Garden Makeover

Those of you who are gardener’s know that you must have patience when planing a garden.. You also have to have vision.. For you have to wait not one, but maybe many years for your ideas to grow as your plants take years to fill out your garden. 

Coming back from the Chatsworth Flower Show at the beginning of June, we were both inspired to tidy up our back garden. Over the years it has undergone several changes, but I had also mainly planted up annuals in our back boarders. Bulbs and wallflower for spring.. And often got neglected when we were both working full time. 

I wanted more of a  herbaceous border  so that it will take less maintenance. Even though I do not class myself as passed it just yet 🙄 Kneeling and bending up and down take their toll, So again like the flower beds you have to plan ahead. 👵

First things first.. Here is the old photo showing you the decking.. I planted bamboo and some privet in  front of the green house as I eventually wanted to screen the green house from the rest of the garden.. We had planted two conifers too, which we wanted to grow as an archway.  This takes time and patience..

So an old photo of what the garden once upon a time long ago, it looked like this. Picture was taken in 2010 Below I wish I could find one in the 80’s when we moved in. It was very overgrown. No lawn as such, and I replanted the whole lawn then by sewing seed and walking up and down on it to flatten it out.. 

Now we both got carried away with our project that I forgot to take the before photos, As my husband dismantled the decking one day while I was resting. But I found some old photo’s out so you can see what we did.. 

Here you can clearly see the decking, but it eventually got worn, slippy and not safe to walk upon. so it was used to put pots on for years, rather than sit on. You can clearly see we used decking too on the right side to hold the deeper raised bed of earth we had planted.

This Photo above was taken in 2013  you can now see how the arch is forming, and the Buddleia to  back of the decking is growing, and the bamboo are starting to screen the greenhouse, the privet is seen between the arch on the left.. 

Taken April 2017, you see the decking is now out, wallflower are out at the bottom  left where the decking was,and I have re-seeded with grass to make a curve where the square decking was. The Grass which is longer and not showing the hail stones as much. ( as this photo taken in a five-minute hail storm we had)

This has been in stages as the decking came out in the autumn of last year I then planted wall flowers in the space and grass seeded down part where the decking had been as I wanted to extend the lawn in a curve shape to the archway.

The above photo was taken in May, I had cut out the border in a more wavy pattern and stared to plant up the corner where the decking had been, we moved the bird bath and I put my fairy house at the bottom of my garden, where all good fairies now  live 🙂 Sorry this picture is not so sharp and clear. 

The next steps I wanted a more defined border, one where the lawn strimmer would not take the heads off my flowers 😉 lol  So this is the next stage. 

Then we concentrated on the right side of the garden

Now you see the effect from the first photo to the this one I wanted.. It only took  Seven Years to grow to this stage lol.. But it separates the garden from the greenhouse and our outside cold frames. and three dustbins we have for recycling. One for paper, tin and plastic, one for household waste, and the other for garden waste.. Which is not all that much as much of it gets composted in the allotments. 

Here you can see we used larger slats of wood on the right for the raised bed, and continued the theme with the smaller ones to encase the water features.

Now  a few more years of waiting as these plants grow and fill out the boarders

Now for a closer look  click each to get a larger view. 

Boarder in June

From the archway, looking up from the greenhouse

Hollyhocks coming into flower

Clematis and Hollyhocks

looking down from the swing and the fish pond

The fish pond, hubby made years ago, building up from brickwork taken from a 70’s fireplace that we took out.

Another Bird Bath and water feature

These were all grown from cuttings I posted the other year. Now look at them.

My peaceful corner..

Hydrangea Blooms

Hydrangea Blooms

And these are natures little gifts, Self set Lobelia that dropped as seeds from our hanging baskets last year.. I left them to grow.

And of course, we had to have some fairy lights.. Hope you enjoyed.. as much as we did tidying it all up 

 

Happy Gardening

~Sue~ 

Next time more blooms from Chatsworth.

