I've nearly finished the last curtain now - just need to add the (full) tab for hanging it. I've enjoyed making these as they haven't gone catastrophically wrong at every turn! Now I am tasked with making a little Barbie-doll quilt for "I". That shouldn't take too long anyway.
Whilst D, E and I were watching "Fallout" last night, I gave E my gardening magazine to look at and she noticed a little piece about Moors Meadow Garden at Bromyard. We've decided us girls (Tam included) will go there in May for my late birthday day out. LINK HERE.
Meanwhile, they have been to the garden centre (Midway Plants at Penybont) and bought lots of herbs, veg and a fabulous pinky-purple Azalea, plus a tame Blackberry, so they have been busy getting these in the ground. Emma knows very little about gardening, Danny nothing, but I am on hand to advise. I've given over the three raised beds which were full of Golden Marjoram and brambles, and they've put herbs in one, and others are for the veg they bought, suitably pepped up with some farmyard manure. (Peas, Cauliflower, Spring Onions, Beetroot and Rocket for starters.)
Then I decided I needed some plant therapy, and went there myself yesterday. Compost and FYM came home with me, with a red Lupin, a Delphinium (can't have too many really) and a new to me rose. Not a David Austin, but it was a better price at £12 and is called Let's Celebrate and has flowers of purple/mauve/silver/white which sound pretty. The link shows how pretty the flower is.
Over the winter, the 14 loose sheep made mincemeat of the ivy end of the hedge out the front and there were just twisted ropes of 20 year old bare ivy stems, so I set to and cut them back to the wall, and the remains of an old strip once planted showed up. I need to dig that over (lots more young ivy running through the soil) and plant it - the rose for starters. Plus other plants perhaps not attractive to sheep!!
Enjoy your weekend which is looming.
Ivy is useful for insect and bird food and shelter..but you can have too much of it!!
ReplyDeleteI am looking forward to seeing off more of my UFOs....too busy yet
It’s been so cold here I haven’t properly gardened for days, instead I have been decorating our study. I took my time and did it over five days and yesterday we started moving the furniture back and today we may hang pictures and next week I have the local furnishing shop coming round to talk blinds. The window is 240cm wide and south facing and for now I’m stumped! Although yesterday I made a new cover for the office chair seat cushion (a 1920s oak chair that revolves and tilts and was my present to S for his 40th birthday) from a leftover piece of 12oz organic cotton twill in a lovely deep tan colour. I even gave it a little bit of Sashiko embroidery in rust thread along the envelope edge - keeping it subtle! A week or two back I direct sowed in short rows chard, perpetual spinach, beetroot and rocket but I also took the precaution of sowing these indoors too. The indoor seedlings are all through, but no sign of anything happening outside. I go down to the veg plot every day as I’m harvesting asparagus, rhubarb (shortish spears and stalks as it’s so cold) as well as the last knockings of last year’s perpetual spinach and chard and tender summer-sown and autumn planted leeks. I’ve had to pot on the tomatoes again as they are getting leggy indoors and should do the same for the chillies and sweet peppers. Thank goodness I have not sown anything else tender yet. I am ready to go with courgettes, French beans and sweet corn maybe next week but will wait until at least mid-May before sowing squash and borlotti beans. The pergola is very quiet and green apart from the three big lilacs which are in heady flower but the apple blossom, bluebells, cow parsley, white Pulmonaria, brunnera, Solomon’s seal, cowslips, comfrey and tiarella are all looking happy and are abuzzz with bees and insects. But the piece de resistance is the meadow which gets better everyday. Already it is threaded through with colour from dandelions (more silvery spherical seedheads than flowers now which attract dozens of goldfinches to feed on the seeds), celandine, swathes of daisies, speedwell which gives a haze of blue, cuckoo flower, lesser and greater stitchwort, the teeniest violas as well as violets, even the odd bluebell. And in the understory is the distinctive fresh green finely serrated leaf of yellow rattle and the silvery starfish leaves of bee orchid. I love my meadow and apart from sowing 100g of yellow rattle seed in September 2018 I have done nothing apart from mow it as short as possible at the end of every August removing every scrap of arisings. It gets another less short cut around the end of September and a topping end of March, but otherwise is left alone. I reckon about 12 hours of mowing each year with our eGo solar-powered battery mower for the half acre meadow but the rewards are immeasurable. Aren’t we lucky to have gardens and home interests that feed our bodies and souls. Best of luck with everything BB. Am often thinking of you. Sarah x
ReplyDeleteGlad the curtain is progressing :) We went to Moors Meadow Garden last year on a NGS Open Day - it was lovely there. We also went to Lower House Farm for a similar event. It isn't far from Moors Meadow and, although small, was lovely too. Enjoy your birthday visit to the former :)
ReplyDeleteWe don't have much in the way of decent nurseries here but I'm heading to Cae Hir for their annual plant fair on the May Bank Holiday when there will be nurseries from all over Ceredigion.
ReplyDeleteTook me FOREVER to figure out what a UFO is! Lol!
ReplyDeleteI have ivy on the back fence but do try and keep it manageable as the birds use it to hide in. We are off house hunting AGAIN tomorrow, having seen nothing we like so far, we are both open minded but decided a 2 bedroom bungalow was a downsize too far. Been very lucky as the house has only been on the market for 9 days and sold to our first viewers. Hoping to move to Belper to be nearer to daughter. Have a great weekend. Xx
ReplyDeleteGlad that there are lots of veggies and herbs being planted. Hopefully you can get the ivy growing again. That rose is beautiful.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.