Around my garden....

Hello

I thought I would do a little tour of my garden. A day off from work has meant that I could spend just a few minutes out there enjoying the late summer sun, while nipping in and out to hang out three loads of washing post-return of sons to University!

So, this is the view from the back of our house, looking out towards the field. 

I like to keep the hedge at the bottom of our garden cut well back so we can enjoy as much of the view as possible. So far this year I've managed to cut back about half - but I'm hoping I might get chance to do some more this weekend. 

Our garden provides a home for many creatures. I feel a symbiotic relationship to

 these slugs and worms - I provide food, they help provide compost!  

Gosh, I wonder how many slugs there are in that compost bin? And we have 2 bins!

I used to be a keen gardener BC (Before Children) but I'm afraid that hobby has 

gradually been lost over the last twenty years as other demands have been made

 on my time, but I am pretty sure my interest will return as I find myself once 

again with more time. 

The brambles are happy though with the neglect in the garden - they have 

managed to invade the garden from the field behind and here have found 

a stump of a dead buddleia an ideal support. 

 And weeds are aplenty in my borders. 

Tuc, our guinea pig, was my excuse for having dandelions in the borders!! 

I kidded myself that I was cultivating them for him. 

It was one of his favourite meals - that and groundsel, and oh yes, I even 

boasted a few plants of groundsel in the borders of the garden at one time! 

(This is actually a photo of my border!) 

However, I am aiming to spruce up the garden. Large overgrown shrubs, that now 

reach 8ft will be removed and will be replaced by little cuttings measuring, ooo,  

all of 10cm high! Yes, they do have a bit of growing to do. 

But oh, I do love plants for free. 

In this post I mentioned The Pip Book I bought may years ago and which I still love.

The little cuttings below were taken from one of the offending giant shrubs, a ceanothus. 

This photo, taken from the RHS website, is of ceanothus in full bloom 

-  it is such a pretty shrub isn't it? 

 

I used to have lots of pots dotted around the garden at one time but most have 

now gone. However I did buy a few cyclamen recently to fill one pot, 

and here they are, still waiting to be potted up.... 

And of course our garden does get a lot of hard wear - evidenced by two 

goals and a rebound net. 

Such garden activities result in a generally unusual, but in our garden 

very common, garden ornament.   

Occasionally I round up all the balls - they fill an old dustbin. 

I am rather proud of my pyracantha that grows under our front room 

window. I grew this from a cutting and it is about the only shrub that actually 

looks like it has undergone some sort of pruning in recent years.  

I LOVE our wood store that sits at the bottom of the garden, and the promise 

of all those cosy evenings that it holds. 

And finally, to finish my garden tour here is a little gate that my husband built 

into the hedge at the bottom of the garden shortly after we moved in. It provides 

a quick access to the field at the back and was ideal for the little people, that is, 

the children when they were little. For me I have to almost crawl through it but 

it is quite sweet.  

So that's it for now. 

Hope you have a good weekend planned and thank you for stopping by!  

xXx