Shooting stars.

On Thursday, 12th August we had just gone to bed when we realised that tonight was the night - so we hopped out of bed again. Yes, it was reckoned to be the best night to see shooting stars. Having got to the ripe old age of forty six without ever having witnessed this sight it seemed to good a chance to miss. Admittedly, I was loath to go outside at 10.45pm in just my dressing gown but Luke was insistent and I didn't want to look like a killjoy so off we trundled to the back garden.
What an eyeopener it was; I'm always harping on about how much I enjoy the garden and surrounding area but to view it at night was just as lovely. The sky was very clear and though it was late it was still easy to make out the clouds and all the bright stars. In a way this was the problem because I always seemed to be scanning the wrong part of the sky when a shooting star would rush to it's demise. I'd be alerted to one, just as it's died by Luke gasping or saying, "There's one". How irritating to be always just missing it. I was sure I was going to have to go another 46 years before I saw one when, Whoosh, unbelievably a little blur of light raced and crackled along before disappearing into the sky a second later. Hooray. I'd seen one, my very first ever shooting star! How exciting!
For forty minutes we craned our necks and scanned the skies before notching up three sightings for me and seven for Luke. It reminded me of being a child before Christmas when I was caught up in the wonder of it all and sensed magic in the air. I just felt infinitesimally small under the huge and ancient universe. How much fun it would have been to see Father Christmas glide across the skies in a sledge pulled by reindeer! Nature is a wonderful thing, isn't it?

Border country

Although my Friday 13th August ended with us waiting at Luke's workplace for over two hours for an engineer to fix the alarm the rest of the day was delightful. After another trip to the garden centre (well it was payday & luckily the chap who saw me yesterday, see my last post, was off) I came away £71 poorer but a whole lot happier. I tussle all the time with saving or spending because when you have such lovely plants to view it brightens your spirit endlessly.
So, I arrived home armed with my Spring bulbs (can you believe it, Spring planting already?) and some shorter Verbenas in the same strong purple as yesterday's leggy ones. TO sit in amongst them, for a shock of colour, I bought some great orange flowers. One was a Rudbekia Tiger Golden Eye but for the life of me I can't remember what the other is called now and as they are currently outside where it's bucketing it down I'm not risking a soaking to find out. I also got an evergreen Euphorbia, Tasmania Tiger. I love getting evergreens because when the garden is in full flower you can forget how sparse it can look in the wintertime and if I incorporate evergreens into my planting scheme now they will sit happily in the garden once the perennials have died back.
So, with my purchases safely on the decking I photographed the space I was going to work on (this is something I love to do because the contrast between before and after photographs is always amazing to look at, I'd recommend it, particularly if you have a lot of hard work ahead of you as it's quite inspiring to see how far you have come when your enthusiasm is waning).



Once photographed I unravelled the hose and used it to mark my cutting edge. It's good to have a visual before you start digging as it doesn't always look how you hope it will so some tweaking with the hose can make for a more pleasing shape. I ended up with a bigger curve to my pastel border which I'd half expected anyway as I've positively crammed it to withing an inch of it's life for first year interest. I then surprised myself with a big sweeping curve around the base of the acer (which is about twenty feet tall). I've already put a climbing rose at the foot of this tree and checked yesterday with the garden centre man to see if I should change the climber I have in there to a rambler which would more happily wind it's way up. I hadn't bought a rambler simply because they didn't have any when I first went to purchase my roses but now they have a couple in. Ramblers clamour in a much looser way than climbers which seem to prefer straighter climbs (is it because their stems are more rigid?) The garden centre man told me that as long as I tied the young growth in it would be fine and though I still believe a rambler is better suited there I prefer the flower of my climber so I swill leave that there.
As I type this, a few minutes before 7 in the morning, I can hear the mew mew mew of the young buzzard in the field behind us. I am always entranced by the sight of the buzzards high, high above my head and without fail have to stop and gaze at them when they are out. They look so graceful, wings outstretched, heads immobile and just their wing tips dipping and adjusting before they move off elsewhere; I love them. However, having just hear two gunshots the mewing has changed to a much more shrill cry and I'm hoping that there's no foul play. I shall be relieved to see both parent and young in the sky to put my mind at rest.











