Roses

It’s been a while ….

greengirlgardener3 Comments

I’ve missed a couple of Six on Saturdays and haven’t seemed to find the time to write any other time for a while, so I thought I’d use some of the bank holiday to write a quick catch up on the last couple of weeks.

My new love of Lego continues. I succumbed to ordering 4 Privet Drive, the house that Harry Potter lives in with Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon and Dudley and it’s fab. You can make Hogwarts letters come flying out of the fireplace like they do in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and Ron’s blue Ford Anglia really does pull Harry’s bedroom window out as it does when Ron, Fred and George come to rescue Harry in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. You can even open up the side of the house to see inside the cupboard under the stairs which was Harry’s bedroom until he went to Hogwarts.

I also treated myself to a newly released set – Winnie the Pooh’s house in the Hundred Acre Forest.

The attention to detail is fantastic. Pooh bear can sit on the log outside his house and inside he can look in the mirror when he can do his stoutness exercises and obviously there are honey (hunny!) pots galore.

I’m super excited that Lego have just announced some new Harry Potter sets being released on 1st June. I’ve already ordered the Hogsmeade set which includes the Three Broomsticks pub and Honeydukes sweet shop, but I can feel a couple more purchases coming on!! Honestly, we need a bigger house so I can have a Lego room.

We could also do with a teddy bear room! I treated myself to a new bear called Theo last weekend when I went to Webbs garden centre.

He’s currently living on our bed. I did buy some lottery tickets this past weekend thinking that we could see if our neighbour would consider selling us his house so we could make a Lego room and a teddy bear room and a gym. We did win, but I don’t think he’d sell it to us for £30!

My actual reason for going to Webbs was to choose some plants to go in Granny’s pots that I inherited. I tried to choose plants that either had a relevant name or that I thought Granny would like.

On the left of these first three pots is poppy Beauty of Livermere which I thought Granny would like. She was a very cheery person so the bright red of a poppy seems appropriate. She was also born between the wars so a poppy is relevant. In the middle is a fuchsia. My Grandad loved fuchsias and they remind me of visiting them both when I was a child. This fuchsia is one of six that arrived from QVC. Unfortunately they’d been tipped upside down by Hermes so I’m trying my hardest to help them recover. I’ve put a little fairy in the pot with this one, which was the worst hit, to watch over it. On the right is a patio rose called Sweet Memories.

On the other side of my raised bed we have, on the left, hebe Golden Pixie. Granny had a hebe in her front border which she told me someone reversed their car into. In the middle is geum Pink Petticoats which, again, I thought Granny would like. Finally on the right is polemonium Stairway to Heaven with obvious relevance.

I love how they look arranged around my raised bed, with the two lily pots at the head.

I also bought this rose …

… because it’s called Sheila’s Perfume – Granny was called Sheila. I haven’t decided where this is going to go yet.

While I was planting these up, I spotted some movement out of the corner of my eye so I went to investigate, and found this friendly little robin.

Now I know it’s not unusual to see a robin whilst you’re gardening, but I’ve never had one let me get this close and for so long. It really seemed interested in what I was doing. My Mum said it was my Grandad popping in to see what I’d done with his pots. They were his and Granny’s when he was still with us, and he was the gardener really, Granny maintained them after he’d gone, and now I’m going to continue doing that.

I also inherited this stool which makes me think of Granny and Grandad every morning when I get up.

It’s been around for the whole of my life, and I remember sitting on it when I was small enough to do so! It came from Kenya when my Great Uncle (Granny’s brother) was working there. It’s not worth anything to anyone else, but to me it’s priceless.

I’ve been doing quite a bit of crochet too. I finished my Picnic on the Beach blanket which was a cal (crochet along) by Coastal Crochet.

And I’ve made quite a bit of progress on my D’Histoire Naturelle blanket which is a Scheepjes cal.

I should now be doing the next cal which is the Picnic by the River cal also designed by Coastal Crochet, but for Little Box of Crochet. However, I’m being patient with that one because I’m busy crocheting something else which I can’t tell you about in case the intended recipient reads this!

Moving back to the garden, and it’s coming back to life slowly but surely. Everything seems to be taking longer this year, probably because it’s been so cold and dry. Here’s a collage of colour for you – Welsh poppy, geum Totally Tangerine, pieris in full on show off mode, honesty and two different erysimums.

Finally, I’ll end with some pics of our visit to Hoo Farm last week. We’ve been here a few times and it’s always a good day out. They have lots of animals, and many of them are rescues or old animals that are living out their last days in peace. They’ve also added a walk through dinosaur section called Hoo-rassic World since our last visit which was fun.

Right, I’m off to do some more speed crocheting as the decidedly autumn weather outside has put the kibosh on anything outdoorsy!

Six on Saturday 13th February

greengirlgardener11 Comments

Gosh, I’m struggling to type this today. I went out to the garden to look for Six-worthy photos and it is bitterly cold out there and my hands haven’t thawed out yet! I was only out there for about five minutes and that was over an hour ago! According to the BBC weather app, it’s going to be in double digit figures, temperature-wise, all next week and I can’t flipping wait!!

It was quite a sad wander through the garden. It’s been so cold recently, for a prolonged period, and I don’t think the garden is very happy about it at all. It’s a good job I’m not spending much during lockdown, because, having looked at the garden, I think I’m going to have to invest quite a bit in new plants in the Spring/Summer because some of them definitely don’t look like they’ll recover.

