LOTS TO DO IN THE GARDEN

Which is what happens once the lovely warmer weather arrives, we spend more time outside and start to notice all those little jobs that need doing, to add to the general weeding and dead heading.

We cut back the Jasmine, rose and honeysuckle that was starting to cover a third of the pond. , it will soon grow back but we'll try to keep it more in check and may give it another hard cut back in the autumn.

We've filled in either side of the middle piece of trellis behind the pond. This will stop Rufus our younger Golden retriever from getting on the pond and jumping over and into the garden in the winter , when we've shut the gate.
One of the jobs on our list is to replace the wood ledge on the pond edge and maybe top that with a stone edge.
We are also planning on adding a fountain/ water feature.

The Irises are still looking good.

The wisteria's in bloom and looking gorgeous.

wisteria

The little mannington mauve rose beside it will flower soon.

in the folly

One of the jobs this year is to finish the walls and get a floor down, with planting.

The path to the back circle seating is filling up!

almost a jungle! lots of tall nettles amongst the plants.

I love how the folly ruin rises out of the planting from this point.

 a few plants are making the effort.

a

b

This plants survived the winter and is putting on a show!


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THE IRIS BED

Last year I made a circular bed round the sundial in the flower garden for the Irises. Then we bought two golden retriever puppies, whose joy it is , when able to get into the flower garden, is to chase each other round and round the Iris bed!
Sometimes running through it and in Rufus's case biting an Iris along the way!
 But I am pleased to say that the Irises did survive this doggy treatment and this week have started to flower!

The edging knocked out or over by the dogs still need resetting but at least the Irises have survived.

one of the first to flower.

 This beautiful golden one.

A peach one.

This purple

and this lovely tall blue and white.

I was worried that they would mostly be one colour because we'd moved them from other places in the garden after they'd flowered. But I'm happy to see that there is a nice variety of colour.

The others all look nice and healthy but we'll need to wait and see if they flower this year.




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WEEDS GALORE!

So Sunday was bright and sunny, so gardening was at the top of the to do list. I'd only meant to tied back a rose that was trying to meet up with another across the cloisters, but one thing led to another and the two rose on that side of the flower garden were trimmed and tied back.

Then I tackled some of next doors hedge which is getting out of control! My neighbour is a lovely man and is happy for us to cut the hedge back and even reduce the height. He does pay someone to do his side of the hedge, but this person decided that he could not 'reach' our side at the top, so now it's about five foot higher than last summer ! I did have a go at trimming the lower part that was overhanging the plants in the flower garden but it needs some serious cutting equipment to get it under control, so that's a job we need to get sorted in the coming months!
My neighbour did used to send his proper gardener round to trim it when we first moved in but we have plants in a few places very near it and found that he didn't take care and our plants kept getting squashed ! So now we deal with it.

We do have some colour around the garden this photo shows our tree peony which is flowering in the sunshine.

We've finally gotten round to cutting the grass and starting to weed the borders. We've also emptied the greenhouse of the plants that were over wintering there.

They are now waiting on the cloisters until later this month when we can move them into place.

First we need to trim all the box hedging and then we can place the pots inside.

I managed to weed some of the damp garden but it needs sorting still.

I also weeded a large area in the folly, this was covered in mainly weeds and you couldn't see the soil.
The folly still needs a few more bricks on the tops of the wall and then the floor needs sorting and then it will finally be finished! So hopefully we'll achieve that by the autumn.

Everything in the raised garden seems to be growing , along side lots of tall nettles!.

The Jacob's ladder is flowering well .

The banana's survived the winter along with the palms, so it's a jungle in the making!

So the garden is finally getting attention but we all know this is just the start!



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SIX MONTHS LATE!

Well I have been very bad and totally forgotten to keep this blog up to date! But it was Winter and we hardly venture outside during the cold winter months. We tend to wrap everything up or place them undercover to try and protect them through the worse of the cold , wet weather.
But we also appear to have missed the start of Spring!

The garden however waits for no one! It's been happily growing , weeds included, and flowers are starting to appear on the early plants. This Magnolia Susan is flowering at the moment.

The tree peony is lovely and healthy with at least three big buds, the top one starting to open.

The Wisteria's we bought late last year and thriving, which is always good to see.

This white Wisteria is starting to open. I remember the first wisteria we placed on our last house around thirty five years ago, we waited year after year for it to flower,when it got to five years I threatened to dig it up and lo and behold it produced five beautiful long white flowers and after that it flowered year after year. So seeing this white one flowering already is wonderful!

There are glimpsed of colour in the garden but also plenty of weeds, so we need to try and get outside to work on that.

The grass in the flower garden needs raking and seeding after the dogs have used it like a race track chasing each other round and round ! At least the bearded Iris's appear to have survived their madness ! But a grass cut needs to happen and then some work to try and save it!

We need to fill the holes , Rufus has made in the house garden ! And discourage him from making any more!

The Wisteria over the Cloisters, which was so full and beautiful last year does have lots of buds on and if we don't get any really cold weather like a frost, we may get another good display in a few weeks.

Well now May's well and truly arrived,we'll be starting back on the garden, so will keep you up to date on our progress. The folly needs finishing, there's a loggia to build and no doubt another two or three things that are on the list that escapes me as I type.. but I will remember.



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