Green Girl Gardener

Here we are on Saturday again. I seem to be punctuating my weeks in Groundhog Day fashion, and this is the only way I know what day it is! If the good R.P speakers of the BBC are reminding me to go and clap at the door, it must be Thursday. If an email from the Propagator (check out his blog for more Sixes) arrives in my inbox, more likely than not, it’s Saturday and time to find photos and luckily I keep that in my mind long enough to video call our friends on Sunday evening to take part in our weekly quiz.

Anyway, the email arrived this morning so here I am again with the latest update from our garden aka our lockdown sanctuary. This week we’ve certainly been making the most of it. We’ve managed to almost break the swingball through, probably, too vigorous whacking of the ball (and so far replacement parts seem unobtainable so we may have to improvise) and we’ve introduced lots more colour and generally made the garden an even more pleasant and fulfilling space to be in than it already was.

This week’s Six are a tad eclectic so bear with me!

The common theme of the first four points is mail order! Is it just us, or is anyone else’s garage rapidly filling up with cardboard boxes from deliveries because there’s not enough space in their recycling bin and they can’t bear the thought of sitting for hours in a queue for the tip?

1. Solar powered lights from QVC. I discovered last week that QVC have gardening hours and I promptly spent lots of money! I think it was well worth it for these lights (although I do feel it necessary to point out that, good as they are, my phone enhanced the amount of light emitted in the photo).

I really love our little bistro, and we’ve certainly made good use of it these past weeks. A couple of years ago it was an overgrown mess, but I took a week off work and transformed it and have been slowly adding to it and perfecting it ever since.

2. Battery powered lights and bunting around our patio. We have a brick built, somewhat dilapidated, garage/storage area/gardeners’ loo next to our patio area and I decided it needed a bit of zhuzhing up.

I found the lights and bunting on good old Amazon, and with Prime they were delivered less than twenty four hours later. I decided to go for battery power this time because this area doesn’t benefit from being in the sun as much as the bistro so solar power may not have worked. I’m considering painting the bricks white to lighten up the whole area, but I’m still pondering on that.

3. Lazy Flora and Blooming Direct deliveries. I received a lucky dip box from Lazy Flora this week. I got an Osteospurmum, a Dianthus, two Pelargoniums, a Verbena and something unidentified which hopefully will flower and give me a clue.

The Osteospurmum, Dianthus, Verbena and John Doe I put in the planter above, which housed a very unsuccessful courgette plant last year, and I added a Cordyline which I picked up from Homebase last week, for some height. Although I watered the lucky dip plants as soon as they arrived, and planted them the next day, they don’t look overly happy! I’m hoping they’ll pick up with some tlc.

As well as the variegated grass at the front and the Silver Dust at the back (that’s gone a bit crazy), this pot originally had a tiny fir that should’ve grown to about two feet tall and a Heuchera. The Heuchera got dug up by something and died before I noticed and the fir was looking decidedly brown and sorry for itself so I replaced them with the final two lucky dippers, the Pelargoniums, and Grass Red Baron which was delivered by Blooming Direct. It doesn’t look very red at the moment, but if it thrives it should reward me with red tipped fronds.

4. A barbecue. We’ve been debating for the past week whether to get a gas barbecue or a charcoal one (as our old one was cheap and nasty and partly broke on the day we got it!) and today we finally decided to go for a charcoal one, so I nipped up to Homebase, and this is what I came back with! I did get the barbecue as well (and a pizza stone – very much looking forward to using that).

I bought a Lupin from Homebase last week when they first reopened and hubby has since declared it his favourite flower in the garden, so when I saw the one above on the sale table, I decided to rescue it for him. The flower that’s blooming looks like it’s past its best, but the leaves are fine and there are a couple more flowers coming through. There’s definitely plenty of life left in it yet, with care. The Campanula and smaller Dahlias will fill a space in the front garden.

I absolutely couldn’t resist this Dahlia. So beautiful and vibrant! I bought it its own new terracotta pot and I’ll plant it tomorrow and most likely it’ll get added to our bistro so we can enjoy it while we’re sitting in the sunshine next week.

This Gerbera also fell into my trolley. I love orange in the garden. It really pops. This really bright orange is opposite green on the colour wheel so that’s why it stands out so much.

5. Honeysuckle. This plant will forever make me think of Pooh Bear. When Pooh is stuck in Rabbit’s door on account of his stoutness, Kanga and Roo visit him while he’s waiting to get thin again, and bring him some flowers. When Roo produces them from Kanga’s pouch, Pooh exclaims ‘Honeysuckle’ and makes to eat them, but Kanga quickly puts him straight by laughingly saying ‘Oh no Pooh, you don’t eat them, you smell them’. ‘Oh’ says Pooh.

This one was a tiny plant when it went in the ground last year but it’s thrived and has produced its first flowers this year. I’ve got a trellis for it that I need to put up (also from Blooming Direct). It lives behind my raised strawberry bed, the idea being that it livens up the bare fence behind.

6. Another bee! I do like photographing bees going about their busyness (sorry!) but I often end up hovering, somewhat bee-like, for ages trying to get the perfect shot. Today, however, this bee flew over and settled on the very Lavender flower that I was taking a photo of. How very convenient and compliant of it! Maybe it was the one I saved a few weeks ago with sugar water saying thanks!

I love this Lavender – it reminds me of the Ugly Sisters from Cinderella (even though it is far from ugly!)

See what I mean?

I hope everyone’s keeping well and managing to get in lots of garden time. It really is good for the soul, especially at the moment.