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.

Cherry blossom

Posted on April 18, 2019April 18, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blossom, Cherry blossom, Courgette, Gardening, Plants, Sweet peas, TomatoesLeave a comment

It’s been quite a dry and cold April so far so the cherry blossom in the garden has been a bit late coming out but as the weather is due to warm up over the next few days hopefully it will be ok. We are also clearing some of the ivy off the house. We are being careful but the tendrils had got under the weather boarding round the roof and was starting to pull it away.

Meanwhile there is blossom on a couple of self seeded plum trees. We need to cut back an old willow that is snagging on the roof of a neighbours garage and I’d like a limb cutting off from a laurel bush which is overshadowing the garden. The other straighter limb will stay and leave it as a dense tree because all the lower branches were cut off a few years ago.

The tomato and courgette seedlings are still inside because of the cold nights. I want to get them planted outside soon. Also we have a few sweet pea seedlings and morning glory plants.

I will post photos once plants are in

White flowers

Posted on April 17, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Advice, Citrus, Flowers, Garden, Gardening, Growth, Lemon, Plant, SunshineLeave a comment

I’m excited! One of the little citrus plants my partner bought a few weeks ago has produced flowers. We knew it could generate fruit as it has already got some. But I wasn’t expecting it to flower. As soon as I can I want to put it outside in the sun, we are getting a summerhouse so it can go in there and stay walm. At the moment it’s next to a sunny windowledge but I want the flowers to be pollenated.

Does anyone have any knowledge about keeping citrus? We did grow a plant from a pip once. It grew to 2 foot high but only ever had leaves and eventually died. Thanks in advance for any info.

Daffodils

Posted on March 30, 2019March 30, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Daffodils, Garden, Gardening, Life, Plants, Pruning, Spring, Tree, TulipsLeave a comment

These are from our garden. The reason why they are not still in the garden? We had to have a tree cut down and they were likely to be squashed underneath its limbs. And so they are now in a vase in the kitchen.

In fact we have had a lot of work done over the last couple of months so plants have been squished a bit. We also need rain to bring the perennials that are still dormant underground into leaf and flower. Hopefully we will have some more significant rain in the next couple of weeks.

I particularly love the tulip flowers. I go for dark rich colours….. If we ever get the garden done I will post some photos.

Bluebells in February?

Posted on February 27, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Bluebells, Garden, Gardening, Hyacinths, Identifying plants, Life, Spring2 Comments

These plants are growing outside in a box and my husband bought them in to show me as my cold is no better and I haven’t been outside because I feel too poorly.

What are they? They look like bluebells but they are not curved over like British ones. They might be Spanish bluebells which grow upright, with thicker stems. But bluebells don’t normally flower till April or May? Also the flowers are sticking out sideways. I guess they are actually a form of hyacinth? They don’t have many bells on them but they do smell like hyacinths. On the other hand they are not like the ones we had on the windowsill and are nothing like grape hyacinths that we sometimes grow in the spring.

So my question is to any gardeners out there…. What are they?

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Gardening