This change in cry did result in me going outside to see if I could see them and thought there was nothing in the sky I did find out which other orange plant I bought yesterday, Gaillaird 'Orange Sunburst'. I got it cheap so there are only a few flowers on it and it's more round-petalled than the usual Gailliards.
Digression over, back to the border; I'm hoping to put in some ground cover to soften the edge of the rose and then, from there to the greenhouse I will put in my orange and purple plants. This stretch is hidden from the conservatory so will be a surprise when viewed from the dining room. Hidden gardens are so much fun but our overall garden shceme doesn't allow for one as it would mean cutting more into the space and visually shortening the garden which isn't something I want to do so we'll make do with this for now. Gardens evolve continually so possibly we will have a hidden garden one day.
This last stretch isn't going to be much fun as it's a mass of sand of roots. The well established shrubs which form the boundary between gardens have created a web of roots with little chance for anything else to grow. As I cut the shrubs hard back when we first moved in they are pretty bare on our side and not the most attractive of shrubs so I'm going to hack into this sandy ground and will have to add some decent compost to enrich the depleted soil. Next will come the bulb planting as I like the idea of an almost woodland feel in the Spring, with lots of bulbs popping up to announce the arrival of warmer times ahead. The trick here is to plant lots, you really can't have too many. However, I am mean and so have limited myself to about fifty bulbs all told. Some of them will naturalise and spread but this will take time. I just can't shake off my meanness and buy more even though I know I will be please once they are up. Maybe a separate trip to a garden centre will trick me into thinking I haven't spent so much.






Once my groundwork is done I can have the joy of planting up my new purchases and will then have an instant border to enjoy for a month or two. Hard work ahead but tomorrow promises to be sunny and a day in the garden is such a rewarding choice.







Sunday, 15th August saw a new border being created. It's a colourful contrasting scheme with white, orange and purple dominating.
I've got height with the leggy Verbena bonariensis, a metre high, which are in the far corner along with an Euphorbia from my last garden for evergreen interest. Infront of these I have planted another Echinacea White Swan (it's rather late to be planting this beauty but I've got one that is still in it's early stages) - it is directly opposite the other Echinacea in the black and white border and rather than making the garden look smaller it links the corners together. Next I planted 20 Ballerina tulips, a bright orange for Springtime colour and finished this corner by adding home grown Salvia Paten's Blue and Salvia Strata with a couple of violas in deep velvety purple.








A closer photo to show the girls enjoying it too.

A wake up call.

Well, what's a girl to do - an afternoon off, good weather and payday less than a day away? A no-brainer really and before I had chance to get stuck into mundane housework I found myself in the garden centre. Bit of a shock then when the member of staff I passed called out, "Blimey, you're here more than I am".
I found two great tall verbenas which were reduced to two pounds a piece (they had many broken stems but wait till next year) and a handy Alchemellia mollis for one pound. I toyed with the idea of two more roses for the front but denied myself (there is still the mortgage to pay) but got myself a white anemone to replace the pink one which I'll dig up and replant in the pastel border.
Just as I typed this up I looked out to see a big nuthatch on the peanuts - of course by the time I raced upstairs to get the camera for you it had flown off. I'll bide my time and get it sometime, never fear.

"Oh, Cinderelly!"

How sweet is this? I came home mid afternoon. The sun was shining, the garden glowing in a lovely mid summer light and, as I came out onto the deck, it was like a scene from a Disney film. This myriad blue and great tits swooped and dived their way across the lawn to their hideaway. The air seemed thick with these little chartreuse breasted birds. I wanted to grab a length of silk ribbon and twirl around humming Cinderella's little tune with them.

Another rogue in the border.

I've been waiting all summer for the Japanese Anemone to burst forth with a lovely display flower. Although to me they signify late summer and the promise of winter I still get a buzz from these delicate blooms, heads held high, nodding in the breeze on long, sturdy ballerina legged stems.
I even brought this tiny clump with me from the last garden where I had a mass of them in the courtyard garden. A group of them looks lovely but I didn't want to disturb them all so I just dug up one tiny clump and now it has come to fruition in the black and white border.
Whilst the leaves have been showing for months I have waited somewhat impatiently for the flowers to emerge and now they have. And they're pink!! Nothing wrong with that if only they had been in the other border! I think what has happened is that my dug up bit must have died and what is growing now is a plant gift from one of the old ladies who comes into my library. Celia did dig me up some of her anemones but it was the wrong time of year and I potted them up and just forgot about them. This is the one that must have survived only to be planted in the wrong place by yours truly.
Never mind, I quite like it when the garden throws me up a surprise, it keeps me from ever imagining I could master it.

A weekend away.

Although I was working on Saturday I couldn't resist the chance to meet up with my Auntie and Uncle who were staying at Mum's house. So once Luke had collected me from work we had a quick cup of tea at home and I spent a happy twenty minutes just sitting in the steamer with the chickens around me whilst Luke had a shower. To be able to sit back and enjoy the garden you have created is a lovely thing and sadly often overlooked. One of the sunflowers had gone on a real lean to one side so we staked it to a cane before we left.
What a lovely weekend, family, great food and wine (as always, my Mum is an excellent hostess) and really nice catch up. Once the others had left Mum walked Luke and me around her gardens. That's always an inspiration. She loaded us up with freshly picked ruby coloured tomatoes, just-dug beetroot and some poppy heads, loaded with seed. They are like little maracas. Gardeners are great for sharing their harvest. Thanks, Mum.
These are some of the visitors Luke photographed whilst the rest of us nattered on!