Not just gardening

Although lockdown has mostly been spent creating the new kitchen garden, I have done one or two other things as well.

Back in February I shared photos of our finally-finished downstairs bathroom and utility.  I've since done a little more "tweaking" in there, adding a few more of our picture collection.  I think I will keep an eye open for a little something to hang beneath the print beside the washboard as the space looks a wee bit empty.

I rearranged some of the pictures in the bathroom.  I like being able to hang them from the picture rail.

These are watercolours of the sea at Birsay by Timothy Gent.

I love seahorses!  This is actually a card that I framed.  In recent years we have been framing our paintings and prints ourselves, buying everything we need from EasyFrame.

Awww, our lovely boy 💖  He kept me company whilst I was taking the photos.  He liked to look out of the window and watch the world go by 😊

We still miss him 💔

Lovely Chris and his daughter popped by after Matty died with this beautiful bunch of roses; Roxie made us a very sweet card, too.

Our dear friend, Phil, also brought flowers.  They were so pretty and lasted for a good long while 😊

Lovely tulips that Beverly sent me for Mother's Day...

...and the even lovelier bouquet she sent for my birthday last month.



The whole bouquet lasted well, but these chrysanthemums (I think that's what they were) just kept going on and on ~ nearly a month, all told!  I cut back the escalonia in the front garden, so added some of the stems for a touch of greenery.



Adrian became desperate for a haircut, so he bought some clippers and let me loose on his silver locks 😵



Actually, I was a little nervous to be honest ~ what if I slipped and scalped him!



In the end, I was quite pleased with my efforts ~ not too bad for a first-timer, even if the style ended up looking a little severe LOL  He was really happy, though, so that's the main thing eh.  I shall probably have to do it again soon as he doesn't really want to venture to the hairdressers just yet.

And look at that!  My christmas?? easter?? cactus decided to bloom out-of-the-blue in June!  It's never done that before but it did look lovely so I'm definitely not complaining 😊

A little bit of randomness

I promised to show you the old wheelbarrow I planted up for the spring ~ golly, that seems such a long time ago now!  The barrow had been left in the garden when we moved in, probably because it's got a rather badly bent wheel so doesn't really work well for its intended purpose 😉  I have a bit of a soft spot for things that are galvanised, so decided to keep it.  I got Adrian to drill some drainage holes for me and I now use it as a planter.  I put in bellis, forget-me-nots, crocus, iris and little tulips.  It looked very pretty.  When the bulbs and plants were past their best, I moved everything into the kitchen garden borders.

I loved these dwarf iris, such a pretty colour.

I've seen this fella (or one of his colleagues!) quite often recently, chomping its way across my garden bench.  I finally had my camera to hand so I could take a photo.

Whilst I was watching, it turned around and proceeded to chomp back the way it had just come.  Said bench was also popular with the wasps when we lived down south!

I do like the colour of this achillea.  The stems are a bit on the wonky side as it had got rather smothered by the wild flowers that took over the border it was planted in.  Hopefully the stems will grow straighter next year. 

Yes, I know dandelions are classed as "weeds" by many folk, but I rather like to see their cheerful yellow flowers.  The trick to keeping some semblance of control, I guess, would be to nip off the heads before the seeds get blown all over the garden ~ but I never seem to remember LOL  What's that saying, something like "one year's seeds equals seven years weeds" ~ well, that explains a lot about the state of the garden this year 😄

The miniature waterlily has sent up a flower head.  Oh dear, I still haven't cleared out that blanket weed!

I've been keeping a beady eye on this hosta beside the pond.  When we lived back south the slugs made short work of any that I tried to grow.  There are a few little holes in this one but nothing to really complain about.  Perhaps the frogs are keeping the dreaded slugs at bay!

Alstroemeria are such delicate looking plants but they are obviously very hardy as they have a tendency to run riot in the more shady kitchen garden border.  I'm quite ruthless about pulling them out in most of the border, although I rarely manage to get the roots up.  I have left a couple of groups of them though, as they are very pretty.

Here's The Mayflower again.  She really is a beautiful rose.

A close-up of the shasta daisy, Banana Cream.