One such plant is this Osteospurmum.

It’s made it through the two previous Winters without a problem. I even repotted it last year because it had done so well but, as you can see, it really hasn’t taken well to being snowed on and frozen for days! I’m annoyed, because, being in a pot, I could’ve moved it into the greenhouse for a bit of protection, but I didn’t think to.

There was proof in the greenhouse of just how cold it’s been – my thermometer shows the low and high temperatures and the low is now lower than it’s been since I got the greenhouse at – 4.8 degrees!

I left a half full watering can in there and it’s frozen solid! Unfortunately, a ladybird has fallen/landed in there and it’s frozen to death! Poor thing.

Back outside, I spotted a skeleton Pink Damask flower in my birthday planter.

Hopefully this plant will survive the elements. It dies down completely in the Winter before coming back in the Spring/Summer and with it being in my planter, hopefully it will have been kept a bit warmer underneath the soil.

I managed to find a bit of colour in the form of my Dogwood.

There are so many problem areas in our garden, and this is one of them. I’m sure this Dogwood would probably be doing much better somewhere else, but I’m limited in what I can grow because of next door’s jungle. At least it’s survived the arctic out there!

I’ve saved the best two photos for last! There is some regrowth happening! I really didn’t expect to see anything getting ready for Spring – even the daffodils have collapsed under the snow and now I’m not sure if they’ll bloom. However, there are some signs of Spring.

This Heuchera was given to us by my Dad and C when we first moved in and it’s survived every Winter so far, even this one! It has a beautiful delicate flower later on. I’m glad it’s stuck its middle stamen up at the snow and forged ahead to produce new growth.

The other bit of new growth I noticed is one of my patio roses. I have two of them, both from the sale a couple of years ago, and they could do with a bit of a prune. They’re also both leaning which I presume shows me which way the prevailing wind blows! I noticed the new leaves that have appeared, but what I didn’t notice until I got in and looked at the photo is that at the back there, there’s a rose bud. I hope that doesn’t try to bloom too early because it’s definitely still too cold for it.

I’m hopeful that soon there’ll be more signs of Spring for me to share, and if not, hopefully I’ll be able to get some new plants to replace the poor deceased ones.

I’ll sign off now but before I do, I’ll just remind you to check out the Propagator’s blog for other Sixes. People from all over the world join in, so there should be some colourful contributions from people living in different climates. Have a great weekend all.

Six on Saturday 3rd October

greengirlgardener15 Comments

I’ve been a bit remiss with keeping up with my blog. I was away last weekend so that’s my excuse. Anyway, here I am for a Six.

I’m going to start with a couple from our trip away. We went to Edinburgh for a few days for my birthday and we had a really great time (more of that on another post somewhen). I thought I’d come back with loads of planty photos because we’d planned a trip to the Botanic Gardens, but, as luck would have it, the day we’d planned that was the only day we had rain! Typical! We decided to do indoor things instead but we were fully booked every other day so had to take a literal rain check on the gardens. Good excuse to go back!

We came across this house in Prince’s Street gardens and I was taken with how pretty it is set in its lovely garden which was blooming with roses and lots of colour. I googled it to see if I could find out anything about the house and it’s the head gardener’s house but was also used in a BBC children’s programme.

On my birthday we’d booked a trip to Loch Ness which was absolutely brilliant. It was a long day, we met the tour at 8am and arrived back in Edinburgh at 8pm, but it was worth it. We stopped at several picturesque places on the way to Loch Ness and back.

Our tour driver was super knowledgeable about all things Scottish and he told us that there came a point when trees were dangerously low in numbers because there was no legislation in place to ensure replanting of trees after felling and it became a critical issue, so now for every tree that’s felled, another has to be planted. However, when this legislation was introduced, most of the trees that were planted weren’t native to Scotland meaning that now Scotland has more non-native trees than native. They were pretty impressive at this stop on our way back to Edinburgh.

This isn’t the best of photographs because I took it from a moving bus but you get the idea. We saw a few restaurants and shops whose entrances were entirely bedecked with beautiful flowers and plants, but this is the only picture I managed to snap. This is in the New Town part of Edinburgh where the architecture isn’t quite as lovely as it is in the Old Town, but the injection of colour really perks the buildings up.

Back home and the garden is in sore need of some tidying, but given the weather today and the upcoming forecast, it’s going to have to stay messy for a while! I have sunflowers which have flopped, wind battered runner beans and straggly pansies.

My ornamental kale is looking beautiful though.

This is hanging off the catio facing outwards in case furry friends nibble it, so we can’t see it unless we go out, but I’m happy just to know it’s there!

My fuchsias are still providing some much needed colour on these dreary days.

I feel that there hasn’t been enough fuchsia love on my blog this summer and I think it may be because they haven’t been as impressive this year, and I think that’s my fault. I must research fuchsia care so that they thrive next year. I have three and they all flowered, but they didn’t get many leaves and they didn’t get bushy like they were originally. Maybe some timely pruning is needed.

I may be slightly cheating with this last photo as it encompasses six in one! The photos may be multiple, but the point is singular.

And that point is, simply, colour! I took all these photos this morning before the rain started and it did make me happy to see all this colour after a week of dreary weather and the prospect of months of it to come.

That’s my Six for the week. As ever, the link to join in or just to read more Sixes is https://thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com/2020/10/03/six-on-saturday-03-10-2020/#respond