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

 

Catching up with me!

image from Clipart Library

By Friday of last week I must confess that I was feeling very tired, so decided to have an easier day just pottering about in the back garden. 

The tomatoes are definitely straighter than they were, but I'm considering tying them to small canes to help the process.

I was so tired by the end of Thursday that I completely forgot to take the sunflower seedlings back into the greenhouse overnight 😳  Thankfully they were none-the-worse for my neglect and I've decided that they can now sit outside all the time.

I decided that I would spend my day of pottering about by doing some "tweaking" to the containers in the kitchen courtyard area.  By the way, just look at all that potential fruit on the standard redcurrant (Jonkheer van Tets) ~ I'm so glad I decided to keep it!

My first task was to pot up the pelargoniums, Sunflair Eva White, that I had managed to overwinter.  They were bought as a group of six little plug plants from Marshalls last year.  The four that survived didn't get anywhere near the 40cm x 40cm the description of the plants suggested they would reach; as you can see from the photo above, they are still only small!  I decided to put three into this one pot.....

and the odd one leftover into a pot of its own.  Hopefully they will put on some growth this year, and fingers crossed that I will be successful at overwintering them again 🤞

That single pot of Eva White isn't the only pelargonium on the display bench, as I included three scented-leaf plants of Attar of Roses with my order from the RHS.  I really like the scented-leaf varieties of pelargoniums but have never been successful at overwintering them.  If these grow well this year I will most likely take them indoors where they can spend the winter with my houseplants.

Next on the agenda was to put some more plants into the container with the chives and rosemary.  I split the basket of tulips Moon Blush, that I had been growing for cutting, in half and planted the two clumps either side of the old bird bath.  At the front I planted armeria pseudameria Ballerina White and Ballerina Red.  I bought these with my recent order from Shire Plants as a collection of three armeria, and had already planted Ballerina Lilac in the water bowl bed earlier in the week.   

Despite my constant moaning about the dreaded dandelions, especially in the front garden, I just couldn't resist this pair of "ornamental" varieties of our native weeds wildflowers 😉  This one is taraxacum albidum (white dandelion).....

and this is taraxacum pseudoroseum (pink dandelion).  The advice on the plant descriptions say "doesn't seem to self seed as readily as our native dandelion, but pull off the spent flower heads if you want to avoid it completely".  Of course if I was more on the ball I would have been doing that with the bloody dandelions that are plaguing me elsewhere in the garden 😏 

I also dismantled the water dish display and redid it, as it just kept tipping to one side.  I now have a terracotta saucer nestled into the compost, with an old slate roof tile set on it and the edge of the planter for a bit more support.  I sat the dish on the tile but it was a tad wobbly.  Looking at the base of the dish I could see that it wasn't flat, so got another terracotta saucer to place beneath it which seems to have cured the problem!  I felt that the large fairy could do with something a tad more stable to sit on; luckily the piece of stoneware that I had beachcombed a few years back made an ideal seat for her.  The little fairy also now has a better seat, perching on the terracotta balls. 

I was pleased with all the little jobs that I managed to get done, but was pretty pooped by the end of the week 😴 

Someone else who was obviously pooped was next-door's moggie!  I walked from the kitchen into the dining room on Friday evening and there he was, sprawled over the edge of the border with his face planted into the gravel path.  My first thought was "oh my god, he's bloody died in our garden", swiftly followed by "oh my god, what are we going to tell Helen and Paul" 😱  Thankfully he then stood up, had a big 'ole stretch.....and promptly settled back down again to finish his snooze 😄

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)  

Still soaking up the 'ole rays!

image from Clipart Library

The glorious weather has continued all week 🌞  I still had plenty of "pottering about" jobs to keep me occupied Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday ~ we're really into full swing with the garden now!

I decided to tidy up the little tomato plants a tad, by removing the mangled-looking leaves.  They are still very bent but nevertheless do look rather better than when they first arrived.

The sunflowers just keep growing!  Of the 16 seeds I planted, 15 have germinated ~ to say I'm amazed would be something of an understatement 😮  

As they are now developing their "true" leaves, I decided to take the plunge and put each one into its own individual little pot.  I gently prised out the stronger-looking seedlings, potting them straight into their new homes.  I left the less well developed ones in the original peat pots, simply putting seedling and pot into the new pots together.

