animals

Several on Sunday

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I was going to do a Six on Saturday yesterday as I haven’t posted in a while, but then I realised I had more than six points to make so I’m doing several on Sunday instead!

I took the day off work on Friday to make a lovely long bank holiday weekend. it feels like ages since I had longer than a weekend off. I guess it was the jubilee weekend which wasn’t actually that long ago but I was ready for a break.

Hubby doesn’t work on Fridays so we had the day together, but we hadn’t made any plans in advance not knowing what the weather would be doing. It was gloriously sunny so we decided last minute to go to Twycross Zoo. Last time we went was just as lockdown restrictions were being eased and they were only allowed something like 30% capacity so there were no queues and we were free to spend as much time looking at the animals as we liked. Not this time though. It was absolutely heaving full of kids but I guess that’s what you get for going to a zoo in school holidays. I did get to test out the camera on my new phone though and got a few really good snaps.

As ever, I found myself in a quandary between being fascinated by the animals, and wishing they weren’t in captivity. I console myself with the knowledge of the conservation work that zoos are able to do because of the entry fees but really I know that if I wasn’t for mankind much of conservation wouldn’t even be necessary. However, we are where we are and that’s a whole other discussion.

Yesterday morning I went for a walk in Kingsbury Water Park with my sister-in-law and I’m really pleased with this photo of a duck. Hubby says the photos with this new camera are better than actually looking at the subject in real life!

On we go to some floral delights, and this time I’ve decided to show some zoomed in contrasts, largely due to the fact that the new camera is sooo good at close up shots.

First is my nigrescens in the hanging basket. I think I shared the flowers that it had for the first time a few weeks ago, and speculated that maybe that meant I’d get berries this year. As you can see, I have! Very exciting.

Next some violas that I planted ages ago. They were in flower when I planted them, then they were just a mass of leaves, and now they’re flowering again. Double whammy! Also, they’ve seeded in the gravel around them. I guess that makes it a triple whammy! I’ve never had that happen with bedding plants before.

My wheelbarrow has really done itself proud. I bemoaned the fact that my apricot mix pack of begonias was actually just red earlier in the year. The red was (and is) beautiful, but I’m really happy that I’ve now got some of the apricot tones that I wanted too.

My poor cordyline that got flattened by the snow at the beginning of the year is starting to recover. Hopefully by the end of the summer, the bent offerings at the bottom will have died off to be replaced by more upstanding fronds at the top.

I have a mix of feelings when the sedums start to turn pink. On the one hand, the pink is prettier than the green that they’ve sported all through the summer, but the pink tinge heralds the end of the lazy, hazy days of summer and the slow descent towards the cold and dark. Still, we’re not there yet so I’ll just try to enjoy what’s left of summer and the late summer blooms.

Here you can spy a closely shorn hubby hard at work being photobombed by the thing whose name I can never remember! Just googled – leycesteria formosa. I can’t remember if I planted this or if it just turned up, but it’s gone crazy!

Finally we have a pond! In typical quirky style, it has a heron and, perhaps even more bizarrely, a wildly out of scale triceratops! It’s not finished, there will be more plants added around it and, I’m sure, more random animals but for now it has a coprosma and I couldn’t resist showing you a close up of its beautiful leaves.

I think that’s all for now. We’re off to a garden centre once our Tesco delivery has arrived. No doubt we’ll come back with more garden paraphernalia that I’ll be able to share at a later date. Enjoy the rest of the bank holiday weekend for UK folks, and the regular weekend for everyone else.

Long Overdue Catch Up

greengirlgardener3 Comments

I was intending to write a Six on Saturday today given that the garden is waking up and there’s more to share, but then I realised I also wanted to write about our holiday so I’m combining the two (along with any other random thoughts that may enter my head!) But first, a holiday! Yes, that’s right, we actually managed to have a holiday, and in a different country at that!

Hubby was unexpectedly given three weeks holiday because the days needed using up, so we took the opportunity to book a short break in Gran Canaria. It didn’t turn out to be a simple as originally planned – we were due to fly out on 10th March (so we should be there now!) but a mix up in the holiday meant we had to bring it forward a couple of weeks. Much thanks to my boss for being so flexible in letting me change my holiday!

Anyway, Gran Canaria was the only one of the four main Canary Islands that we hadn’t been to, and we wanted somewhere with (pretty much) guaranteed sun. As it turns out, we pretty much could’ve been anywhere hot because we barely left the complex. After so long without a sunny break, we just wanted to chill out and recharge our batteries, and we were only there for four nights so we weren’t there long enough to get bored of lying around.

I just have to have a quick Brexit moan!

A stamp in my passport for an EU country. Honestly, it made me feel a leper! Anyway, it is what it is! I need to get over it, and currently there are far, far worse things happening in the world. As you can see, we flew out on 24th February which is the day that Putin decided that millions of innocent people needed to have their lives disrupted, at best, or ended at the other end of the scale. It was incredibly surreal to be lying on a sun bed in the sun with people going about their normal holiday lives around us, whilst a war was being waged a few hundred miles away.

