Thursday, January 31, 2013

Gardens and grandchildren



The youngest grand child Lillie always up to mischief is also the star on Matilda's F/B at the moment.  Smeared lipstick, ringlets, dark glasses and a limp flower is her choice of outfit.  Ollie the cat winds round her trying for attention, Ollie is getting on, must be about fifteen years old, has enormous green eyes and will sit and stare at you for minutes on end.  We have never understood this, is he trying to fathom our inner souls or is he just brainless...
Spinning wool takes up time, I have had to put my mind to the cottage recently as it still needs bits and bobs, a chest of drawers and a bedside cupboard should soon be shortly winging its way from Argos, to be taken up and made up when we go up next month sometime.  Micro-wave bought, never use them but you have to have one!  My reluctance to allow it to become a holiday cottage is becoming evident, but it needs to pay its way if only for the utility bills.
My mind is mostly on the coming spring and plants, above my desk two photos stuck in the picture frame,
white foxgloves, ladies mantle, marguerite daisy maybe, cantebury bells, southernwood and rue.  Two of my favourite roses, the stripey Rosa mundi and the York rose I think. I often wonder how the old garden is doing, I planted about thirty fruit and nut trees, built trellises for climbing rose and honeysuckles, but putting them together is not always a good idea.  Sometimes I wish I could start on another large garden but age would catch me out!



The other photo brings back memories of my young son sitting up on the slope at the bottom of the garden stroking Daisy the angora rabbit, or even Tom my oldest grandson now, but when he was young had built a shelter up there, but on crawling inside and sitting down, he sat on a bumble bee's nest, the sight of his face and the bumble bee chasing him still makes me giggle...  This bank was wild still had the remains of the old Victorian rockery garden, and my son and I had made bumble bee nests not that I think there ever worked except one maybe...


This is a rowan tree I planted (for luck) to the side a planted walnut tree that the squirrel would raid the nuts every year when they were still in the green, and I would find them buried in the leaf and compost heaps.
Behind the blue of brunnera in spring, later the honey scented cow parsley would film the little path with white.  Tall spikes of Japanese knotweed, a relic of the old garden, would be cut down, but it never became aggressive.


the old garden


Rosa Mundi  rose, loved  by bees to...
                                          

5 comments:

  1. What pretty gardens you have created, and left for others to enjoy. I love the prospect of flowers to come, although my Rosa mundi has finally gone to that rose garden in the sky as it is just too wet for her here. The ramblers love it, but they are the only ones. All other roses struggle.

    I wanted to pop in and say a BIG thank you for the loan of the McFarlane book. I am now going to race home and start reading it and tea tonight may be a very scratch affair because of this! Look forward to seeing you in March and being able to hand it back personally.

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  2. Hi Jennie, Glad you got the book, know I scrawl untidily but we are not coming up in March, though I wish we were. Keep it till we DO come up X

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  3. That's interesting, I have a camellia exactly like that.

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  4. How lovely to see some flowers in this depressing time of year. I'm a huge fan of the white foxglove and with my dry shade, they are pretty successful, unlike most other things!

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  5. Hi Kath and Em, glad you like the flower photos, we need to plant as many flowers as possible of course, even the moths are becoming rare now.
    White nicotiana and evening primrose comes to mind ;)

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