Whilst I was in potting-up mode I decided to do something with this tiny fuchsia, Pink Galore, that had really struggled over the winter compared to the rest of its family.  I'm not sure that it will thrive to be honest, but at least I've given it a chance.  I had just one pot of pratia pedunculata Country Park that I originally had in mind for somewhere else.  Since I ultimately decided against that idea it was going spare, as it were, so I split it in half and plopped it in with the fuchsia.  I fully expect to be reporting on the demise of the fuchsia in due course, I'm afraid!

Tuesday and Wednesday were rather disjointed sorts of days, with me doing little bits here and there, all of which I completely forgot to take photos of 😏 

I was pleased to see that the sunflowers seemed none-the-worse for their separation and potting-on.  It's quite fascinating to see how they turn to find the sun throughout the course of the day 😊

Just look at how clear the water is 😲  Perhaps all that dust from the Great Grit Spillage of '25 has filtered the water 😄  I will still empty out the bowl in due course to clear out the grit silt, though ~ when I can actually summon up the enthusiasm to do so, that is 😉

I decided to put the sunflower seedlings outside on Thursday.  They seemed very happy just soaking up the sun sitting on the garden bench in the back garden.

On Monday and Thursday mornings I usually Komp with my Dad so don't tend to do quite so  much outside, which probably is no bad thing to be honest.  Anyhoo, yesterday afternoon I decided to tackle the raised bed in the front garden near the bathroom extension.  My decision was rather fortuitous in that Adrian and I had been bemoaning the state of this border on the kitchen garden side of the path that leads to the gate earlier in the week.  It's a border that we've never been able to keep under control from the onslaught of the dreaded dandelions ~ the bloody things just keep on growing no matter how many times we try to dig them out 😠

I suggested to Adrian that we could remove a good chunk of the border, just leaving small sections at either end for the two shrubs that I would much prefer not to move.  As luck would have it, these sections of the border don't have dandelions so would only need to be kept free of much less persistent weeds.  That will be yet another "little" job to add to our ever-growing list of things to be done 😄

There were only four other plants in the border, so they were easily moved to the raised bed.  

Back to the current job, as you can see the bed wasn't totally overgrown but did need quite a bit of tidying up.  Everything that I had moved into the bed has settled in very nicely, except for the buddleja at the back which died off completely.

I'm particularly pleased with the ferns but nearly missed this little one at the front!  I thought it hadn't survived but luckily I spotted that it was sending out new shoots 😊

After I'd moved the four plants from the path border into the bed, I finished off with three of these rather lovely alchemilla erythropoda (dwarf ladies mantle) that I bought recently from the RHS.  As you know, my lovelies, I have a few garden flower favourites with alchemilla mollis being amongst them.  Much as I love it, though, it does have a tendency to grow rather large and blousy in our garden ~ I guess it really likes the growing conditions!  I was delighted to come across this little gem, though, as it appears to be a more restrained version ~ we shall just have to wait and see, I guess 😉  

I finished off the planting by splitting the basket of narcissus Cassata, that I had grown for cutting, in half and putting the two clumps at the back of the bed.

My last task was to try to do something about the bird bath.  The original dish is very shallow and the water quickly disappears from a combination of over-enthusiastic bathing by the local sparrows and starlings, and evaporation.  It is very popular with the birds though, so I wanted to leave it in situ.  I had a rummage around in the greenhouse for some supplies to "beef it up", and this is what I came up with.  The original dish now makes a very good base for this plastic planter.  As it's much deeper than the original I decided to make a sort of platform by placing a lump of stone in it that we found in the garden a few years back.  I sat the stone on an upturned terracotta saucer to give it a bit more height and it now protrudes out of the water somewhat.  The weight of the stone will hopefully help to keep the bowl in place when it's windy!

I'm pleased with this new set-up for the time being, but will be keeping a look out for a wider and shallower bowl to replace it with.  In the meantime, though, the birds still have a place to drink and bathe 😊 

Wall-to-wall sunshine

image from Clipart Library

We are currently having a run of glorious weather ~ warm and sunny.  This has made it very nice indeed to be out working in the garden, although I have had to water the beds and containers a couple of times.

