New paintings and regular art updates.
You know how it is..
You go into the garden
When it rains
And there are slugs.
What are they for?
They munch your broccoli,
Eat the hearts of your lettuce,
Nip the buds off peonies,
And eat your ripe tomatoes.
But they also eat old and diseased vegetables.
They help clear up leaves
In the autumn,
And they are food for blackbirds and frogs.
So not all bad then…?
Sprouts to go with this evenings meal. I cut the bases off then cut a cross in the bottom of them. I don’t know if that’s what other people do but it seems to let them cook better. I put them on to boil with water from the kettle for about 15 to 20 minutes. I don’t like them over cooked.
I don’t have them very often. Usually just around Christmas and New Year. They are a seasonal vegetable, a winter crop. Some people think they have too strong a flavour and fry them with bacon. I don’t mind them at all. Definitely one of my five a day.
Variegated Holly, a view of winter plants. When desiduous leaves have fallen, Ivy and Holly add green to the garden. We have three Holly bushes. This one, a tall spikey one with fully green leaves and one with pale green edges instead if yellow. The fully green one is the most robust. It is growing in a shady part of the garden and making even denser shade. The other two are in more open areas. We cut off lower branches to let more light into the lower layers of the garden so summer flowering plants are not completely shaded out. I can’t wait for the spring bulbs to come up, although the local squirrel population seems to like digging them up. There will be narcissi and crocus around the Holly in spring.
Watching the flowers bloom on my kitchen window ledge. One Christmas cactus has flowered abd faded. One is in full bloom and the third is just coming into flower. I also have one which has tiny buds on it. It’s interesting how they have flowered in progression. I don’t know if some have had more water than others. But they must be healthy. Easy to look after. I put a bit that broke off in a mug of water and it has now grown roots.
Cold, wet and windy, but still a bit green where the ivy is growing up trees in the garden. Really it needs cutting back. I don’t want it strangling them. There are bird feeders out there, but there seem to be less birds than normal. Perhaps they have enough food, we haven’t seen evidence of them being predated by cats thankfully. I want to get out there and cut back the buddliea bushes. They need pruning.
The pond is OK, it’s hidden below the cherry tree. It has only frozen a couple of times and only thinly this autumn / winter. We hope to have tadpoles in the spring.
Bright poppies shine,
Glow with sun
Grow so red,
Buds stretch and burst.
Dehissance it might be called?
Or is that leaf fall?
Something like that,
There is a word…..
Turgid petals push out and open,
Colour shoots out
Shocks
Surprises
Cheers!
Just watching a programme about tree planting from the Woodland Trust. I wanted to donate but the website seems to have crashed.
I think it’s a brilliant idea and the thought of planting Rowan trees or Wild Cherries really sounds good. We might not stop global warming but it’s got to help.
The previous programme, on another channel, was with leaders of our political parties stating how they would reduce global warming and pollution. The leader of the current government and another party did not take part and are now calling for the Channel the discussion was on to be censured! We are not a dictatorship but I do worry that things are not as democratic as they should be!
Two of my orchid plants have thrown out new flower spikes and the ariel roots of one are going off in all directions. I’m hoping they flower for Christmas. My only worry is that it might get too cold in the house for them. Meanwhile two of my Christmas cactii are flowering and two others are getting tiny flower buds. I guess I must be doing something right. In the next few weeks I will start watering my amaryllis bulbs, so they should start growing soon.
I’m looking out at this today…. 
My hanging baskets are still in flower on 4th November! My Christmas cactus is coming into flower on the window ledge, global warming certainly is having an effect on plant life.
The baskets were planted up at a nursery in May and we have had them ever since. They have done really well. The plants are begonias I think, but there are other flowers in there still including fushias. I’m not emptying them till the frosts get them. It’s so nice to look out the window at some colour at this time of year.
X
My hubby collected these from under a huge Oak tree about a month ago and he’s planted them in pots in the garden! About fifty of them. I’m not sure if they will germinate, if they do we will need to find a very large field to plant them in. They can grow with the Walnut saplings that the squirrel has planted in the garden, and the Ash tree saplings, and sycamore saplings that have self seeded. Our garden is turning into a wood. X
Mallaband-Brown