirring in the garden. Bright sunshine today, daffodils beginning to push through. Although of course they are in fact much later than in recent years, because of our chillier winter this year. That’s all to the good. And plenty of water at the bottom of the garden, in the wetlands! And the day surprises you by staying lighter later
September 1, 2008
· Filed under Australia, Gardening, Weather · Tagged Australia, Weather
Have returned home after a month away to find the garden looking like a bit like the rainforests we have seen on our travels. This shot above was taken on the first, misty morning of September, the day after we got back. Up in northern Queensland we saw many plants we know as exotic houseplants growing in public flower beds. I got to thinking, how about trying to grow some of those plants outdoors here, in warm spots such as our front garden? It probably won’t be successful, but it will be worth a try
August 2, 2008
· Filed under Australia, Gardening, Weather · Tagged Australia
Sometimes it seems the garden is at its best just when you’re about to leave it behind. Tomorrow we fly out to Australia, via Bangkok, and winter in Sydney. Back here everything is lush and green after the recent rain, the pots of fuschias are luxuriant, and even the gladioli are just about to come into flower. By the time we return from what I’m sure will be a great trip summer will be over here. You can’t have everything
July 20, 2008
· Filed under Gardening
A tale of two gardens: my mother was up for the week, and we called in to see Steve. He works six days out of seven, and consequently his garden had become a bit of a wild, untamed tropical jungle, thought he said that was the way he liked it; banana plants and other huge ones with spiked, rather vicious leaves. I told him I was sorry I hadn’t spotted any of the indigenous people that obviously lived and lurked among it all; they must be very shy. ‘Oh yes, the pygmies,’ he said. Later in the week we called in on Grace and Eric; no hostile vegetation, instead an almost overwhelming sense of colour, petunias, begonias, busy lizzies, you name it. A bit too much of everything for my taste, but undeniably spectacular. Both of them much better gardeners than me
July 1, 2008
· Filed under Basingstoke canal · Tagged Basingstoke canal, heron
The months of June and July are really the best time to be walking along the canal, if the sun and light is right. You get fantastic greens and browns. I treat the canal as an extension of my back garden, and feel a sense of ownership. I started walking along it regularly two years ago, to help repair my back, and wondered why I had not done it years before. Funnily enough, my back is playing up again. The picture of a heron fishing was taken a week ago
June 30, 2008
· Filed under Garden birds · Tagged chaffinch, greenfinch, nuthatch
Have switched to dispensing sunflower seeds as well from the bird feeder, and am now attracting a better class of visitors. Two greenfinches and a chaffinch on the feeder at the same time; much more colourful! Sparrows have dropped by for the first time, maybe disturbed by the garden makeover going on next door. A day later two nuthatches arrived to sample the sunflowers and peanuts. Things are really looking up!
May 21, 2008
· Filed under Gardening, Weather, Writing
Eric came over on Saturday night with some bedding plants, salvias, petunias, and impatiens. He received in return his birthday present which we had bought at Wyevale earlier in the day, a tall, deep red hydrangea, and was bowled over by it. He was footloose and fancy free because Grace was away in Germany on a University of the Third Age trip. We said earlier that he would be enjoying cooking all the things he was normally not allowed to cook, and of course he had been. I had four days off over the weekend, and spent a lot of the time in the garden, or buying more plants for the garden at Wisley, some pink scabious to go with the blue, three verbascums for the impossibly dry bed in front of the leylandii, and a small evergreen shrub, a ceanothus, with blue flowers for the bed below the patio, that I fear will be over before I had hoped. But I also finished off two stories for the Woking and Guildford writing groups, a jokey tale about politics and gardening for Woking (middle-brow), and a far more sober tale about Afghanistan for Guildford (high-brow). Cold, grey days, with rain on Saturday night, and the first sunshine in four days on Sunday. Kate arrived back from her two weeks in Japan, stopping over before heading back to Manchester and a summer looking for a new job after the language centre made her redundant
May 9, 2008
· Filed under Family, Weather
The weather has broken today, after a week of welcome, warm sunshine in which Jack drove up to Suffolk and got himself a teaching job at a primary school in a beautiful village called Debenham, below, to unversal cheers, and won his league cup final the same day
April 19, 2008
· Filed under Gardening, Weather
I didn’t intend this blog to be all about gardening, but that is the way it is turning out so far. Windy, very cold for April, a little drizzly, but I was out in the garden on Saturday morning because I had things to do. Planted two passion flowers that we bought earlier this month for our 30th wedding anniversary in the hedge in the front garden. Then freesias, begonias, lilies and gladioli in pots and around the back. The bulbs were part of my RHS membership pack, after Gillian and I went to Wisley on Thursday. (My day off, her school holidays). It was sunnier than today, but almost as cold. I hadn’t been to Wisley for nigh on 15 years. We took refuge from the wind in a stunning new glasshouse opened by the Queen last year. There was also a cool Chinese butterfly pavilion.
PS The tulips scattered around the garden looked like delicious ice creams. I will plant lots more in the autumn
