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?

Rode Hall snow drop walk.

Posted on February 19, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Cheshire, Flowers, Gallanthus, Gardening, Gardens, Green, Life, Rode hall, Snowdrops, Spring, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trent, Winter2 Comments

Gallanthus, the Latin name for Snowdrops. They are out in force at Rode Hall gardens near Scholar Green, on the North Staffordshire/ Cheshire border. It’s off the A34 between Stoke-on-Trent and Congleton. The snowdrops are in flower right now and you can buy little bags of them (in the green) wjuch means you get bulbs with the leaves and flowers and you plant them directly into the ground under trees so they can spread out. They have many different sorts of the flowers that brighten the grounds of the hall. The snowdrop walks are on till March 3rd? And open till 4pm.

We walked through the grounds and gardens of the hall. Winding paths lead through bushes and trees, up and down little hills and slopes, past pools and woven willow sculptures down to the lake at the end of the longest path. There you can see a wooded island where Herons are starting to nest. I got blurry shots of four herons flying around the tree tops.

Back up past the hall we had a meal and coffee at the cafe and then on to an old barn to see an Exhibition by three local art groups that is on till the start of March.

It’s great to get out into the world and see it changing. The snowdrops were in such great clumps on the ground that it truly did look like they were patches of snow under the bare trees. It’s a great place to explore.

Pears

Posted on October 23, 2018 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Blog, Blogging, Drawing, Garden, Gardening, Pear, Sketch, TreeLeave a comment

A couple of weeks after our small crop of apples the pears have almost all fallen off the tree following a strong breeze. There are two left up on the tree.

As with all windfalls they are a bit battered and bruised. We had a few earlier and I think birds have been trying to eat them too, but pears stay hard for ages then suddenly ripen so they are not soft enough for the blackbirds and robins in the garden.

What to do with them? I’m going to chop off the bad bits then poach them in white wine when they are a bit riper . I dont think they will be beautiful pears standing up right in their bowls, but a bit more of a chopped up chunky pudding, with added custard. I might take photos!

Why is the tree at an angle? I don’t know, we put it in and it grew this way. This year we put an old shelf upright underneath it to support it as it was tipping further. As it grows large fruit, they seem to pull on the top half. Hopefully it won’t snap. It was bought as a sapling from an old Woolworth store. It must have been planted 20 years ago and since its matured it’s always borne fruit.

Hooray for the old pear tree. Faithfull fruiter!

Acers

Posted on October 21, 2018October 21, 2018 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Acer, Autumn, Autumn colours, Beauty, Bronze, Copper, Crimson, Gardening, Gold, October, TreesLeave a comment

I took lots of photos of these trees at a garden centre in Wales. Small and perfectly formed, their colours seem to glow against the dull grey sky. A shaft of sunlight makes the colours explode. Glorious and wonderful.

A lot of the leaves are palmate, meaning hand shaped. The leaves are strongly divided into thinner and thinner strips of crimson red or deep yellow at this time of year. We have an acer in our garden but it always seems to have a white sheen to it. I think it is in the wrong place next to a bigger tree which is robbing it of moisture. I sometimes water it to try and help. It changes to a very dark deep red in autumn and its leaves are less indented, more maple like. With the sun shining through them this morning they look bronze or copper coloured.

Afternoon sunshine

Posted on October 4, 2018 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Clouds, Colour, Flowers, Gardening, SeedsLeave a comment

We came out of the cafe and the clouds had lifted in penkhull. The sun was shining and the breeze had dropped.

I saw a small plant with almost ivy shaped leaves and little white flowers with yellow centres. It reminded me of the woody nightshade we have growing in our garden.

I would have loved to take some seeds home but didn’t see any on the plant

I’m trying to grow as many interesting local plants in the garden to attract the bees. These were good because they are flowering right at the end of the summer.

I quite like asters and other autumn plants such as dahlias.

We did get some fluffy red valerian seeds. They make a bright display of colour in August onwards. They seem to grow out of cracks in the pavement. Much nicer looking than some other weeds or garden escapees.

“That spiky things flowering…”

Posted on August 30, 2018 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Conversation, Gardening, Humour, Life, Train, Writing2 Comments

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Conversation:

‘What thing?’

“That thing on the corner”

‘What thing on the corner! Where abouts?’

“On the corner , you know…”

‘What’s that?’

“The spiky thing”

‘On the corner?”

“By the willow”

‘What willow?’

“On the corner”

‘Oh hell…..what are you going on about?!’

“You know”

‘But I don’t, that’s why I’m asking’

“Its spiky, got yellow and orange berries”

‘Pyrocantha!?’

“Yes!”

Silence. ………

‘What are you doing? ‘

Noises in the kitchen……..

‘Hello? Whats happening?’

“Just mending my steam engine!”

😠 ‘argh!’

Is it like this in your house? It is in mine.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Gardening