Rose of Sharon is another plant that I am very fond of...

...and the bees love it, too 😊

Little words of wisdom

It's a dreich day...

...so I thought I'd share some recent photos of the flowers in the kitchen garden borders to cheer us all up. 

If I'm honest, the actual shape of the tiger lilies aren't my favourite but they do smell lovely.  They transplanted very well, too, seemingly not even noticing that they had been moved!



On the other hand, I really do like the shape of the pot lilies but sadly they aren't scented which is a shame.  Just like the tiger lilies, they also transplanted without missing a beat.  Both have now gone over but they were lovely and flowered for quite some time.



So pretty 😊

The lupins sulked a lot when I moved them but they were flowering at the time so I suppose it's understandable.  Still, they continued to bloom despite some of the leaves and stems being somewhat droopy.  I guess I should have cut them right back when they were transplanted, but I didn't have the heart to do it.  I love lupins; my Grandma grew them in her garden and they always remind me of her. 

The campanulas, despite being moved when they had started to flower, have also bloomed beautifully.  The leaves looked a wee bit tatty but they perked up.  Of course, now that they too have more or less gone over the whole plants are looking messy again.



The peony was already here which, as you may recall, is why I decided to put in the log edging to give it it's own little piece of border.



The blooms are lovely but they do get bashed about a bit with the wind and rain we get up here.  The weather doesn't seem to deter them from growing well, though.  They have gone over now so I am letting the alstroemeria come through.  There is a lot of it in this border and I have to keep pulling most of it out otherwise it would just take over. 



I've left this clump of alstroemeria, though, as it takes over from the bluebells when they die back.



This little dwarf scabiosa has such pretty blue flowers.  I moved it out of a tub into the garden ~ it seems much happier here.



I do like bellis perennis and have a few plants throughout the borders.  They were in an old wheelbarrow with some dwarf spring bulbs earlier in the year ~I think I've got some photos that I haven't shown you yet, so I must remember to do that 😊



Another plant that we had a lot of but for the life of me I can't remember what its called.  Anyhoo, I've made good use of it as a very handy ~ and pretty ~ gap-filling plant in various places in the borders.



This sweet little flower is on a potentilla.  I don't know what the variety is as the plant label was nowhere to be seen when I moved it!



I found this little beauty growing in the stone chippings in our back garden.  I think it must have seeded itself from our neighbour's garden as she has lots of them.  I'm not entirely sure what it is but think it may be a California poppy.  I decided to move it to this front border and luckily it wasn't perturbed by the move at all.



I have quite a few alchemilla mollis in the borders, one of my favourite plants.



The creeping jenny appears to be making a bid to take over the garden 😉



The astilbes are starting to flower.



They are another plant I have a number of in the borders.



I had some of these erigeron karvinskianus in a planter on the kitchen windowsill.  They made a lovely display but when they started to look a bit overcrowded I moved them to the garden borders. 



The two spirea I moved are more plants that didn't seem to care about being shifted elsewhere...



...and neither did these shasta daisies.  This variety is called Banana Cream and is very pretty.



I planted this climbing rose a couple of years ago and this year it has had lots of flowers.



It's called A Shropshire Lad, from David Austin Roses, and is very beautiful with a lovely scent.

This rosa rugosa was one of a few already in the garden.  They were all dug up from the front and temporarily heeled in out the back.  My word, they are tough old plants!  I moved this one back into the front garden (not where it had been planted previously) and it's been flowering quite happily.

This pretty rose is The Mayflower, one of those I planted when we first made the new borders.  It's got so many new buds on it!  I wasn't expecting any of my new roses to flower this year to be honest, so this has been a lovely surprise.



This little beauty is another of the new roses, Fru Dagmar Hastrup.



And finally, do you remember me telling you about how I moved a very sad-looking mahonia from a too-sunny position elsewhere in the garden into this much more shady border?

Well just look at it now, it's got a new lease of life and is romping away!  Ignore the weeds ~ I've tidied all the new borders since I took this photo 😉

All-in-all, I'm really pleased with how well the borders are looking especially since they are so newly-made.  I'm just hoping that today's wind and rain doesn't cause too much damage!