New paintings and regular art updates.
I was reviewing my photos from the summer and saw this in my hanging basket flower. Not a bee but a snail! How did it get up there.. Must have crawled up the wall, then the fence and finally across the hanging basket to get to this flower. I hope it enjoyed its meal.
We’d been out all day on holiday one summer in Devon, we came back to the caravan we were staying in. A crowd of people were on the beach and some people were in wetsuits about thirty yards out in the sea. I saw a dolphin so decided to swim. Didn’t know how long it would be around so I just took my glasses and shoes off and got in fully clothed! I swam between the crowd at the shore and the ones further out. He, the dolphin (oh dear clearly male) kept swimming backwards and forwards and as I was in the middle he kept swimming next to me! After an hour I swam back in shore. Why do I know it was a male? Er, a long appendage! There was a notice on the campsite the next day. You can catch illnesses from dolphin breath out of their blowhole. They say swimming with dolphins is relaxing, but I didn’t expect that! The dolphin it turned out was an adolescent male called Georges x
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…
Today we had the task of replacing the plants, hanging baskets and pots in the back yard that we had taken down to have a new fence put in. The next door neighbour had allowed us in to get at his side of the wall so we’ve helped him by clearing back the brambles and Ivy and cleared his path so he can get to the back gate.
Now the pots are back I can see which ones have suffered from drought and the cold. They were all crammed together in our garden (on the other side of the house) but it was cold last night so some things have wilted. We have a real microclimate in the yard and it’s always a bit warmer there. Hopefully they will bounce back in the coming days.
Looking great now they have been well watered. The hot weather is really hard on them. If you look at them they wilt. But it’s worth the effort. Lots of colour and different plants. There are lobelia, petunias, begonias, pelargonium and other flowers in them.
It’s spectacular at this time of year.
Ice cold from the fridge, picked half an hour before and rinsed under the cold tap. Fresh from the garden fence (growing through from the neighbours garden), we had a bit of chocolate icecream in the freezer so we added that to the berries. Lots of our fruit plants have been profligate this year. Except for the plum trees? I think the blossom might have got blown off because they are not in a sheltered part of the garden.
The pear tree is almost horizontal, held up with a piece of wood. There are lots of pears set. Maybe I could make a Perry? I could do with a recipe. Mmm getting ideas…
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Our garden has paths through it now, down to the pond at the bottom. We also seem to have a spring coming up in it. The trees have grown massively because they are so well watered. I Saw a couple of house sparrows picking up bird food on the ground this evening after a long cold day of rain. I went out when it brightened up and took some photos. So good to have a woodland glade in the middle of a city!
Doing what we always do this time of year. Cram the back yard full of flowers. We have a big patch of land next to the house, but it’s full of trees and shrubs and fruit trees and a couple of small plastic greenhouses with tomatoes. But the back yard is visible from the kitchen and living room and I love a riot of colour. The baskets are mainly from a nursery, but some managed to survive the winter. My hubby even planted an iris in one of the baskets. We’ve put a couple of lilies in the far end so the cat can’t get near them (poisonous to cats).
They will grow and get blousier. It’s amazing that the brackets can hold three baskets in one go. Water the top one and the lower ones get watered too.
I will post more images as they grow.
Last year, painting of morning glory flowers and some poppies. I haven’t grown much from seeds this year. We do have some lettuce plants, but they have probably been drowned by the amount of torrential rain we’ve been having over the past few days. Some places have had a months rain in a day! That compared with six weeks of sunshine in April and May. As usual our weather is topsy-turvy. Basically because of where the United Kingdom is positioned. We get weather from every direction, the Atlantic, the Arctic, Siberia, even dust dragged up from the Sahara. We are a weather magnet!
I want to go and get some seeds and see if I can grow some nasturtiums for late summer bedding, and the butterfly caterpillars love them. They are a nice, spicy, bitter and peppery orange flavour when added to salads and cold soups.
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Six months after this image was taken, and the garden is in full growth. The cherries on the tree are swelling and lichen is growing on the tree.
Life runs in cycles. Soon the height of summer will be with with us. I hope it isn’t too hot. I don’t do heat. Maybe lockdown will end. Hopefully the virus will be bought under control. Only a small percentage of people have died out of earth’s massive population, but that doesn’t make the pandemic any less devastating. Maybe it’s time to think back and remember all those people who have died. Stay safe.
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