The sunflowers are still doing well.  They are starting to develop their "true" leaves so I'll be potting them on soon.

The difference is probably not so noticeable to you, my lovelies, but I can see that the tomatoes are starting to look a tad healthier.  Fingers crossed their recovery continues!

I mentioned earlier in the week that I had moved the tulips, Apricot Beauty, out of this pot.  I've now replaced them with an erodium chrysanthum, from my recent delivery of plants from Shire Plants.  It has pale lemon flowers, and looks a little like a geranium I think.

Some of the dahlias are starting to come up: Cafe au Lait Twist and Cafe au Lait.  Hopefully the other three will follow on soon.

Whilst the tomatoes are starting to recover, alas the same can't be said for the poor French beans 😒  I'll leave them in situ for the time being and hope for a miracle!

The strawberries are starting to look lovely with their pretty white flowers.  I wasn't sure how well they would do after being moved this year, but they seem to have taken it in their stride 😊

The compost I ordered last week arrived on Monday, so I was able to top off bed 5 which holds this years potato crop.  I should think this will be the last time I top the bed off as there really isn't much space left to do so now 😄

Two more dahlias are coming through, Creme de Cassis and White Aster, beside the wooden tubs on the patio area in the front garden.

I've had a large tub either side of the dining and living room windows for a while now, both planted with similar plants.  Unfortunately I can't remember what said plants are called and, of course, the labels have disappeared 😏  I think the shrubs, though, are varieties of euonymus.  I had planted them in the borders originally but they weren't doing so well to be honest, so I moved them into these large tubs where they've been much happier.  The tub in the photo above is by the dining room window.....

but the little plants in the one beside the living room window died.  The euonymus is absolutely fine, and indeed is happily sprouting new leaves, so I don't know what happened to the two little plants 🤷  Anyhoo I've now replaced them with another of my favourite little garden plants, erigeron karvinskianus ~ let's hope they fare better than their predecessors!

To round off my working day, I decided to spruce up the wheelbarrow.  I was too lazy to completely replace the old compost but added a good sprinkling of chicken manure pellets to add some nutrition and did top it up with fresh compost too.

I've left space between the plants for them to spread out as they are perennials.  I may well lightly cover the barrow with some fleece, or even netting, over the winter to protect them a little from the worst of the weather.  I've planted pratia pedunculata, which apparently has sky blue flowers, in the back two corners, with two fuchsia Pink Galore between them.  There are two more pratia pedunculata, Alba, in the front two corners.  In the middle of the wheelbarrow are yet more of my garden flower favourites, this time three little bellis perennis.  This is a variety called Dresden China which has very pretty pink flowers.  Hopefully the blackbirds won't keep picking over the compost like they did when it was planted up with pansies!

Little words of wisdom

 

A flatpack weekend

The latter half of last week saw a flurry of deliveries winging their way to St Abbs ~ including this pair of flat-pack growhouses.  As you may recall, my lovelies, we were to-ing and fro-ing over whether to convert the arbour into a growhouse ourselves or just purchase something to stand inside it.  In the end we decided we really didn't have the skills to build something ourselves ~ although to be fair, fitting suitable shelving would have been fine but constructing doors is definitely beyond our skillset!

I had to do a fair bit of hunting around on the internet to find something that was a) the appropriate size, and b) that suppliers would actually deliver up to Orkney ~ the latter in particular can be really difficult 😒  In the end, the RHS came up trumps, although I was also tempted to buy a few plants from them at the same time 😄 

They came together without too much trauma, although we did have to drill pilot holes rather than simply screw the pieces together as per the instructions.  They are quite cheap 'n' cheerful so aren't the most sturdy of things, but hopefully standing within the arbour will help to protect them and prolong their life somewhat.

Adrian kept the seat sections that he dismantled from the arbour so he is going to put in a shelf for me, spanning the whole width, for some additional storage space.  The set-up is mostly to provide protection for plants and garden ornaments/lights that I don't want to leave out in the elements over winter.  Although it won't be quite as suitable as a coldframe would be, I should also be able to use the growhouses to transition plants from the greenhouse to their eventual places out in the garden. 

