The borders of shame!

 

image from Clipart Library

Since we got back from visiting family and friends down south we've been busy out in the garden, trying to get as much done as possible on good weather days.  Our first task was to go over all the previously tidied-up areas, which thankfully didn't take too long.  Perhaps the weeds are starting to slow down a tad.....

although not in this bed, alas!  You may recall that I cleared it out last month but as I predicted, the seeds that popped out as soon as I touched the weeds wildflowers are starting to germinate 😒 

I wonder how long it will take for a fresh batch to make an appearance!

Once all that was done, I could put it off no longer ~ the time had come to make a concerted effort to start "eating the elephant" that is the ornamental garden borders.

Just to give you some idea of the task ahead, I thought I'd take some close-up photos to share with you.

I'll be honest, it is definitely a daunting task *sigh*

But it's a task that must be tackled before it gets any worse.

Although I've been wondering if it can get any worse!

I decided to start with the hedge borders, mostly so that I can actually see the new shrubs and check out how they are doing 😄

Before I made a start, though, I had to clear out the brambles that are yet again encroaching from our neighbour's garden.  They are bloody awful things, incredibly thorny and root themselves wherever they touch the soil.  I also had to cut back their rosa rugosa and hawthorn, both of which are bloody thorny too 😒 We chuck all of their stuff that we have to cut back over into their garden but it seems to be a case of "out of sight, out of mind" as far as they are concerned.

I forgot to take a photo of this section of the hedge border before I made a start on it 😏 It was full of buttercups ~ and spiders 😄

I had an audience whilst I was weeding.....

He/she was very attentive to what I was doing and was quite obviously listening to me talk to him/her.  Robins really are beautiful little birds 😍

Hazelton

 new blog post at Hazelton ~ tales from a miniature town:

In dangerous territory!

Little words of wisdom

 

A whole lot of thinking going on...

image from Freepik.com

As I mentioned yesterday, we've been away south visiting family and friends.  We tend to travel by train so it's a long 'ole journey that we break with an overnight stop either in Inverness or

 Edinburgh.  To while away the hours when we're not admiring the passing scenery there's plenty of napping and reading taking place, not to mention mulling over things to be done with the house and garden.  This trip has mostly seen me thinking about the garden, with some side-stepping into the ongoing trauma of dolls' house stairs which I'll be posting about later on my dolls' house blog 😏

We managed to do quite a lot of weeding before we went south, going over the areas we'd already done to keep the newly-emerged weeds at bay, and also made a start on the ornamental borders.  Well, I say "borders" as in the plural, but in reality it was only the border running along the path from the front gate.

It looks even worse in this photo because the border on the kitchen garden side is nice and tidy!  Still, the border on the other side is now cleared of weeds ~ for the time being, at least 😒 It's been a while since we worked on any of these ornamental borders, and to be honest I'd forgotten how awkward this one along the path can be.  It's not a border that we created, it was already here and we simply edged it with a sleeper.  It's just a little bit too wide to reach from one side only, and working from the path is a bit of a nuisance because of the handrail ~ nine times out of ten we forget it's there, go to stand up, and whack our heads on the bloody thing.  I was getting more and more annoyed as I was weeding, having to keep ducking beneath the handrail each time I moved along, and in the end came to the conclusion that it would be better to empty the border entirely and extend the grass into it.  Looking to the future, methinks it will also be easier to simply mow grass than have to keep dealing with the weeds here!

Once the weeds and yet more of the dwarf elder had been dug out, I could see that there weren't that many plants and shrubs in there.  

I will be able to find homes for them over here in due course, in the beds to the left and right.  I really need to get up-to-date with photos, but suffice to say that the beds to the left and centre are now both empty, and the alchemilla mollis to the right has been moved.  The central bed is going to be demolished, and the pieces used to add an extra layer to the bed on the right to accommodate.....

as much as possible of the new soil mountain, created when we emptied out the central bed!  It won't take all of this soil, but hopefully what's left can be spread around the garden.  We may well also need to top up that border we are going to grass over in due course.

The other border that I was mulling over is this one.  Believe it or not there is a water bowl in the "foot" of the L-shape, at the far end.  The whole of this border has been overrun by buttercups and whatever the rust-coloured weeds are called.  The alchemilla mollis is also rampant, much too much so for such a relatively narrow border, so unfortunately it will have to come out.  I may be able to rehome it somewhere in the back garden.  I'm hoping that I will be able to rescue the border simply by pulling out the weeds, but if push comes to shove, then I will dig out everything in there and replant what I want to keep.  Methinks the water bowl section at least will certainly need to be completely emptied out and restarted from scratch.

Thankfully I don't think that the other borders in this side of the garden are quite as bad as they may appear, but even so there is an awful lot to be getting on with! 

Aaand she's back!

image from Clipart Library

Did you miss me???  No???  Somehow I didn't think you would 😏

We've actually been away on our travels, visiting family and friends down south.  It's lovely to see everyone but I must confess that it's always a pretty tiring trip.  This time we went to Hitchin (the town where we used to live) for a couple of days first and then on to my Dad ~ we usually do it the other way around.  We caught up with Sam, Adrian's sister Elaine and her partner Martin, and our friends Olive and Tony.  It was lovely to see them all again 😊 Then Dad picked us up on the Saturday and we stayed with him until we started the journey back last Wednesday.  We also went out for lunch with Amanda and Liz on the Sunday 😍  It was a little strange not having Mum there, but it was reassuring to see just how well Dad seems to be coping.

