Serene Green Sunday

An Anemone first flower is nearly open.Its a very cool light lime green colour.The centre looks like a sweet.
I am working today before going away to Cheltenham tomorrow for five days.Enough time for one more post tonight before a short siesta.
I had some interesting wildlife yesterday in the garden.They will be posted tonight.
Enjoy all your weekends!

ps The flower is an Anemone that has grown though the middle of the Chamomile.I looked again today and thought it does not look like a daisy type flower.

Yesterday

To start the post three photos Cat took of me working in Hils garden on Friday the thirteenth.

I spent yesterday at Hils house helping revamp her back garden. It is a series of raised beds against descening levels of stone circles. I wanted to beautify her garden as her back was hurt recently. From ten am to seven pm I took on the large garden..

Two brown garden waste bins were filled. One garden spade shattered in my hands, and one fork broke in two. I do not know my own strength. The hardest part was digging out years old shrubs that had grown to gargantuan proportions. The shrubs were cut apart then the root balls forced out of the ground. Hils had to go to the allotment to get more tools after I destroyed two within five minutes. However the shrubs were vanquished to free up some much needed space.

At seven Pm I took my first photo.The garden had been pruned, weeded, top soiled, planted, and swept up. I had removed the shrubs, pruned back and shaped all the remaining ones: A Box plant, a Camellia,a Hydrangea, A Euonymus....
I had planted the two main central raised beds on either side of the middle patio level.

I replanted the left raised bed after removing weeds and straggly plants.I put eight bags of top soil on the two raised beds to darken the soil. It brings out the plants. In went Lupins, Coreopsis, A gorgeous Dahlia,a Geums that will have yellow or orange flowers, and Poppies to compliment the yellow Snapdragon and the yellow lupin. The plucky Snapdragon survived the onslaught to clear the large shrubs. I worked around the plant so not to damage it. Hils bought a willow panel for the back of the raised bed. A big Coreopsis will hopefully flower well and screen the greenhouses.

The Dahlia Fiesta or Carnival?.The colours are absolutely gorgeous.Rain drops adorn the party coloured Dahlia.It rained intermittantly on me.I soldiered on, a foul weathered gardener.

The Lupins around the clipped Hydrangea.It had the most sumptuous blue flowers last year.It should stand out against the whites, yellows, and oranges in this bed..

The raised bed to the right newly planted with Echinaceas, Poppies, Geums, and the shrubs trimmed into nice shapes.The Salix tree, and the Camellia to the right are the stars, and the other new plants will be under their watchful gaze.

My delicate trimming and moving an plant from the front to the back opened up the beds potentials and allowed some fresh planting.I used little clippers to shape the shrubs into more formal shapes and to push them back a bit where they had got wild.

I cut the trees in the corner so you can now sit on the bench in a leafy woodland glade with white flowers trailing down next doors fence into Hils garden. You can sit and watch the birds and bee's.I want to make a little path to this bench which is cool and scented by flowers on both sides.The end border is a project for another day!

The clipped Ceanothus that attracts all the bee's in Walton village.The trunk is now visible and the lovely wood logs and sculptural piece are visible. It reminds me of a cloud tree.The plant is fifteen years old and was festooned in a sea of blue flowers that smelled strongly of honey.The floor was covered in blue petals underneath.

In the second photo of this post is the gorgeous Astrantias. These I photographed in the wet evening light before supper. Poached Salmon, New Potatoes, and Vegetables.I was so hungary after the garden day..

The star flower for me was this Physocarpus Dark leaved shrub in flower.The flowers are exploding out like fireworks. A great end to a good Friday 13th!
It was nice to help out a good friend who was unable to garden because of injury, and to repay her back for her many kindnesses. I hope she likes her garden and the photos.

Kitchen Garden Thoughts

Outside the kitchen window is a windowbox planted with Virginia Stock and Scented Night Stock. These white flowers smell fragrant in the evening, whereas the Virginia Stock smells fragrant during the day. Gorgeous flowers to sniff both night and day.

The White climbing Rose Iceberg looks silky in the evening glow. They smell very sweet too and the petals are just perfect.They are in my view from the sink in the kitchen climbing up the left side of the outhouse on the wooden trellis. I was thinking about the garden as I looked outside...

