Basking in the sunshine!

image from Clipart Library

Monday was another dry day, with lovely warm sunshine.  In fact, we've had quite the run of dry days ~ I may well have to water some parts of the garden where I've been planting out and moving things if we don't get any rain soon!

Excuse the quality of this photo, I don't quite know what I've done to it!  I upload my photos into PicMonkey so I can tidy them up and add a watermark but something seems to have gone adrift here, even though it seemed okay when I saved it to my files 😒

I decided to carry on with tidying up in the back garden this week, and moved my attention to the kitchen courtyard area.  I showed you this planter last month when the narcissus were blooming, which somewhat hid the disappointing "show" of primroses I planted last autumn.  As you can see, after filling the planter with them I ended up with a meagre four plants that actually survived the winter.  I shall definitely have to rethink my strategy with winter/spring bedding in future.  Perhaps a better idea would be to grow on the little plug plants in a sheltered place (perhaps in the growhouse within the old arbour seat if we manage to get the thing set up before this winter 😏), then plant them out when the worst of the winter weather is over. 

I had a similar situation with the old wheelbarrow (along with another dodgy photo!) I planted up in the front garden.  I think the weather did play somewhat of a part here as well, but it was exacerbated by one of the local blackbirds constantly picking through the compost!

Anyhoo it didn't seem worthwhile leaving just those eight little primroses in situ so I took them and the narcissus out from the planters. 

The primroses are now in pots beside the old arbour seat, and look very much happier.  I'm most likely going to plant some kind of perennial in the terracotta pot but haven't yet decided what that will be.  It did have a rosemary in it but I decided to be ruthless and dispose of it as it had gone extremely woody.  The moon-gazing hare, a Christmas gift from Sam and Beverly which has spent the last few months sheltering in the greenhouse, sits very nicely in this new little display area 😍 

Most of the narcissus (Tete a Tete) are now in this bed with the escallonia, up in the utility area of the garden.

As it was warm and sunny, I then took the opportunity to sort out the little solar fountain.  It's meant to simply be free-floating but because it gets pretty windy here at times, that's proved not to be really practical.  The fountain tends to get blown up against the edge of the bowl and the water then gets splashed out, which means that the level drops considerably.  It came with a number of different nozzles but I decided to stick with this one which stays low.  

It has four arms, which you may be able to make out, which draw in the water to be pumped out.  I wrapped some thin garden wire around the arms, anchored by a piece of broken slate at the bottom of the bowl.  When I was sorting through my craft room I came across some shells that I didn't think I would get round to using, so I put them in the bowl to cover the slate along with little pieces of broken pottery and china that we've come across when digging in the garden 😊 

I've never thought to take a photo of the bed from this angle before 😄  As you can see, I planted one of the clumps of narcissus beside the water bowl.  It will fill the gap nicely until the alchemilla mollis comes through.  I forgot to put the shell ornament in the greenhouse, so the winter weather has taken its toll on the painted finish.  I think I prefer the terracotta, to be honest, so will let it continue to flake off 😉  

I then turned my attention back to the planters in the courtyard.  I decided to throw caution to the wind and release my two mint plants from their pots into the planter ~ they can fight it out between the two of them in there 😄  The one on the left is Moroccan mint but the other plant has lost its label and I can't remember which variety it is.

The water dish was previously in the other courtyard planter.  The fairies were originally beside the pond in the front garden, then I moved them to the water bowl bed, and finally I decided to place them here.  I believe the terracotta balls are meant to be used as a top dressing on pots, but I have no idea what prompted me to buy them in the first place LOL  I've had them for absolutely ages and have finally found a use for some of them at least!  The large fairy is sitting on an upturned terracotta plant pot saucer, which I nestled within the terracotta balls. 

The tiny fairy did have a companion but she seems to have disappeared ~ perhaps I'll come across her when we finally get the pond and surrounding area sorted out! 

I gave this second planter an overhaul as well.  The chives are obviously very happy and just needed a tidy up.  I don't really use the stalks in the kitchen but I love the pretty purple flowers.  There were a couple of clumps of houseleeks and a lemon thyme in the planter, all of which were very much past their best, so once again I was ruthless and just pulled them out.  I was on the brink of doing likewise with the other thyme (Faustini) but when I looked more closely I could see that there were a number of new shoots lower down on the plant.

Faustini therefore had a reprieve!  I cut it back very hard so now I'm hoping that it pulls through the drastic "surgery" I've subjected it to🤞 

I really do love hares 😍

The primroses, Scentsation Rhubard and Custard, are so very pretty 😊

And to finish off the post, here's a close-up of the sweet little terracotta fairies 😊