Category: Garden
Six on Saturday: 12 August
I missed last week. Well Him upstairs decided to deliver a deluge of rain and I wasn’t going to risk committing the camera to an inundation episode. A broken pair of glasses added to the general con... Read More
Six on Saturday: 29 July
What a week. Rain, wind and more rain. I was wondering whether I’d make it here this week as I wasn’t going to risk destroying an expensive camera in the deluge. The Propagator, who hosts ... Read More
Six on Saturday: 22 July
Saturday’s come round again with its usual vigour. It only seems like a week ago that I was sending my last update to the interwebs. The number of bloggers joining in is growing. You’ll ... Read More
Six on Saturday: 15 July
Another week has flown by and it’s time to join ThePropagator‘s weekly meme thing where we present, for your delectation, six things that are in our gardens on a Saturday. I’ve spent... Read More
Changing Surroundings: Tree Following July 2017
Squirrelbasket hosts this tree-following meme over at her blog. She’s a lot more ambitious than I. She’s following an avenue of 100 trees. And she has to walk some way to catch up with the... Read More
Six on Saturday – 8 July
Yep, I’m writing this on Friday. Seems I’m not the only one though. And I’ll be checking before I publish this post that everything is still there “tomorrow”. Thanks as a... Read More
Six on Saturday – 1 July
I’m getting the hang of this now. I didn’t think I’d keep up a weekly post for long but, like Nick over at Sweetgum and Pines, have found that the discipline involved in a weekly sna... Read More
Six on Saturday – 24 June
As my back has stopped play for the day, I thought I’d have a second go at The Propagator‘s six things in the garden on Saturday meme. And that’s a... Read More
Six on Saturday – 17 June
Fellow blogger The Propagator has a meme going with the theme of “Six on Saturday” – six things going on in the garden. I thought I’d jump on the bandwagon this week. Don’... Read More
The Joys of Alstroemeria
Do you ever find yourself in the position of having a clear favourite plant? Over some nearly 50 years of gardening (I’m not that old; I just started before I was born!) I’ve had a few. In the day... Read More
A Spring in My Steppe
At last. Spring has arrived, accompanied by a water-butt-emptying lack of rain. Just before the weekend, we were supposed to “get it”. What we got was a storm in a teacup. Well more like a... Read More
The Boring Bit
At this time of the year, most of the blogs I follow are full of stories about planting out the chitted potatoes, protecting chillies from late frosts, netting over the emerging brassicas. All the exc... Read More
Planning for Growth
‘Tis plant-growing time. We’re all madly sowing seeds (or buying plug plants or a mix of the two) with abandon. Well, the flower growers are; veggie people are probably getting ready to pl... Read More
How I Became a Gardener (Possibly)
I often wonder what it is that decides when someone will become a gardener and someone else won’t. Is it in the genes? Or is it conditioning? This is my theory about me. In my young years, lunchtime... Read More
Rewinding (Part 4)
Having got as far as I could with the raised bed thing and now waiting for delivery of the final tonne of topsoil, I decided to indulge myself with a bit of variety and demolish one of my old garden s... Read More
Rewinding (Part 3)
Ah, the joys of scheduling. I knew WordPress could do it but my approach has been to write, publish, sit back. That, I think, is one of the reasons for my inadequate output. I would think to myself &#... Read More
Rewinding (Part 2)
How many hours would it take you to complete a three-dimensional jigsaw of 1745 pieces? If your jigsaw is made of WoodBlocX, the answer is a leisurely few days. My plan for the former shrubbery involv... Read More
Rewinding (Part 1)
I failed last year! I mean failed! All my good intentions turned into failures. Well not all; only my blog and web site ones. I’d started fairly well and had even devised a little chain of posts... Read More
Aaaaaargh! Salt!
It’s that time of year when we all start thinking ahead to icy paths, slips and slides. And the magic word is “salt”. When your local council “grits” the roads, it’s actually salting the r... Read More
What June Gap?
I can never understand the references to the “June Gap”, supposedly the month of the summer in which nothing much is flowering and there is a lack of colour. Today (15 June) is more or les... Read More
Resilience
Someone I know doesn’t particularly like camellias. This may be because of their tendency to drop blooms all the time or, if you want to avoid the dropped blooms, their need for constant deadhea... Read More
My WoodblocX Adventure
I’ve blogged before about having to chop down trees and shrubs that got whacked in the winter storms. Now I’m blogging about filling the holes! I hit 60 a week ago: well, rather, 60 hit me! And I... Read More
Why Weed When You Can Tulip
I’m often surprised by the number of people for whom weeding is a real pleasure. For me, it’s just something that has to be kept on top of so weeds don’t become a problem. Far more... Read More
Adieu, Sweet Mutant
With a bit of luck, the season of storms has passed now and, in time, those parts of the country that have flooded will drain and, in even more time, will dry out. I feel very sorry for those for whom... Read More
The shameless plug
I like summer bedding. A lot! And until 2012, I grew a few thousand bedding plants every year. One large bed was religiously planted with a bit over 400 begonias; 20 large wall planters each swallowed... Read More
Spending time in the garden
At this time of year, the amount of time I can spend in the garden is limited by the weather and my energy level. But though I may not be spending time in the garden, it is nevertheless spending time ... Read More
Happy new year (I hope)
Well, here we are in 2014 and I’m glad to see the back of 2013 to be honest. What started out as a promising year ground to a sudden halt at the beginning of May when a ladder fell from under me (I ... Read More