The garden today supplied the New Potatoes, Baby Carrots, Spinach, and Parsley.These were cooked with some Garlic Piri Piri chicken.
I dug the New Potatoes up today as the leaves were dying and discolouring. I unearthed five and a half pounds of New Potatoes from the two grow bags I got from Marshalls.
I grew all the vegetables and Potatoes in my small twenty foot by fourteen foot garden. I planned on paper a kitchen garden before I got the allotment.
I have lots of containers and grow bags. For example the African grow bags (hessian sacks with a stone column in the centre and sticks to keep bag open) are growing Mustard Greens, Rocket, Spring Onions, Dwarf French Beans, Beetroot, Parsnips, and Perpeptual Spinach Beet.They are compact in the corner on raised paving stones.
A lack of soil has not limited me. It has made me more creative in how to cram as much as possible into a small space.
I read somewhere the popularity of growing your own fruit and Veg in the Uk, means for the first time Vegetable seeds are outselling Flower seeds.
Jamie Oliver has led the charge, along with other celebrity chefs getting people into growing edible plants. I was a chef before so i can see the attraction of growing fresh produce to cook with. You cannot get fresher than pulling it from your own garden and taking it into your kitchen to cook it.
Allotments are booming now and people have to wait for ages to get one.A large chunk were sold off during the 1980's when it was not in vogue.
I saw on gardeners world some people in London had turned a vacant building lot into a mini allotment. Builders two tonne sacks were filled with soil to give people maybe four or five square feet of soil. Row upon row of Bag gardens for the gardenless people in London. There were no empty bags and people were on waiting lists to get one.
Another reason for me to try and create a functional kitchen garden was to see how these plants grow. I have bought Carrots and Potatoes in the supermarket. I now know how they are grown, and what the plant looks like. I had no idea how Cabbages grow, or Brussels Sprouts for example. I was used to them being vacuum packed and in a box. Most of the time they have had the soil washed off them.
In the old days people knew where the food they ate came from, as either they grew it or bought it locally from someone who had done. Maybe the dirt was still on it when they bought it.
Supermarkets have taken us away from the earth where the food has grown.They have turned people from Farmers and Growers into consumers. Maybe change is not always good.
The Jamie Oliver/Allotment/Growing fruit and veg is the antithesis to consumerism.Taking up a spade and trowel is making people feel better about themselves and reconnecting them back to the earth and the growing seasons.
I have been inspired this year, and the plate shows my first results.

Beneficial Beetles

Its cloudy and raining today on my first day off. It was sunny all my working days too. The garden and allotment needed watering though so they dont mind the rain.
I took these photos of Ladybirds at the Allotment last week when it was sunny. I love Ladybirds for their bright red coats with black spots, and white spottted faces. They will happily walk around your hand as you photograph them.
They feed on aphids and I need them in my garden to keep my Roses healthy.
They are beneficial beetles and I have planted French Marigolds to try and entice them into the

garden. The second photo shows a Ladybird on a flowering plant. I do not know what its called. It looks like a trampoline with the Ladybird jumping on the centre of it!
The camera batterys need recharging so I'm blogging old photos. I am usually armed with the camera every day in the garden.
I want to do blog posts about Harlow Carr from last week, and Pats garden...
I enjoy watching for the insects then working out how they fit into the gardens ecosystem. A world within a world.
Their are lots of pollen rich flowers planted in the community garden where both photos were taken. I always encounter Ladybirds up there.
Its a good sign of warmer weather and that Spring is nearly over when they appear.

Whirring Wings

The Robin flying at the fatballs in a blur of whirring wings. I have seen Robins, House Sparrows, and Wood Pidgeons this morning.There is always a lot of birds in the garden now. I have turned my garden into an oasis for the birds.There is always food and water, and in return they have dropped a pea plant and multiple sunflowers.
It is calming watching them come and go, and you can spend ages just looking.

Serendipity And Iceberg

The climbing Rose Iceberg opening its flowers tonight. Four white sweetly scented buds have opened during the day. A blue Dutch Iris has also flowered today. Another suprise was that the red flowered Astrantia has four white flowers on it. I wanted an Astrantia Major (like at the top of the blog page) but could only find the red one...it may be serendipity.
Back to work again tomorrow.The Rose smelled divine though.

Butterfly Dreams

A small dark coloured butterfly landed in the mint pot yesterday( just to the middle left of the pot.)
I have growing a Butterfly bush, an Asclepias, Catnip, Echinaceas, Purple Coneflowers, and Lavenders.All butterfly attracting plants..
Only the Catnip is flowering, but this Butterfly was flying around for ages.
I hope that more Butterflies follow him. I am back to work for two long days now.
The birds and the butterflies will have the garden to themselves untill Thursday.