Talking of the greenhouse, the tomato plants are looking a teensy-weeny bit less sorry for themselves.  Hopefully they will continue to straighten up as they grow.

I had another delivery from Marshalls, this time via Royal Mail's 24-hour delivery.  The good news is that these little brassica plants arrived in much better condition that either the tomatoes or French beans, the less-than-good news is that they got somewhat dislodged in their packaging.  This meant that I had to make an "educated guess" as to which little plugs were which 😏 

Fingers crossed I've got it right!  I decided to pot them up for a little while so that they can grow larger and, hopefully, stronger before I plant them out into one of the kitchen garden beds.  I also need to sort out some fine netting to keep the cabbage white butterflies away.

Whilst I was potting up the brassicas, I noticed a couple of sparrows were coming to drink from the water bowl.  I shan't not be adding any more of the chemical to the water that helps to keep it clear, obviously.  They seemed rather precariously perched on the edge of the bowl to drink, so I thought I'd make a little platform for them.

As you can no doubt tell from the photo above, I had a bit of a mishap 😯  I had rummaged around in the greenhouse for a suitable plant pot to use as the base.  Nothing I had was quite the right height so I had the "brilliant" idea of filling one pot with some of the grit I still have, and nestling a shorter pot inside it to bring everything up to the right level.  All was well until I was very carefully placing the two pots into the bowl.....the large pot split completely in two, disgorging all the grit into the water bowl 😱  Had I had the foresight to wash the grit before using it, there wouldn't really have been a problem ~ sadly, I didn't 😏  The water bowl was filled with a cloud of grit dust, you couldn't see anything at all!  Although the water has now cleared, there is a layer of grit "silt" on everything at the bottom of the bowl *sigh*  I've just left it for the time being but will have to empty the bowl to clean out the silt at some point.  I must love to make unnecessary jobs for myself 😒

Anyhoo, on to more cheerful things!  I planted the supermarket rosemary into the container with the chives.  I shall be interested to see how it fares over the winter.

As I'd also had a delivery of plants from Shire Plants, one of which was destined to be planted in the pot behind the bins, I removed the tulip bulbs (Apricot Beauty) from said pot and relocated them to behind the standard redcurrant.  I also added two of the overwintered fuchsias, trailing Pink Galore, to the front.  I shall leave them in situ and keep my fingers crossed that they manage to survive the winter outside!  

Amongst the plants in my order from Shire Plants were two that I intend to put in the large tubs either side of the arbour.  On the left is sambucus nigra Black Lace, on the right choisya ternata (Mexican orange blossom).  They arrived in rather small pots, which they had clearly outgrown, so I potted them on into something bigger for a while.  They both have the potential to grow quite large, it seems, but equally can be kept pruned to a suitable size for life in a large container.  Well that's what life has in store for them in my garden, anyway 😉 

Last year these two bowls contained nemesia Wisley Vanilla, which had the most divine fragrance.  Alas they didn't survive the winter, despite being in the greenhouse, which was a shame.  I've replaced them with potentilla ~ x tonguei in the larger bowl, and verna nana in the smaller.  I will most likely overwinter them in either one of the growhouses or on the shelf above, just to keep the worst of the wet weather off them really.  

The broken pot on the display bench is now planted up, too.  I've put chaenorhinum origanifolium Blue Dream (dwarf snapdragon) in the top, with delosperma sutherlandii (ice plant) in the lower section.  Again, I will move the pot into the shelter of the arbour over winter.

The little bird was originally one of three that decorated the now-cracked bird bath (standing in the container with the chives and rosemary).  They snapped off one-by-one, so I just placed them as little garden decorations.  When we made the nature pool in the kitchen garden out the front, I sat them on a big lump of tree trunk beside the water.  I don't know what's happened to the other two ~ hopefully I'll come across them at some point ~ but thought I'd better rescue this little chap before he too gets lost!

Finally, here's Sunday's update on the sunflower seedlings progress.  Because I wasn't convinced that any seeds would germinate, I put two in each little peat pot.  Every pot, bar one, now has two little seedlings 😄  Once they start to produce their first "true" leaves, I shall gently remove one seedling from each pot into one of their own.  It will be interesting to see how many continue growing on into fully-fledged sunflower plants 😊