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Garden Diary – It’s Christmas & we’re past the shortest day!
What’s not to be happy about. Christmas festivities and we’ve celebrated the winter solstice. I think none of us can wait to get to the other side of the shortest day, we feel we are heading, albeit slowly, once more back towards the long, warm, days of summer. Having said that, I do like the seasons, I’m quite sure that we wouldn’t appreciate the longer days if we didn’t have the short cold ones. And after all our British climate does produce some truly beautiful gardens. On those dullest of days, I like to spend time looking back at the colourful photos of the summer garden, making plans and generally…
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Garden Diary – Say hello, & sadly wave goodbye
As Monday dawned last week and we said hello to December, we didn’t realise that by the end of the week we’d be saying goodbye one of our elderly cats. The week and month started with bright frosty days, which most of us prefer to the dark wet days that were soon to follow. The mass of berries on the pyracantha froze solid and the regular visiting blackbirds and robin had to wait for them to defrost! Making the most of the break in the rain, the gardeners mate and I had a big weed blitz in the raised beds. The asparagus bed had the biggest make over, as we’d…
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Garden Diary – Bees, Cats, Frogs, Friends & Flowers
The first week of June has brought, Busy bees and sleepy cats, berries for breakfast and raindrop covered flowers. New plants and old ones and some spread accidentally between friends. I’m over the moon with the first peony in the garden, although it’s not strictly the first. I bought one a couple of years ago but as it resembled a stick, I accidentally trod on it and that was the end of that! So I made sure I bought this one at the right time of year. I was very impressed with this one from Crocus, both the size and the fact that it already had two buds on. Good…
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Garden Diary – Wake up & smell the roses
I do wake up & smell the coffee first, but then watering has become a daily necessity and so smelling the roses comes a close second. The roses are now in full swing and I feel there are more blooms than usual, which I guess is down to all this marvellous sunshine. Isn’t the weather extraordinary, and not just for the time of year, we would be over the moon with this in mid summer! Although… I’m not keen on watering, firstly it’s quite time consuming and secondly, my primary school did a good, brain washing job on us about not wasting water. We do have water butts, but it’s…
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Garden Diary – Say goodbye to the lighter nights!
This is the week that really feels like Autumn is tipping towards winter, as the clocks fall back and we say goodbye to the lighter nights! Despite this we’ve had some gloriously sunny days with fabulous blue skies showing off the still dominating pink flowers in the garden, especially the extra late cosmos dazzler which was backlit on a few occasions. The pink shrub salvia is still covered, the dark pink dahlias are still sending up small blooms and a few Nerine bulbs have finally opened up like pink fireworks. I really thought they must have rotted as they were so late. The sun and skies have also been setting…
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Garden Diary – Two new Cat Faces in the garden!
I learned something new about mis-shaped tomatoes this week. The larger ones quite often have slightly strange bottoms but one of them had the strangest bottom I’ve ever seen! I posted it on my three social media platforms and just one person came up with the answer. The name for this strange contortion is ‘Catfaced’, which takes me nicely into a new feline friend I made this week. I was minding my own business watering the greenhouse when in strolled a new young cat, with a rather interesting cat face! Back in the greenhouse one of the new varieties I’ve grown this year ‘Indigo Rose’, finally had a single ripe…
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Gardening with Cats – The Original Stars of Gardeners World
Come Outside! The first cat we had would scratch at the back door, we’d open it and he’d just stand there meowing. We’d say are you coming in or not? – because our cats obviously understand English (when it suits them). We’d shut the door and five minutes later we’d have the whole thing again. It took us quite some time to realise that he didn’t want to come in, he wanted us to come out into the garden – because we clearly don’t understand cat talk! He wasn’t really a lap-cat, but he seemed to love us being outside with him. When we were gardening, he was never far…
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New garden, new cat!
Garden Transformation Part 2 – Story of an orphaned cat When we came to view the property, eight years ago. We knew the minute we saw the garden, that this was the one for us! A blank canvas, big enough for what we had planned. With a long south facing boundary, that I could already imagine fruit growing along. Whilst we were exploring the garden, we saw a cat fast asleep in one of the borders. As it was the next door neighbour showing us around, so we asked who the cat belonged to. The neighbour told us, that sadly the occupant of the house had died, leaving her cat…