RHS Chatsworth Flower Show visit-part 1

Where do I begin to tell you the wonderful day we had visiting our old haunt of Chatsworth House. This wonderful house is only a couple of miles from where I and my husband grew up.. In fact my husband when he was a young lad, his Dad rented a small holding  on the Chatsworth Estate. He grew up with hens and geese, home made bread, home made butter, and would walk from the young age of 5 the 4 miles it took to get to his school and the 4 miles back with older sisters.  

We often visit Chatsworth grounds to walk and Hike and if any one in the UK wants a wonderful day out, I can fully recommend their house and gardens as a well worth while visit here in the UK. 

So the day was good to us, as the previous day had been windy and raining and in fact the day after our ticketed visit it too was raining.. So the Universe was smiling on us, for we only had one light shower.. 

I have lots of photo’s that I took and so in-between my gardening posts I will add a few more posts throughout the Summer of the wonderful gardens and flowers that were on show

So today I will show you what we saw as we entered the show ground, this is only a portion of the pictures I took, but you will get the feel of it as I try to choose the best out of my collection to share for you here. 

Bugs and Bees are so important

So in the header you will see the crowds as we awaited to go through the gates and security.. We were early birds so very near the front of the cue.. Hundreds were behind us.  Click on the photo’s to enlarge. 

This one looked like Big Ben

 

These give you great ideas how to create your own bug houses in your gardens

Pallets here were used to create a bug house

The first on show were The Bug House Competition. These were created by School children from the surrounding counties. The public were asked to decide the winner by placing a plastic disc in their preferred Bug house, the discs would be counted at the end of the show. 

Next were the Well Dressings for those not familiar with what a well dressing is click the first link and it will explain more. 

These wells are made entirely out of flower petals seeds, bark and leaves etc.. And when I was a child I would help by collecting flowers and also be allowed to help fill in the boarders..

By Clicking the Well Dressing Link you can see more about this tradition which is to celebrate the gift of wells and water

Joseph Paxton journey started out as a student at the Horticultural Society where he first experimented in gardens in Chiswick. He then arrived at Chatsworth House in 1826 as under-gardener. Who would think that almost every Banana grown in the western world today would have been the result of one mans quest to grow bananas to grace the table of the Sixth Duke of Devonshire. To see how that came about click the link HERE

 

There was a new category in the gardens this year, and that was Freeform. These encouraged Freedom of expression,celebrating the connection between plants, sculpture art and people.

So this first one may amuse you. 

Another more serious Free form garden is this one..  The Brewin Dolphin Garden. This garden combines reinforced steel rods with naturalistic planting.. So what you see looking like a meadow, each was planted to make it look like a natural setting..

The Brewin Dolphin Garden Designer Jo Tompson She has won 3 Gold medals and 5 Silver Guilt at RHS Chelsea Flower Show.

I hope this has whetted your appetite for future parts to the Flower Show,  not to mention the wonderful blooms like  the ones I will leave you with. Next time some Gold Winners..  

Happy Gardening

~Sue~

 

Summer Delights

Well my gardening friends, where oh where is June flying too. Already we are past the Summer Solstice and nearly upon Mid-Summers Day here in the UK.  So I thought it about time I popped my head up out of my garden and showed you how all things are growing. 

I have lots of photo’s to share, and also lots to tell you about our RHS Chatsworth Flower Show visit too on the 9th of June.. I took so many photo’s there, I was in my seventh Heaven, as I ooh and arrghed over the wonderful blooms and creative gardens on display.. But those I will share next time..  This inspired us to do a make over on our own back garden, which is why I have not had a lot of time for blog land visits .. 

Many thanks for your patience and I hope all you budding gardeners are busy now reaping your hard labours as you see the fruits of your labours maturing before your eyes. 

Welcome also to any new followers..   I have so many new followers now on both my WP sites, I enjoy interactions, so please introduce yourselves, don’t be shy. This is how we share our gardening tips etc. 

