New paintings and regular art updates.
Never seen so many pears on our pear tree! This year there are over fifty. Sometimes the flowers don’t get pollinated, get caught by a late frost. Or it’s to hot and dry in the summer for them to grow. Sometimes we get too much rain and they swell up too quickly and split. Last year a lot got blown off in June. The tree leans over so we propped it up this year to stop it getting twisted by the wind. Perhaps that’s why we have a bigger crop. Anyway fingers crossed for a bumper harvest. X
packets of seeds….. Free!
What a lovely surprise, a gardening magazine we sometimes get had seven free packets of seeds with it today. Most of them are worth about £3 each so that means about £20 worth of free flowers.
The other good thing is they can be planted now in late summer or early autumn to establish plants for next years display. All I have to do is dig out a load of nettles so I can plant these out!
The garden is very overgrown so I’m getting someone in to help cut it back a bit. I love it but it’s hard work having big trees and shrubs. A warning, you need to keep on top of stuff to keep it looking good. Anyway I’m hoping by tomorrow I will be feeling a bit better and can do something.
There is a frog in our pond. We had frogs several years ago, but they disappeared. Now they have come back. They are sharing the pond with some goldfish which seem to be OK. I wasn’t sure if they could co-exist? Do frogs eat fish? It’s funny seeing them breathe the water making tiny ripples with their movements. It’s a real wildlife garden and pond.
On a lighter note this statue of Persius and Medusa is at Trentham Gardens, Trentham, Staffordshire. The statue is inside the gardens next to the lake which means you have to pay to go in. I’m sure there is information about it but this is a photo from last year. I haven’t been in the gardens for months and probably with the heavy rain we’ve been having the plants there might be a bit battered but they are usually very beautiful.
I’m going to try and finish my painting of mars that I shared a couple of days ago to get in our Orme art exhibition at the Brampton in Newcastle-under-Lyme and try and go back to Trentham again on Friday.
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The season of Autumn is upon us, despite having temperatures of 33.7°C in some parts of the country this week.
Today was cooler, we had rain, the sky had been cloudy all day.
Autumn, changing days
Sun sets early, rises late.
Leaves turn from green to flame.
Ending a summers growth.
Fruit and fungi burgeoning
Apples become sweet, pears ripe.
Leaves lie deep, scrunch and crunch.
Life settles down until winters slumber.
It’s all berries, flowers, and spider webs.
The temperature is rising again and the fruit is ripening. The spiders in the garden are busy catching pests, and flowers continue to emerge.
Watering plants is important, especially in hanging baskets, I’m afraid mine have started to wilt.
My hubby has counted about fifty small pears on the pear tree, which is growing at an angle because it’s top heavy. We have used a piece of timber to prop it up. We also have quite a few green tomatoes, basically because they are in too much shade so are not ripening quickly.
Life continues, cats mooch round the garden trying to pounce on the odd wood pigeon. I keep our cats in but can’t shoo the neighbouring ones away easily.
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Despite the sunshine in these photos the rain keeps coming down. We have had a lot of blustery showers over the last few days and I’ve only had to water my hanging baskets a couple of times. I can’t get up the bit next to the house because it’s getting really overgrown. I think I’m going to have to take a few leaves off the tomato plants soon so what tomatoes we have get some sun to ripen them!
This is the view outside the window.
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