The Lewisia are looking lovely and full of flowers at the moment.
I love how this has formed a beautiful pink ring for blooms.
a closer look at the flowers.
The white and pale pink are also starting to flower.
the white which is smaller.
a closer look.
The lighter pink
A closer look,
A gardener can never have too many pots ! And in this day and age of sustainability and saving the planet , trying not to us plastic pots etc is important .
So I have recently been on the hunt for used old terracotta pots in various sizes. Of course others also see the value in such pots, so when you can find them they are not always cheap. However I had managed to buy a few online but then you have the added cost of postage.
I decided to try and only look for pots that were being sold close enough that I could go and collect them and did find a couple of listing from someone local. Much to my surprise I won all three lots for the maiden bid and so arranged to meet the seller, a trader, at her lockup.
So yesterday we went and met the seller , who asked if I'd be interested in any of the others she had ? Naturally I said maybe depending on what she had, so she brought out a crate full of old terracotta pots plus a few others.
I made an offer, she countered and then we met in the middle.
The crate plus
these as well ! There is around 115 plus pots in the crate including these so it works out around 50p a pot ! When you consider that these pots normally start at around £4 for the very smallest , I think I got a great bargain.
Today, Sunday, I spent several hours scrubbing some of the pots with warm soapy water and letting them dry.
I started with the twenty four I had won plus some others I had bought elsewhere and also did a couple of lines out of the crate.
I still have these ones to clean but wanted to get some of the others planted up with some geraniums and pansy we'd bought a week or so back.
I managed to pot up twenty one pots with the geraniums and pansys, was very pleased thinking now all the bedding plants were potted when...
I noticed these still needed doing!! But it was too late to do today as the wind was picking up and it was starting to feel more like mid winter than mid spring! I still had to pack up all the clean pots and water the newly potted plants, so these will have to wait for another day in the week ahead.
But a good few hours work achieved despite the cold and wind.
But the flowers still bloom...
The tree peony is trying to open but the rain keeps stopping it.
The first Iris in the Iris bed is open.
more blooms out.
The shade garden
the jungle garden
Paths are getting smaller...
Plants waiting to be put in the flower beds.
some 'new' old pots waiting to be filled.
And big gusts of wind! But jobs need doing, so we were outside today getting more done.
I carried on working in the corner of the formal box garden cutting down the rose which had taken over.
Four trugs of branches later..
A nice clear space, still needs rose root to be dug out, but all the branches are ready for garden recycling bin, two trugs were emptied in but need to wait until it's collected tomorrow before next two can be emptied in.
Now the very thorny rose is no longer stopping us from getting round the corner, this is what it's like on the path !
So the plan is to be able to walk down this path without getting caught up or attacked by the brambles and other climbers. There is a grape vine to remove and a Pillar Rose , there is some honeysuckle along with the Montana Clementis , so we need to decide if the honey suckle should go or stay
While I was clearing the rose in the formal box garden, Paul was over by the folly sorting out this rose in the raised garden. It called Mortimer Sackler and flowers for months in summer, along side it is a clementis however we have let both get tangled out and although we put this piece of trellis in a year or so back , it's not really doing the job.
So today Paul removed it and put in some bigger sturdier posts and a wider piece of trellis. All the posts, metz post and trellis were from when we removed screen down by the patio when we put the gazebo up.
So here is the newer stronger trellis and posts.
Looking from the other end of path by folly. It is quite imposing at the moment but once, after this years flowers , we cut the rose back and attach more of it to the trellis it will blend in more. Plus we are considering putting another large post on the other side of the path that runs long side it to form an arch over that path. But this will need to wait until the fencing along that side of the garden is done.
You can also see in this photo that the wooden edging we used 12 years ago is now rotting and will need replacing with something to help hold back the earth. Just another job among the many that always need doing when you have a garden!.
Paul also brought out the Abutilons from their winter home and placed them in the Cloisters.
So a busy gardening week ahead between the showers.
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The Magnolia , Black Tulip is still flowering despite getting hit by the late frost.
Opening up.
We added some more trellis and replanted a Clementis that was once in our front garden and has a lovely big root but was cut right back.
We also planted a rambler called Dorothy Perkins, which used to be where we decided to build the folly, so we saved a piece and finally we remembered it and have now planted it against the new fencing.
We tied in the rose in the folly
We put some wires onto the folly wall, to support the Gertrude Jekyll rose and a Clemantis
There is also a grape wine along this trellis which we will remove as well.
There is a Clementis Montana along the trellis which we will leave. We will also add some wood to the trellis later to reduce how open it is but still leave open spaces between.
So lots of things to do during this year.
Our gazebo is lovely and spacious but as stated we get a fair amount of wind across our garden. One of the reasons we opted for a gazebo to cover half of the patio was we could rarely have an umbrella/parasol over the garden table without the wind trying to blow it away. which could make for an uncomfortable meal if the sun was blazing.
The gazebo took away that problem and we ate outside far more last year than any of the years before. So the previous post shows the first of the two walls we are fitting to deal with the cool breezes and also the rain.
So more wood was purchased to make up the two frames needed for this second side.
So the area being enclosed is the one straight ahead in this photo where the black trellis is.
So the lower and upper framing goes in. This sizing was dictated by the size of the two old windows we bought to allow us shelter but see have a good view out.
The apir of windows mostly clear glass with just a touch of colour and frosted glass in the centre allowing a view through to the garden and plants beyond.
From a distance.
Closer look at the glass detail.
The boarding.
View from side.
Looking at the new wall of windows.