Sam is actually due to move to Leeds shortly, so at the moment I'm not sure how we will plan our next trip down.  We will still be wanting to spend a couple of days in Hitchin to visit friends, and it is easier for us to see Elaine and Martin from there too.  We will have to add in a couple of extra days in Leeds, either on our way down or coming back.  I've never been to Leeds, although Adrian has briefly, so it will be a new place to explore.  Sam's new flat is apparently not too far from the railway station (although what he and his Dad consider "not too far" may well not be the same as my take on the subject 😉), and it seems there are lots of hotels in the area too.  Methinks I really need to make a concerted effort to shed some of this excess weight and try to get a tad fitter!

As usual I've managed to come home feeling somewhat under-the-weather.  My ears started to feel "blocked up" on Friday, and I had a headache which carried on into Saturday as well.  The headache dissipated somewhat yesterday but today my limbs feel a bit heavy, like I've got a cold ~ must be all those southern germs I was exposed to😏  Oh well, it seems par for the course that one or both of us end up with a cold when we've been away!

Peace...

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)  

Little words of wisdom

 

Peace...

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)  

Little words of wisdom

 

Peace...

 

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014) 

MIA

image from Clipart Library

Just a little head's up to let you know that I shall be pretty busy over the next couple of weeks ~ not necessarily doing housework, I hasten to add, in case you were thinking from the picture above that I'd suddenly changed the habits of a lifetime 😄  I really don't think that I shall get much chance to do any blogging but never fear, my lovelies, I will be back later in the month 😉

 

Little words of wisdom

 

Every little helps!

image from Clipart Library

I've managed to get some more houseplants repotted over the last couple of weeks.  Ever impatient, I'd like to get them all done and dusted ASAP, but I really do need to take every opportunity to get on in the garden that I can before the weather makes it too difficult and/or unpleasant.  As I've only got one pair of hands, I'll just have to be satisfied with perhaps getting one or two done each week ~ hopefully, though, I'll have them all sitting in nice fresh pots of compost by Christmas😏

Aspidistra are very slow-growing plants.  This one lives in a corner of our bedroom and I've had it a number of years.  It always amazes me how it seems quite content to be in such a dark area of the room!  Quite apart from the poor plant needing fresh compost, I was quite keen to repot it into something a tad less weighty.  The terracotta pot it was in is surprisingly heavy for its size 😯

I was a little taken aback when I decanted it and found such a small amount of root.  It seems happy enough, though, and does put out new leaves.

I put it in a similar-sized pot but this one, being plastic, is nowhere near as heavy!

I've had this rhipsalis for a few years, too.  It was in the living room previously but once the porch was finished, I moved it out there.

It wasn't too bad, root-wise, but it was very dry ~ oopsies!  Rhipsalis are rather brittle plants so lots of little pieces broke off during the re-potting process.  I decided in for a penny, in for a pound, and knocked off as much of the old, dry, compost that I could without causing too much destruction!

I put it into a larger pot, although it isn't a helluva lot bigger which means that it still fits in the original saucer that it was sitting in before.

Back in it's place in the porch, guarding the log pile 😄  With it being a trailing plant it looks much better in this new, taller, pot.  Rhipsalis are also slow-growing, apparently, although I wouldn't describe this one as such.

That's all the upstairs plants repotted now, along with all but one done in the porch.  It's a really good start but I do have a fair few more to get through!

I was tempted!

 

image from Clipart Library

I've been pondering for months over what to put in the large wooden tubs in the front garden.  I knew that I really wanted at least three of them to have perennial shrubs of some kind in them, or even better all five.  Decisions, decisions, though, over what to plant.

Ta-daa!  I went on the David Austin website, just for a little browse around as you do.....should have known I would find something gorgeous to tempt me😏 From left to right we have Emily Bronte, Sceptred Isle, and Eustacia Vye.  They are all in various shades of pink, and have lovely scents ~ I'm always so disappointed if I come across a beautiful rose that smells of absolutely nothing. 

I adore roses and am very pleased with my latest acquisitions 😍  Once the sweet peas have finished I will be replacing them with dwarf buddleja Butterfly Candy Little Sweetheart and Butterfly Candy Little Ruby, both of which I got from Marshalls.

I ordered a few more plants from Marshalls whilst I was getting the buddleja, namely: Veronica peduncularis Oxford Blue, Sedum Seduction La Vie en Rose, Leucanthemum Madonna, Astrantia Florence, Arabis Alpina Alabaster, Armeria Dreameria Daydream, Agapanthus Poppin Star, Weigela Picobella Rosa, and finally Lavatera x Clementii Barnsley Baby.   

Some of those new plants have gone into the path border on the kitchen garden side.  No doubt I will come across a few more plants that can be moved here as I work my way around the ornamental borders that haven't been touched yet.  The others have gone into one of the raised beds in the back patio area.

I've been meaning to show you the fab progress of the rosemary and bay that I moved from the other side of the kitchen courtyard earlier in the year.  They are both doing so well ~ I'm sure you can well imagine how thrilled I am, my lovelies👏 I think I shall try to protect them somewhat with either windbreak netting or fleece over winter.  I thought I could make some sort of tepee-like affair that I could perhaps anchor to the wooden fencing.  It will have to be tall-ish as the standard redcurrant is now living in the corner between the bay and rosemary.  Hopefully I'll come up with something suitable before the bad weather arrives 😄 

And whilst I was in the kitchen courtyard I thought I'd take another photo of this dahlia, White Aster, and show you all the lovely little buds waiting to bloom 😊

Peace...

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)