In front of the house

Nasturtium with varigated leaves and other plants that are in front of the house. The only problem is the litter that blows about outside. Now I wear gloves or pick it up in a plastic bag to dispose of it.

Today I saw several discarded marks just lying on the pavement mixed with the fallen leaves. How horrible that people won’t take care of the place they live in. I hate the way they take no responsibility for their environment.

Our plants out the front are doing well although I’ve seen people through the front window, stopping when walking their dogs, no doubt to pee on the plants! Still I’m glad we grow them…

Hanging basket

It’s mid October and the baskets just keep flowering. This ones on the garden shed, another sheltered spot. I would recommend ordering them from a small nursery or farm, they generally end up filled with more and different flowers that have matured more by the time you get them. I usually ask for lots of colour and the lady that plants them up will put in lobelia, begonias, fushias, trailing petunias, and other flowers I can’t remember the names of. Then we fill our own baskets with pelagoniums, small sunflowers and trailing tomato plants (this year). I hang baskets one below another. Then set up pots on the wall and the ground. Finally we’ve grown a few, like this one, on the shed. Those have had nasturtium seeds put in them and have given a lovely late flowering display. In all the sadness of this year they have given me great joy.

The back yard, mid october

Despite the cold, wet weather the flowers in the back yard continue to survive. If we get any bad frosts I think they will go, but the sheer number of them packed together offer shelter to all of them.

So pleased we had the hanging baskets filled by a little farm nursery back in May/June, they have certainly been worth the initial cost. I go outside and am immediately cheered.

Hubby pulling out long nails

This was hubby at the allotment today, using a long crowbar to help pull out very long nails from rotten wood surrounding old raised beds today.

Some of the nails were eighteen inches to two foot long!

Can’t explain why he’s wearing shorts and a long coat. His head is bent over as he doesn’t have a visor on his motorbike helmet. Why he’s wearing it? I also don’t know. He came home tired and happy! By the way I miss heard him when he came in. He said he’d been working with ‘vast nails’, I thought he said ‘fast snails’

🤣

I thought I would combine the two photos. It looks like he is levering up the world!

Garden colours

Seeing the garden in October, looking at the flowers, seeing the leaf shapes. Enjoyment, colours, shapes. Pattern, design, life, waiting for them to wilt, fade, droop. Waiting for their end of days. Taking photos, keeping a record, remembering beauty. Time to grow, time to leave. Time to fall, time to die. Wind chimes and wind sculptures, wild and colourful. Hanging in baskets, pots and fences. Cram packed with joy.

Sunflower and Cyclamen

It’s amazing what will grow in a hanging basket. There are cyclamen that my hubby recently planted at the back of this basket, plus miniature sunflowers he planted the seeds of in the spring. An interesting combination at this time of year….

Today is cold, wet and windy. You can see the raindrops on the window, but as long as the temperature does not fall too low these should last a little longer. Below the basket you can see begonia leaves. Their flowers are still surviving too. Any little bit of food for insects. I hope the bees got their fill this summer.

The thing on the fence is our weather station, I can see the weather when I look out the window, but it’s good to watch the air pressure going up and down…

Back yard today

It’s still looking good despite the heavy rain we have been having. At least its meant that the hanging baskets have been getting watered. I think we have a bit of a microclimate so the area doesn’t get as cold as in the main garden, but it does get the sun when it shines in the afternoon. Hopefully everything will keep going for a while longer. The begonias have bee spectacular this year!

Off on his trike

Setting out in the sun to meet a friend on his allotment. I got a message later that one of his wheels has collapsed? Luckily it’s only about a couple of miles away. What you can’t see is that he’s on his sandals! I tried to get him to wear his shoes… Weird! I hope the ground isn’t too wet.

He usually wears a flat cap, but when he went to the allotments last week his friend accidentally put a pickaxe through it (it was on the ground). I do wonder if this is something they should be doing! But gardening and exercise is good for mental health, so I suppose it’s good for him. Meanwhile I’m off to get some college work done.

Some of this years pears

We bought the pear tree as a small sapling from Woolworths about twenty years ago. It’s grown since then and every year it has had a bigger crop of pears on it. This year there must have been fifty. The tree has tipped over because of their weight and possibly the wind, so we’ve had to prop it up. The bark is cracked and coming off in places, and it suffers from black spot, but the pears are delicious. Some of them rotted on the tree, possibly from being pecked by birds. We’ve got most of them off the tree now and are sharing some with friends.