Exotic or Cottage????

We, and I do me 'we' have been extremely busy in the garden the last few days. We being K and I. She doing most of the digging and lifting and me poking my nose in and getting into trouble! I consider myself very lucky to have a daughter who enjoys gardening as much as I do.
Here she is jetwashing the patio.............



The weather has been glorious and at times a little too hot



This is my weather station, great little gadget. and of course being a 'Brit' we have this thing about 'weather'!!!!
The sensor is on the painted strip to the left of the gate near the top of the wall and as you can see in shade! But I do think with the patio being south facing it will get some reflective heat from the slabs but it still creates a great talking point! Sad or what!!!!



This was my bargain buy from Lidl and cost me £9.99. Best £9.99 I've spent in a long time. I hope they get them back again as I want to get one for my mum!

Now look at this little chap



never seen anything like him before, so had to get my insect book out and if I am correct in my identification he is a Black & Red Froghopper, apparently seen in early summer clinging to lush grass (not so sure its lush) and low vegetation, especially in Southern England (thats here!)

Now for a troll round looking across the now jet washed patio,



all the bags at the end are for the tip, I've still to set up the compost bins since the re-arrangement at the bottom of the garden!



This rose and honeysuckle are in my neighbours garden, but as you can see overhang and their scent is magnificent. This is what I really miss, from an exotic garden, honeysuckle and roses, it makes me yearn for a good old cottage garden. Although theres alot of work in keeping a cottage garden up to scratch, theres not so much lugging around of plants as there is in an Exotic Garden.



K has been working down here for me, planting and digging out, and we have been repotting together, its quite a pleasant area to work until about 12 o'clock.



These are Silver Birch Trees and are supposed to have a 'light canopy', don't you believe it, when they are planted so close together it is very dense hence being able to work in a South facing garden till mid-day!

My first Brug flower,



some of the plants are looking ok but I still have them split up as a precaution.

Tomato plants, coming along



they seem alot happier in this greenhouse, I have noticed with it being bigger the temps are more constant and theres not so many extremes of hot and cold!

My Brug cuttings



really ready for Ebay, but I want to be sure there is no virus first!

Some flowers on the way back up the garden at 7am this morning.





when I see these I often wonder what made me like tropical? I love the flowers, the amazing natural colours, why would I swop these for tropicals?

Looking back across the patio!



Right off for brekkie now!

Finished! Well maybe not!

Its all done and planted, bless my hubby, what a treasure! Just one or two things to go in that have still to come out of the greenhouse, but now we wait for the growing to begin!!!



Tango in his supervisory position, on the warm coal bunkers



More crozier's



these are so much fun to watch, they literally unfurl infront of your eyes!

Just to prove I do other types of gardening, although I believe not very successfully .....................



Sweetcorn just planted, Heritage peas on the right and at the end a new tomato for me Sweet Olive



Sweet peas on the left, chard in the middle and French Beans on the right.



Here we have garlic all around the edge, big bunch of chives, blackcurrant bushes
in the soil closest to you is supposed to be carrots, they've been in for ages and nothing showing, new pack of seeds as well!!! Under the frame I am supposed to have beetroot, spring onion, pick and come again lettuce and radish. I only took the cover off yesterday and the only thing to come up is the radish. I do not have much luck with salad stuffs.



Now this has been emptied of most of its brugmansias, I now have 3 different tomatoes, at the far end peppers. Once the final brugs come out I am putting some aubergine plants in that space.



The small greenhouse is full of brug cuttings and various other seedlings, my cucumbers will go in here as this is the cooler of the two greenhouses.

Finally, my current 'sitting down job' painting the graden furniture


I have a nifty little sander I use. The table top propped up on the right has been teak oiled. I have my coffee and was ready for a session of painting, but when I opened the tin it had gone all manky, so finished my coffee, changed my clothes and off to the shops for some more!!!

Pics That Should Have Gone With Yesterdays Blog!

The patio all tidied up

the path down to the chickens all brushed and weeded!

The new pond pump, which still needs to be re-sited.

but after 24hours has really helped clear the pond, look....
it has a UV light as well so whatever that does to the pond will take a little while longer!

If you remember a week or so ago I spent some time in the greenhouse planting seeds etc. well look whats been going on....

these are my Heritage Peas and Trail of Tears French Beans, now the reason I have a pic of them is because these plants have grown from seed I saved! I am thrilled as I had never seed saved before and wasn't sure if I had stored them correctly, I obviously did!!!!

My sweetpeas have slowed considerably, but that is because they have had there little cover off, as they where getting too big!

Here we have 5 sections, section one closest to the camera has a stray tomato plant, section 2, more tomatoes,they where sold as specifically for outdoor growing and when you look at the next pic you can see what sturdy characters they will be. Then I am really surprised about section 3, as you can just see aubergine plants popping through!!

