Category: Gardening

Curiouser and curiouser – USA-style

So a fella goes to Wal-Mart to buy some mulch for his legal marijuana plants. Nothing unusual so far, eh? He goes to brush a stick out of the way and ouch! It’s just a small but not-so-inoffensive rattle-snake. He survived, the shopper that is.

Sometimes it’s not SO boring living in Vikingland!

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/05/15/oukoe-uk-usa-walmart-rattlesnake-idUKBRE84E02N20120515

Forget-me-not

“Oh, no!” said Cyclo, “I’ve found a packet of seeds. Forget-me-nots. Have you forgotten to plant them?”

Haha!
The seeds were from the Alzheimer Disease Society: a freebee. A nice idea, but I didn’t need them.

My garden is full of Forget-me-nots which flower freely Continue reading “Forget-me-not”

April – a busy month

This month I have mainly been working (the paid variety) managing those about to take GCSE and A levels, gardening and trying to keep up with the challenge of writing a poem a day, among other things…. there’s a major garden project going on and normal life to keep up with…. a woman’s work is never done.

The blossoms are suffering from  the heavy rains and high winds….

Wet, windy weather
clusters of blossom blown down –
fragile button-holes

girls in dancing clothes
pick up the battered blossoms
to put in their hair

the cat, exhausted
from chasing whirlwind petals
lazily stretches

For the National Poetry Writing Month, NaPoWriMo, which you can find here

 

Now I see the photo competition is ‘growing’ I shall be getting the camera out in the next few days, given that we get some good light…..

The cherry blossom

It may not last long, especially as the weather will be cold and there’s a fair wind, but the cherry blossom is looking wonderful. This evening as the sun went down it looked beautiful against the yew hedge, with the sun shining through it.

I grew up about 80 miles north of here and the cherry blossom in our garden used always to be out for my brother’s birthday in early May… are we really a few weeks ahead these days?

A Grand Day Out

Cold and wet with a blustery wind: that’s what we woke to this morning. The forecast did not suggest any improvement for the rest of the day.
After that lovely spell of hot Spring weather a week or so ago, we have returned to normal Easter Bank Holiday weather, here in Oxfordshire.

What to do?
With two boys disinclined to join in (understandably as both have major exams in the coming Summer term, and both need to revise) we three adults, Cyclomaniac, his mother (Milly) and me, decided to visit a National Trust property.

We are members of The National Trust and as such pay an annual fee and receive in return a regular newsletter, a handbook and free entry to many properties around the UK. Some of them quite spectacular.

Today’s trip was to Claydon House in Buckinghamshire, only about a half an hours drive away. The house is managed by the National Trust, but the gardens, grounds and other aspects are still in the hands of the Verney family, who live in a wing of the house.

After wandering around the outbuildings where we found arty shops and galleries, plus the cafe for a quick lunch we considered the garden tour, but given the biting wind and the earliness of the season, we decided to come back to investigate another time. We went next to a small bookshop… second-hand books in a warm snug room, with comfy chairs and several families enjoying the books. It was completely unmanned, and to pay  there was a small posting slot in a door. All done on trust at the National Trust!
We came away with garden books, novels, a hardback copy of AA Milne’s ‘When we were Six’ and spent about £15 in all!

Next the house. Continue reading “A Grand Day Out”

Magnificent morning

Good Friday and no work. No need to get up early. So why did I wake at 6:30 and find it impossible to get back to sleep? Typical.

Anyhoo because of the early morning and the lack of anyone else being up I had an hour of two of solitude and saw the sun side-lighting the magnolia against the backdrop of new silver birch leaves which was something special.

I nipped out in my slippers to snap it and noticed a few degrees of frost… the top of my car was white, across the driveway. However the magnolia seems to have been spared, perhaps in part due to the place I planted it, fairly close to the house, in the more sheltered front garden, rather than in the wind exposed back garden. I noticed several creamy white magnolias with browned flowers as we travelled about the county today.

The early promise of a beautiful day faded to grey skies and a cold wind. Who knows what tomorrow brings?