WELCOME TO MY GARDEN

I have been meaning to post this for some time. It was my very first attempt at taking a video of my garden.

There were many lessons learnt

1. tidy the tools away

2. mow the grass

3. think what I am going to say

4.do not pan the camera too fast

5. sorry can't do much about my Lancashire accent even after 40years living in the South it is still very strong

The Clematis is not Huldine it is John Huxtable the unknown one on the arch is Polish Spirit I think it was a cutting and my last one I called Mademoiselle when I should have said Comptesse d'Bouchaud.

Ah well must do better.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BLOG

For the first anniversary of my blog I decided to look out some old photos of the house and garden. This was the house about 26 years ago.

Most of my old photos were really of the children rather than the garden but the Oleander on the doorstep is still the one we have today and although regularly pruned back it still flowers beautifully.

For many years the front garden was laid to lawn but bit by bit I dug out the flower beds until now there is no grass just beds.

Rachel and Rebecca on the rocking horse but not a lot going on in the garden as you can see, by the way of plants.

This snap shows the garden open plan before Mike built the fences which I think help divide the garden into separate spaces and give new dimensions to grow things on.

Rebecca was enthralled by these Amaranthus, Love lies Bleeding but they did do especially well in this hole we made in the back patio. You can just see the small Ceanothus that was planted there under the window which eventually grew very well and then just died. It was replaced by Banksiae Banksiae rose which is still there now.

This was many years later as the Leyland Cyprus hedge is very mature but the second fence is not yet built and the swing is still in what is now a mixture of vegetables box edging and roses.

This is about twenty years ago before we had the house extended over the back room. The bird bath lost its top so often we eventually moved it to the side of the garden and the top never came off again.

The Ceanothus is showing on the back of the house it grew very rampantly and needed considerable pruning every year. The honeysuckle on the fence also grew so well I was sure the two would join hands across the patio and stop us walking along if I left it for a day or two.

This was just after the extension was built and clearly Mike is busy laying out the vegetable area. No fence yet at the second level. The trees on the left were peach trees which eventually just died. They did have peaches but the birds and bees made a meal of them before they ever ripened enough to eat them

Sorry about the quality of the photos.

A BIT OF OLD ENGLAND

Yesterday the weather was glorious and Mike and I with Rebecca and boyfriend Zion and Rachel went to visit Weald and Downland open air museum. The leading museum of historic buildings in England
Designated by the Government for its outstanding collections of national importance
Winner of the Museum of the Year, Community Museum of the Year and national awards for interpretation and education.
Set in 50 acres of beautiful Sussex countryside is a very special place to wander amongst a fascinating collection of nearly 50 historic buildings dating from the 13th to the 19th century, many with period gardens, together with farm animals, woodland walks and a picturesque lake.

I'll let the pictures tell their own story and for more information you can refer to the above link.

Rachel our eldest, I will get shot for posting this but as she rarely looks at my blog and so long as Rebecca doesn't tell her, I thought I'd get away with this photo.

Mike and Beth trying to get warm, shame about the electric fire I must figure how to brush it out.

Just a few herbs for sale for those gardeners who visit.

It was a lovely sunny day although very cold but very enjoyable we were lucky with the weather, it is back to rain again today.

BEAUTIFUL BUTTERFLIES

I had to go back and have another look at the Beautiful Butterfies at RHS Wisley Glass house. This time the sun was shineing and so there were more butterflies to be seen.

The eye on this is amazing that is if it is a real eye.

Looking a bit bedraggled perhaps it is a dead one just placed there for our pleasure.

As you can see it is necessary to look carefully to find some of them.

Grubs up! This one's colouring blends with it's food.

So another amusing trip on a cold winter's day.

Mike has had his first evening after work when he was able to get in the garden. So he was busy chopping logs up yesterday.

As to me, I have at last planted four pots of snowdrops around the small pond near the front door. This is an ideal spot to enjoy them each time we go in or out of the house. There were some snowdrops there already so it has added to the numbers. The snowdrops have been waiting a week for me to plant them. I really am a fair weather gardener.

My next task is to start planting seeds Sweet Pea, Busy Lizzie and Lobelia for starters.

February 14th now that is an important date according to Margery Fish, that is the date she cut back her clematis well the group 3 types that is.

I have tried experimenting in past years once pruning a month earlier but resulting understandably with the group 3's flowering at the same time as the early flowering clems. I have also tried staggering pruning over a few weeks which can also vary the flowering. If I were clever I could probably have a very long flowering period but with about 50 clematis plants in the garden there's usually one flowering from early Spring until the Autumn.

MONET'S GARDEN GIVERNY

In May I will be visiting Monet's Garden at Giverny, the trip was a Xmas/Birthday gift from my eldest daughter and will be a real treat.

I have wanted to visit this garden for a long time, but not really had the opportunity for the last few years in particular.

I have been having a look on the internet and this is their website but I also found this blog which I thought was very interesting particularly as there is a translator on the left so that I can translate to English and read as well as enjoy the photos.

http://givernews.com/

So no pretty pictures from me today you will have to visit the above link instead.

ORCHIDS AND BUTTERFLIES

What else can you do when you don't want to go out and garden in this horrid cold weather? Well a trip to the Glass house at Wisley seemed like a good idea. The orchids were of course putting on an excellent show at this time of year but I am still disappointed at the loss of the Singapore orchid house. One day perhaps they will construct something similar for orchid lovers again. They always are so staged in the new glass house.

Beautiful though all the same.

At present they have introduced butterflies into the Glass house so an added incentive for me to visit.

The dull skies have meant that not very many butterflies have appeared, but as they are to be there until near the end of February perhaps I will have another trip to see them.

I so enjoy seeing so many colourful butterflies on other blogs I follow around the World so it was fun to see some of them here.