I didn’t take many holiday photos because there’s only so many hotel photos you want/need, but I did snap some of the greenery around the hotel with a future Six on Saturday in mind.

There’s the obligatory palm tree and sun picture which I took as we were waiting for our tranfer back to the airport so I could remember the last bit of sun. Next to that, a beautiful bloom from around the pool. I don’t know what this is, but they were in pots all around the pool and in the sunlight the colour was amazing! Underneath that an impressive cactus and next to that, the olive tree of dreams. I have one in a pot that looks nothing like this at all!

On our first full day, we were treated to a visit from this beauty.

I tried really hard to get a photo that represented the vivid colours accurately, but I didn’t manage it, so I resorted to filters to get it to look something like an approximation of reality. The butterfly was beautiful, and huge! It was at least the size of an adult palm.

Typically for us on holiday, we managed to find a cat.

We joked that she looks like Tink’s grandma! Lovely as it is to find a cat to fuss, it’s still always good to get home to our girls waiting for us in their new basket.

It’s a month or so till our next holiday and we have to leave them again and I’ve recommenced my healthy eating and exercise regime. This week we discovered Pinch of Nom’s Diet Coke chicken, except we did it with Pepsi Max Cherry and Quorn pieces – absolutely delicious, full of veg and very low in calories – nutritious and delicious!

Back home, and spring has definitely sprung and what says spring more than daffodils?

Unfortunately the rest of my daffs have been flattened! Ordinarily this would really upset me, but, whilst I’m not happy about it, the reason for their flattening is good (and there are a few which look like they’ll recover). The week after we got back from Gran Canaria, our neighbour had the biggest of his trees chopped, most of which they did from our side, and the clean up involved a petrol powered leaf blower which caused the aforementioned flattening!

They chopped loads off, but I have to admit (especially as we contributed half to the cost) to being a little disappointed that they didn’t chop more. The height has been reduced significantly, but I was hoping they’d thin the trees out more too. However, it’s better than it was before, there’s already more light in the back of our house (and my home office is in the back bedroom that you can see so it’s not insignificant) and we remain to see how much more sun we get in the summer. Incidentally, I think I’ll look into getting a petrol leaf blower because our patio has never looked so clean, I’ll just be more careful around the daffs!

There are more and more signs that the garden’s waking up appearing almost every day. I always try to say to myself around this time of year, that I must appreciate the fact that we’re on the up again, days are getting longer, the sun is gearing up to shine on us and new shoots are emerging, because seemingly in no time, we’ll be past the longest day and heading back down. For now though, let us not think about that because it’s a long way off.

First is my polemonium which I bought to put in one of granny’s pots last year. I thought it had died so imagine my delight when I looked at it today and there’s new growth coming through. That’ll teach me not to read labels – I didn’t know it would die down and come back in the spring. Next to that is the cowslip that I rescued last year after it self seeded itself. It’s got such beautiful sienna edged petals – I’d never seen a cowslip that wasn’t bright yellow. Underneath that is one of my raspberries which has some leaves. Fingers crossed that I might get some fruit this year. Finally, beautiful flowers have appeared on my cherry thing! I got this from QVC last year, and I can’t remember what it is, but it’s some sort of cherry blossom,

Unfortunately, with flowers that you want, come plants that you don’t! The weeds have started growing again already!

There’s even some herb Robert growing on my little sleeping dragon!

Finally, I’m going to leave you with a picture of my latest cross stitch which I got framed recently, purely because I’m really pleased with it so I want to showcase it!! Indulge me if you will.

That was a lot of info in one post – hope I haven’t bored you all silly! I’m off to order a takeaway now – hope you all have a great weekend.

Six on Saturday 19th June

greengirlgardener4 Comments

My offering is late this Saturday because I’ve spent all day in the garden, mainly focused on one particular project and finishing off with a little bit of general gardenkeeping (is that a word? Housekeeping is, so why not gardenkeeping?)

Anyway, this week I’m mainly talking about my new planter which I have bought in an attempt to fill the problem space alongside our lawn and underneath part of next door’s jungle which gets no sun (literally none) and is zapped of all goodness and moisture due to the aforementioned jungle. I figure a planter will be easier to maintain since I can control the soil and the watering much easier. That’s the idea anyway. Who knows if it’ll work. Here’s hoping because the planter was flipping expensive and backbreaking to put together (although I am suffering with my back at the moment, so it may not be so bad for a healthy backed person!) and I had to put A LOT of compost in it!!

Here is it with hubby valiantly brandishing the screwdriver as if he did the whole lot!!!! To be fair, he was at work when I put the majority of it together and I’m too impatient to wait for help unless absolutely necessary. Each of those half moons of timber was separate and had to be joined, and they didn’t have pre-drilled holes! I just needed help to put the panels together once I’d constructed them because it was pretty unwieldy because of the size.