This is all tomato's, bit sad really!!

Finally my onions.
Right must dash K is leaving to go back to Uni, so chaos surrounds us!!!

Chicken Sitting!

We are chicken sitting at the mo! We often do! But I don't mind as I can pretend for a week that I own a huge garden!!
Meet Dot & Doris



They live in an Eglu too. I can never remember which is which, anyway one is wanting to come out and the other is doing the business of laying an egg!


They live here


and soon Dot & Doris will have 3 sister chickens living in their garden as well in a brand new Purple Eglu!!!


These ladies are the reason I got mine!They arrived at my good friends house I think Nov 2005, 6 months later May 2006 we got ours!

Yesterday (Thursday) was a glorious day especially when the sun was out, we where in our T-shirts, when it went behind a cloud we had to put jumpers on. But with lots and lots of K's help, we managed to do alot of tidying up! Although I forgot the photos!
I don't know if you remember me fitting the super dooper huge new waterbutt close to the house? Well we have been having problems with it and it needed re-adjusting and as rain was due (again) this weekend we decided to empty it, sort it out and set it up again. Which ment charging up and down the garden with buckets as the stupid hose wouldn't fit to the tap! So we did that, then had breakfast! Very civilised here you know!
K then started on sorting the patio tidying, brushing and bagging up the accumulated winter rubbish! She continued down the path weeding as she went.
My chickens where busy having fun in the garden sunning and dust bathing


Big Bird wanted to join them but as she is blind in one eye couldn't work out how to get through!


Once we where down the garden this far, we realised that the pond pump was miss behaving again. It has been latterly but we haven't really had the weather to sort it out. Anyway in the autumn hubby bought a filter box with UV light and it has been sitting waiting to be fitted, so thats what we did. What a palarva! Anyway after much huffing and puffing and nearly falling in it is now fitted. As soon as the rain stops (yes its back)I shall take some pics!

Back again!

We had a lovely time, plenty of good company, good food and lashings of wine and even birthday cake, it was my nieces 21st! But boy was it warm, I got sunburnt, which is surprising as I am always very careful, but we spent alot of time outside in the shade of the trees and I am crisp!!!!!!
Whilst we where there, there was a most glorious sunset





We travelled back Saturday evening as I couldn't bear the thought of being stuck in traffic in the heat and we had a brilliant journey. Sunday morning I was back out in the garden finishing off what I had started on the patio before I left. Would you like a look?
Before..........





Now after..





We had 2 reasons for doing this:-
1. the ivy was taking over
2. I had to move my water feature

You can see it in the 2nd after pic, bottom left. To be honest it had to be sorted as we are awaiting delivery of a large water butt which ment digging up plants which are now dieing and re-laying slabs.

Right things to do, must dash.....................

Awaiting the Arrival of a Few More Jungle Plants

I have been digging again, remember the pic of the patio in yesterdays post, well I have dug up the bed and some more of the slabs



The big part of the bed measures 142cm x 470 (4ft 8in x 15ft 5in)



with a banana in it. I can move the banana if necessary (I think). I have redeployed the plants I dug up around the garden. The smaller bed




now measures 100 x 170 (3ft 3in x 5ft 7in)since I lifted a row of slabs. I will probably keep the angelica and fennel for now as it gives me instant height. I need to paint the delapidated fence, which belongs to my neighbour but she thinks belongs to us! I am also debating about buying some bamboo barrier to sink along the boundary as most of her shrubs roots like to grow into my garden!!! The soil is quite good and has had the chicken run contents added to it over the winter. It is also quite stony as the outside privy used to be here. So now all I need is a man!!!! to help me lift all my jungle plants over to the bed so we can move them around etc. etc.

Just to show you how things are growing, my caster oil plant has had a burst of growth


so it is obviously happy here which I think is good, because we are going to have to dig it up!! The down pipe behind it is where the rainwater from the main roof and 2 flat roofs (sp) goes to a soak away ideally we should dig up the whole patio and sink a huge tank underneath, but this is not an ideal world!

My brugmansia which was lifting the roof off the greenhouse got moved close to the house and seems to be enjoying the position,



I need to repot it and I may move it. I would really love another one, but where I bought it from has not had anymore in!!

Just to finish on................
The most amazing thing happened at breakfast this morning, Tori said ' I will have to tidy my room tonight, it is really getting on my nerves'!

Music to my ears!!!

T has never kept her room tidy even though I have encourages her to do a little on a daily basis! I must admit since Feb. I have said nothing and done nothing, as I didn't want to upset her or nag her, I felt she had enough on her plate. To be honest getting into her room at the moment is rather like an obstacle course and how on earth she finds things for school I never know!
So maybe I have been doing it wrong all along! Maybe I should have left her to it. She has agreed with me a while back that over the summer she will have a really good clear out to make way for all the college stuff! I live in hope!