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A bit about the garden!

11 comments


Thank you all so much for your kind welcome to the site, I know I shall enjoy sharing gardening moments, my successes and failures as well as browsing other peoples gardens for ideas.
I will post some photo’s to give an idea of the task ahead, they are taken from the safety of the house, so not that good, due to the heavy rain which has just started – again!
No doubt we will all be complaining later in the year about lack of it, but little and often would be nice.
The garden was really neglected when we came, he wasn’t a gardener (there are people who don’t like gardening) but there had been some nice plants in the distant past. One was a ceanothus which was large, misshapen and woody, which I managed to kill off by too vigorous pruning, so have learnt a lesson there – bit at a time and be patient.
We have two huge bits of grass with the drive boringly running straight down the middle. Have to call it grass, it’s not lawn as it’s full of weeds and huge cracks which we get here in the Fens due to the clay. Most of the grass is earmarked to go, who wants grass to cut when you can have flower and shrub beds?
Lots of ‘in progress’ areas elsewhere too, I tend to work where the sun (what’s that?) isn’t too warm.
The drive was once shingle, now weed but another pending area as we are having building work done soon, so no point in spending money on something that will probably be churned up by the builders.

From the side door looking to the road

Again from the side including a bit of the pond front with my fairy girls!

From the front door looking to the road, one of the peacocks sheltering from the rain under the tree – on my garden of course!

Taken from the bedroom window, peacock trampling the garden, baby rabbit on the right, cute but they grow up and eat even more of the plants!

Another of the peacock and baby rabbit, bad photo as it was through the window.

The first year the wisteria has had a chance to flower since we came about 5 years ago. It grows over the satellite dish and hubby mutilates it, no old wood, no flowers! Sadly the building this is on is coming down for a new extension and no chance of saving the plant, or the two roses which climb over the building either. The colour is a bit pale, he has promised to buy me more so would like something darker next time.

Bit of the back grass, full of buttercups and plantain, but the builders wil probably chew it up anyway!

Boris and Lily, one of his girls. Gracie is sitting on some eggs without much hope of them hatching. All this years and last were infertile, he’s either too old or hasn’t got the hang of it! Lots of nettles here for the insects and caterpillars. Boris and the girls are confined to this area and the meadow further down as they used to roam free, but ate all the plants as they came through and blundered over everything else, so I put my foot down and told hubby they had to be banned from the front garden.

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Comments

 

Hello Boris and Lily:) I just had to say Hello.

I so love your garden and enjoyed your blog very much.

HoneysuckleG

30 May, 2013

 

What a lovely garden ~ so much space! lucky you!
Welcome to GoY!

30 May, 2013

 

You have a lovely garden Honey and some very interesting friends to share with shame about the lack of sunshine but nothing we can do to change that...

30 May, 2013

 

Welcome ...
You have a pretty garden and it will be fascinating to see the changes ...
I hope the builders don't churn up too much ! ;o)

30 May, 2013

 

Hi, I think your garden looks great as it is, but it's always nice to have projects in mind. I like changing my garden regularly as I am always seeing new ideas that I want to try. I look forward to seeing the changes you make. I love all the wild life you have, but that's coming from a city gardener who doesn't have any prblems with rabbits!

30 May, 2013

 

Thank you to you all who said the garden looked good, it does from a distance, but there's lots of bad bits too. We get over-run with weeds as I am quite fond of them and know their value to the insects, so they get left to do their thing. Meanwhile the good intention of removing them after they have flowered and before they seed goes past and the old saying "one years seed is seven years weed" proves to be true probably. All the dead nettles got left earlier as there was so little flowering and the bees do love them so, then of course it's three times the trouble to get rid of them. Working my way through them now, but just as you heap the barrow along comes a bumblebee looking for the patch of flowering nettles he knew was there. While weeding the top hedge bit last week I uncovered a solitary bees nest, so had to cover it up again and leave the weeds round it. We have loads of ground nesting bees and they always appear just as you have removed the weed/grass stalk or whatever they use as a navigation and they are buzzing round looking for the exact spot. How can I spend my gardening day feeling guilty about disturbing some insect or other? When I discover a caterpillar when removing the nettles, do I leave it for the blue-tits to find for her babies or carefully move it to a patch of nettles that aren't being pulled up yet? So many dilemmas! Do I want to help the blue-tit who is frantically searching for food and zipping backwards and forwards or hope the caterpillar is a pretty butterfly or moth?

30 May, 2013

taz
Taz
 

welcome, your garden looks great, I would be quite happy to share my garden with some of your lovely animal friends, We have squirrels and hedgehogs and although the squirrels dig in my pots and dig up some bulbs we love to see them, we try to encourage as much wild life as possible, (lots of bird feeders).and I Know what you mean with the caterpillar, when I am in the garden weeding the blackbirds are following me around hoping I am going to reveal some tasty morsel for them,

31 May, 2013

 

Welcome from me too :o) Sorry I missed your first blog, but I haven't been on here since last week.
Your garden looks very interesting :o)

31 May, 2013

 

Thanks Hywel for your welcome and to everyone else I didn't personally name. Thanks too to Taz for being understanding about my mania about disturbing things while gardening. We have a couple of squirrels now, had one which used to visit only occassionally (too many letters there somewhere I think!) but now we have two who seem to be here every day. Don't know where they live, possibly in one of the beech trees, as long as it's not in the roof it's probably OK. The moorhen won't approve as she nests in the beech tree and her poor newly hatched off-spring have to bounce down the branches onto the woodshed roof and then down onto the ground, no wonder she doesn't always raise them. We have a raised pond which is pretty useless for the frogs so hope to at least put a small 'puddle' in the garden for the birds to drink and bathe and perhaps encourage the frogs or toads which I hear calling at night.
We have no cats, except a stray which I would like to catch and rehome, but she's much too fly for that. The previous owners had cats and we had almost no birds here when we came, but since they have gone we get loads. Bluetits, great tits, moorhens, the sparrows are back thank goodness, jackdaws, magpies, rooks, crows and the like, collared doves, wrens, robins, blackbirds, greenfinches and visits from both green and pied woodpeckers and well as long-tailed tits and chaffinches and of course too many pidgeons!
See! I've rambled on again, give me a keyboard and I'm away!

31 May, 2013

 

Ramble as much as you like :o) It's nice to be friendly :o)

1 Jun, 2013

 

Hello Honeysuckle, just thought I would have a look at your blogs , so went back to the one with the garden ( of course!) Its lovely ! And I love Boris and Lily !

4 Mar, 2018

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