Spring is here

Posted on May 18, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Garden, Gardening, Inspiration, Leaves, Plants, Shaded garden, Spring, Trees, Wild garlicLeave a comment

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Rain, it makes buds swell and leaves unfurl in the spring. We had to wait for it to rain this year. The trees took a while to come into leaf, and although most of the trees in the garden are covered some are just coming out.

I don’t know what to do though, we have a lot of trees in the garden. If you Google map us you can’t see the ground. It does make for a lot of shade! DSC_2003_optimized (2)

But that doesn’t mean you can’t grow interesting plants. The ones in the foreground are wild garlic. We also have some new Zealand plants from a plant fair, and tomorrow we should be getting a few Woad plants!

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The only unshaded part is South at the back of the garden. Apart from a massive laurel Bush that has turned into a bit of a thug of a tree. Sadly it needs cutting back. I’ve got someone coming to do it just not sure when. What I don’t want to do is disturb any nesting birds.

I will take some photos when it’s tidy? Which might be by autumn!

Ouch

Posted on May 18, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blackberry, Blogging, Environment, Finger, Garden, Gardening, Gloves, Humour, Ouch, ThornLeave a comment

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It took me 24 minutes to draw this and you won’t know what it represents unless I tell you.

Four days ago I was cutting back blackberry stems that grow through our fence from next doors garden. We pick the fruit but the stems have a tenancy to grow sharp thorns which I sometimes get caught on when I’m tending my plants.

Anyway I didn’t bother with gloves because a) I couldn’t find any, b) it was only a small task.

Ouch! I got thorns in my fingers. I pulled them out quickly, but I could feel a sharp pain in my right index finger. But I could not see the thorn.

Hoping it would work its way out I ignored it. But the next day I still felt a sharp pain.

I prodded it but no sign of the thorn and nothing came out. Finally this morning my index finger felt really sore. What to do. No choice. I got a needle and found the thorn. It was tiny about a millimeter long, but it had gone straight down into my finger instead of along parallel to the skin surface. It is amazing how painful a thorn can be.

Anyway after about half an hour of gently sticking the needle in my finger (ouch) I managed to work it free. Got some salt water and washing up liquid to cleanse the area. Hopefully that’s it. But Ouch! Not a nice way to start your morning!

Busy in the garden

Posted on May 12, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Bee, Cotoneaster, Environment, Flowers, Fun, Garden, Gardening, Life, Organic, Photos, Planting, TiredLeave a comment

Most weekends I’ve been busy recently with other things, but I decided to get out and plant up tomatoes in the grow bags and added some pepper plants ( which had sadly been partly munched by slugs). We don’t use any pesticides or herbicides so everything just keeps growing and we seem to have lots of bees round the cotoneaster flowers. We saw a couple of butterflies too. There is a bare patch where we are having a summer house put in soon. Then I can get some clematis growing over the fence.

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Blurry shot of a bee on the cotoneaster plant. Its covered in tiny flowers so very attractive to them.

Pink dawn

Posted on May 4, 2019May 4, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Cold, Dawn, Gardening, Hail, Pink, Plants, Sunrise, Weather, WindLeave a comment

A rosy dawn this morning foretold rough weather later. We have had cold strong winds and hail showers! I feel sorry for the baby tomato and other plants we have outside. They should be hardened off by now but cold weather keeps coming back. We have also not had much rain over the last month. When we do get it we have heavy showers. Cloud bursts and bolts of lightning. Pink dawns ar harbingers of rough weather.

Garden stag

Posted on May 3, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Garden, Garden Centre, Gardening, Life, Photo, Sculpture, Stag, StatueLeave a comment

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Walking round a garden centre a couple of weeks ago. This huge statue was for sale. Far outside my price bracket it’s cost was far lower than some of the garden buildings being sold there. Some of them cost more than my house in fact you might have to take out a mortgage to afford to pay for them.

The photo is courtesy of my friend who was with us on the day.

Last year’s Tulips

Posted on May 1, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Colours, Flowers, Fun, Garden, Gardening, Layout app, Life, TulipsLeave a comment

I’ve not had much time in the garden recently and missed most of the daffodils and tulips so here are some tulips from last year. Things have also got a bit squashed by some building and gardening work, I want to get back out there and tidy things up.

There are a few patterns created by duplicating the photos using the layout app on my phone. I hope you like these.

Wallflowers and dianthus

Posted on April 21, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Environment, Gardening, Life, Plants, Spode, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trent, Urban greeningLeave a comment

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I shared this a few days ago as part of a group of photos but I came back to it because I loved the vibrant colours. It goes with my mood today. Gold wallflowers and pink dianthus I think are the types of flowers.

An artist at Spode planted and looks after this area just outside the spode studios. They always cheer me up when I go in. To see them in the middle of industrial delapidation lifts my spirits.

On the road that passes the site there was a project called greening Stoke where various shop fronts and bits of derelict land were planted up with wild flowers. They are still growing. Good to see green in the urban landscape.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Gardening