So I will show you how things are looking mid June on our Plot and the pictures will tell their own stories. So sit back, feet up, and give your own aching backs a bit of rest.  As I share what is happening on the plot right now. 

A view from the top of our allotments down to the sheds. I allowed the poppies to grow along the boarder and have in the middle one lovely pink pompom poppy.. I will be taking seeds from this little Gem that Mother Nature has gifted my garden.

Pea Row and the beetroots in front with potatoes. We have had several broccoli and several purple cauliflowers and some Orange ones, I forgot to take pictures but they were delicious 🙂

We have several Courgettes now starting to produce.. Some of you call these by another name Zucchini

Courgettes..

These Peas were from bought seeds and I have had my first crop off of them this week

Pumpkins at the back of the sheds, These are for Halloween 🙂

The sweetcorn is to the top left and is about 2ft high now, and in the middle is the Butternut Squash and new peas from saved dried peas from last years crop all which came through. To the right upper corner these are the potato crop.. We have had several meals from the new potatoes and they have been gorgeous .

These are the tomatoes in the allotment greenhouse.. It was a hundred degreesF in there the other day the thermometer was about to pop.. My hubby took a pain of the glass out of the door to replace with wire mesh to allow for more air in there.

Towards the back of the sheds where the pumpkins are are our Blackberries These are a giant variety and the bees are all over the flowers right now. 
Speaking of Bees, We have a nest of them between our sheds, we are very happy they have chosen to nest there. And are no problem. So long as you know their flight path lol

I have also had loads and I mean loads of Redcurrants this year, so I have been busy freezing these.. They are really sweet this year, but you must make sure you pick the ripe ones if you can, as the unripened ones can be sour. ..  So what I do is pick from the bush the ones with most ripe fruit on first.. Then sort through them.

They can be fiddly.. So after picking from the bush on long stalks, I painstakingly pick off each one of the ripe ones and make sure the little stalk is taken off.  Which is difficult seeing as they all ripen at different stages on the same stalk..

I then leave the unripe ones in the widow sill and before long they too turn and ripen..Then repeat the process with them. 

Redcurrants prepared for freezing

I hope you are all having a wonderful Summer.. As record temperatures for 40 years here in the UK soar up and up.. While the humid hot nights are not good for sleeping, if you manage to keep your gardens well watered in the cool of the evenings or early mornings, ( we have been in the allotments as early as 5-30am to beat the Suns heat. )  This is certainly Growing Weather, and a welcome change for Britain’s usual showery cooler summers..

So until next time when I will be sharing some of Chatsworth Show with you. 

Happy Gardening

~Sue~

Rainbow Light Dance. Within the Garden of Love

These are some of my home garden flowers along with a muse of my thoughts
I am very excited this week, as I go to the RHS Chatsworth Flower Show you can google to look it up..
So next week I hope to bring you many wonderful photo’s of gardens that I have seen created.. In the mean time. Happy Gardening.
And take some time out in the Sun to relax and enjoy your own gardens filled with the love you have poured into them..
Love and Blessings
Sue ❤

Dreamwalker's Sanctuary

View from my swing

Silence becomes my friend as I sit in the dappled light upon my swinging seat. Rocking back and forth as I lift my feet from the ground, I become lighter than air.

Lulled in the rhythm, like a babe in arms, I’m content. A smile spreads across my lips as my ‘Knowing’ unfolds the deep mysteries of my existence.

Flower of the climbing hydrangea

Lifetimes are stripped back,  like the darkness, they disappear, as the Sun makes her appearance over the horizon as the New Dawn Awakes.

Each struggle, every action, and every choice ever made has brought me to this moment

of who I AM.

The Sun catches my face sending its warmth across my skin. I see it glow beneath closed lids. My smiles grow wider as I welcome my old friend.

As if in answer, the breeze lifts, and the chimes sing their…

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