VENUS RISING

 No not in the night sky but in the garden.

We had our statue of Venus standing on a small plinth on the right of the bench in the pond garden.

However if you look at the statue in this photo and the one above you can see by the trellis that she is standing on the slant. This is due to the roots of the Wisteria that is planted on that side of the garden just behind her. 

First we considered finding some way of covering the roots , so that she'd be back up straight again but then we decided that maybe she could move to another place in the garden.

A few places were considered and we thought we'd try her up on the raised bed in amongst the ferns and palms first.

We liked how she looked up in the 'woody' area.

Paul cut the leaf off that was sitting on her shoulder.

Being there , it allows us to also be able to see her from the back, when walking to and from the greenhouse. 

 So she will stay in her new raised area for now and see how it goes. We how have a small plinth available since if we'd used it with her she would have been way too high up.

We also have plans to change up the pond garden over the summer. Always evolving.

ONE OR TWO GARDEN ITEMS

 

This is the first proper statue we bought over thirty give years ago at least. Venus came along with us from our old house.

David was bought a good few years later but still over twenty five plus years ago.

Neptune is around twenty five years old and once was knocked off the wall ! I couldn't look as I was so worried he was broken but he managed somehow to survive undamaged.

Igor here used to sit in our front garden at our last house, which was on a main road into the town of Hertford, he faced the front wall. A lady who worked in a shop in the town told me she always said Hello to him as she passed by on her way to work and missed seeing him when we moved.

Our two other gargoyles have also come with us from our last house and are over 30 plus year old, we bought them we were visiting my sister in Littlehampton, at a garden centre a few miles away from her house.

They sit either side of what we call the Cloisters, due to the rectory paving and the medieval style statues that are around. Starting with these tow.

Above them on the wooden framed entrance are some church bosses, we bought back from our holidays in Cornwall many years ago ,

Big fan's of our country's long and varied history, we like nothing more than wandering around some old castle, abbey or country house and if we can bring back a little something then we do.

The boss and the next one , are either side of the entrance from the cloisters into what is now the pond garden.

Because these items are quite small they usually vanish into the background when the roses are climbing up the posts.

On the gated archway leading out of the flower garden into the magnolia garden by the house are these two very small bosses.

This little devil fell off a good few years back and smacked his nose and fingers but managed to save his pint! naturally ;)

This wall planter was bought around the same time as Neptune from the same garden nursery in Enfield.

If I tell you we had to ask the people we bought this house from if we could send our garden items on ahead and luckily they agreed, so a full sized removal van was filled from front to back with our pots, statues, bikes, garden benches etc and arrived on the Wednesday with us following the next Monday !

Niamh we bought when we arrived here from some money that Paul's elderly Mum gave us. We travelled to Wells, in Somerset to a reclamation yard to buy her, travelling there and back in a day. She sat on the corner of the pond we built on the patio and only moved when the folly was built and a base was bought for her.

This lamb and flag we first on the wall under our front porch but removed it when we extended into the porch. It was then lost for a few years, you know the thing put somewhere for safe keeping ! The we suddenly found it, so it was put here.

This roof finial belongs on the Lych gate roof but was knock from it's place by the branch of our big Bramley apple tree, during a storm, a few years back ! But fortunately it must have slid down the roof  and come to rest on some wooden trellis we had in place across the bog garden to the side. It's now been waiting a good few years to get put back in place.

We have just reduced the side of the apple tree and so getting this back up, it's very heavy, will be a job for this year.

When we decided to build another wall to the folly, it gave us the opportunity to add a couple of wall items by the same maker who'd made Nimah all those years ago and they were delivered, so no all day trip to somerset!  This is Edward the first, Long Shanks 

and his wife Eleanor of Castile 

Which did set us off on a little buying spree of other items by this maker Marcus of Tudor Gate.

So either side of the Lych Gate is this one Dark Pan and the other side

Bucca boo a Cornish spirit. I have to say this one I was not sure about he was only one big enough to balance against Dark Pan. I won't say he's grown on me but I'm used to him now.

And we were able to buy Guinevere, who we had wanted at the same time as Nimah but could not afford both. 

So after all that, we stopped and luckily the garden is long enough and broken up enough that it doesn't look full of 'things'.

Over the years, we have bought or had given to us, Greenmen , which my husband loves. These are all on his workshop that is The Cloisters area of the garden.

another

This one is metal and the nose lifts to use like a door knocker.

We have had a few others over the years but they have not survived being outside .

A brass plate of a brass rubbing of a medieval tomb, that on the folly wall.

There are probably a couple more small items about and it's only having deciding to take some photos as I walked about seeing more of the items that are usually hidden by foliage.

HEDGING CLOSER

 So the end of February and the start of March, the weather here in Hertfordshire has turned sunny ! After a very grey February the last week's been wonderful with the sun streaming into the house and garden.

It's also meant that Paul's been able to get out for a couple of hours each day and tackle the hedge that was growing about two foot a year.

The size of them shown above our five and a half foot fence we put in a few years back.

It's like a row of trees on top of the hedge, each one around seven/eight feet tall.

The first section reduced, although hard to see due to the height of the neighbours hedge on the other side of his garden.

So this is now 

Paul managed to clear this twenty foot section on his own on one of the sessions.

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only this big last 'tree' to cut down and then it's done.

A closer view.

Our neighbours said how sunny it was on their side last afternoon, when the sun is coming across from our side, now there are no giant hedge in the way.

The view of the cut back hedge from our neighbours side.

This is his other hedge on the other side. The bench partly shown in the photo is one we gave them when we replaced them with the smaller ones. This bench is about seven foot to the peak, which shows just how big the hedges have got to.

Between the two shrubs are two piles of the cuttings from the hedge between us and them.

a bit too sunny to get a good photo of the piles of cuttings but the biggest one was over six foot high and seven foot wide.

So just one trunk to cut down, then the whole thing on my neighbours side needs tidying up and then it's down to him to keep it from growing so big again.

But at least now we'll get some decent sun at that end of the garden in future. 

MUCH ADO ABOUT HEDGES

 

So we do have good neighbours and the ones on our left, if you are looking down the garden , have hedges on both sides for their garden.

A good few years back they reduced the height down after we asked and all was fine. Then  a couple of years back we put in a fence, which meant we cut the hedge on our side back to the original fence line.

Unfortunately our neighbours gardener complained he could not reach the top of the hedge and left cutting it.

So it started growing taller , we mentioned it and they arranged for their new gardener to cut it back again. 

It's now been a good year of us chasing up the neighbour , to him chasing up his gardener, to him saying I'll come and do it in a couple of weeks !!

Yesterday our neighbour asked if he could borrow our chainsaw as yet again the gardener had given the usual set of excuses!

My neighbour is in his mid seventies, so my husband, only just into his seventies ! Said if he waited until today he'd come round and give him a hand.

So they cut some off, stopped for a couple of hours to do some other things, including Paul checking over the chainsaw which had started playing up.

A couple of the huge heavy branches came down in our side and because they were so heavy Paul needed to cut branches off in order to pull then back round to our neighbours.

Naturally one of my terracotta pots , which had tulip bulbs just breaking through, got broken while Paul was trying to get the branches /trunks off the flower garden bed.

So after having another go at it this afternoon, they have managed to reduce about ten foot of it.

The green behind the cut off trunks is our neighbour's hedge on the other side of his garden.

So you can see from this photo the height of the next section that needs to come down.

so another seventy foot to go!!! Well unless the gardeners suddenly appear and do the job ! 

So at the moment this is our my flower garden looks ! 

So a lot to get done hopefully before any birds start nesting !