I decided to fill some of the bottom with various paraphernalia to use up some space because I’d calculated that it would hold 1000 litres of compost. It was quite good actually to get rid of some of the rubbish lying around the garden and put it to good use (and save me some money!) As it turns out, either my calculations were wrong, or the dimensions given were wrong, but it actually took 1350 litres of compost, even with the detritus in the bottom, which involved two trips to Homebase. Luckily hubby wasn’t working this morning so I didn’t have to carry it all from the car to the garden because that really wouldn’t have done my back any good! It’s already complaining about the amount of lifting and digging that I did actually do.

Eventually, after that second trip to Homebase, I managed to get it filled and, what do you know, it stayed together and I think it looks pretty good, even before the plants were added.

In the lefthand side of the planter we have, back left, my very first sale table plant that I’ll be really upset at if it doesn’t tolerate being moved, my hebe Purple Pixie. It’s one of the few plants that actually has managed to compete successfully with the jungle. In front of that, the pinky thing, is a weed I think, but it’s a pretty weed so I kept it and in front of that is a hosta which is a shade-lover anyway so has managed to stay alive there for a couple of years. Next to the hosta is a sedum which self-seeded itself elsewhere in the garden. Also a shady lady so should be fine there. Behind that is my fuchsia Delta Sarah which also prefers some shade. It’s a couple of years old now and has come back to life this year. I pruned it quite significantly back to the regrowth so hopefully it won’t object to the upheaval. Behind Sarah is a new plant that I picked up a couple of weeks ago at Dobbies. It’s a nepeta and it should be ok with shade as long as I keep it topped up with water until it establishes. Nestled next to the nepeta is an Asiatic lily. I really don’t know how that will take to the movement, but I thought I’d try it – you never know. In front of that I added some white begonias because they’re pretty tolerant of anything that you do to them and they brighten up a darker spot.

Moving to the back right of the other end of the planter we have acer Butterfly. This is also new so I’ll make sure it gets everything it needs to thrive. In front of the acer is my coprosma. This is the third time the poor thing’s been moved because it wasn’t doing well in it’s first two spots. I talked nicely to it and promised never to move it again if it can do its best to settle in well here. Next door to the coprosma is a plant that my in-laws bought for me and I can’t remember what it is! Having just consulted google, I think it may be a Japanese laurel. Back and left from there is another new plant. I ordered this one from Thomson and Morgan in February and it only turned up a couple of weeks ago! It’s a sarcococca which I got because my aunt told me that they smell amazing and should be ok with shade. Immediately in front of that is fuchsia Snowcap. This is one of the six that I ordered from QVC which got turned upside down by Hermes and arrived in a bit of a sorry state! I’ve been tending to them carefully ever since and I think I’ve managed to save them all (although one is still a bit touch and go – it’s in one of Granny’s pots for good luck). Goodness knows where the other four are going to go, but I really should decide before they get pot bound! At the very front is another sale table find and I can’t (even with the help of google) remember what it is. It has a really odd flower that looks like some kind of alien, however it didn’t look very happy before I moved it so I’m not expecting it to survive, but, again, you never know! I’ve left a bit of space at the front because I’d like a couple of heucheras there but I don’t own said heucheras yet and I think I’d better wait till pay day to make any more purchases!!

I’m really pleased with the way it’s turned out and it looks so much better than the mostly empty space before did. I’ll have to keep on top of the maintenance because most of the jungle is made up of fir trees which like to drop their needles in abundance. This is good sometimes because I think it does help to keep moisture in, but it’s not good when it covers the poor plants just trying to survive underneath. I hope I haven’t planted things too close together – I’ll just have to see how they get on as they (hopefully) get bigger.

I’m going to finish up with another raised bed that I’ve been tending today and over the last couple of weeks.

I’d already planted out the marigolds, sweetpeas and runner beans and they seem to be doing ok despite being trampled on by any number of neighbourhood cats, foxes, squirrels and magpies! The runner beans and sweetpeas are all starting to wind their way up the wigwams and all the marigolds have buds waiting to spring forth with orangy gorgeousness. Today I added four sunflowers (short ones) that have been growing in the greenhouse. They got attacked by slugs so were somewhat put back in their growth but I’m hopeful that they’ll survive. I also planted out my second batch of cosmos after the first lot also fell foul of the slimy critters. You can’t really see them, but they’re in the middle. I don’t normally stake cosmos, but they were all looking a little droopy so I decided to give them a little helping hand, especially as we’re expecting rain again tomorrow which might batter tiny plantlets (I’ve made that up, but they’re more than seedlings, but not quite plants yet).

All in all it’s been a most satisfying (if expensive) day of gardening and I’m feeling happily accomplished. I’m off to check out some of the other Sixes now that I’ll be able to find on the Propagator’s blog – why not join me? Enjoy the rest of the weekend – happy gardening!