Back to the garden…

Here’s a lovely painting to start this post! It caught my eye a few days ago. It’s called, ‘The Bird Table’ and it’s by the artist John Lines. I think it’s rather charming. No words needed as the art says it all!

Born in Rugby in 1938, John Lines still lives there. He is an artist who captures nostalgia, romance, humour and beauty of the British countryside as well as British urban life.

Meanwhile, in my garden, its been a busy time …

I’ve been beavering away in this corner.‘Composting’ is the buzzword right now! Last year, I inherited two composters, one really good ‘n sturdy and the other a ‘pain in the you know what’; the reason being that it has no ‘door’ at the bottom…but what I didn’t discover until Friday was….that it had NO BASE either and that something at the bottom of the compost was well rooted into the ground! Thus there was a large mass of nonsense that needed removing…that was fun trying to prize all away!

That done, the area is now lovely and tidy; the ‘pain in the your know what’ has been assigned to the rubbish pile and there’s a lovely space, all ready for… a second composter. I’m really getting into this composting lark! 😁👍🍃

And I almost forgot the best bit! 6+ bucketfuls of gorgeous, lush compost was removed from the ‘good ‘n sturdy’ bin and spread on to my raised bed. There’s nothing like getting your hands in lush compost, especially when it’s home made…so satisfying! My raised bed is going to be re-done and made larger, hopefully soonish, and so I’ve cleared it, just about!

The other thing that I love using is something called ‘Strulch’; it’s a straw mulch; I’ve used it for years and I swear by it!  When we moved here, I left many things behind that I now regret but I did bring my spare bags of Strulch! And on Friday, I used a bag to mulch another area of my garden, above , after planting 15 Primula plants that I’d grown from small plugs plants. I couldn’t find seeds for the varieties I fancied and so I purchased these from Peninsula Primulas and I have to say that too is an excellent company with which to do business. If I find a good company then I like to stick with them…Here they are:

Peninsula Primulas

BTW, during the strulching, I noticed this Jersey Lily had bloomed:

I’m not a lover of Lilies but it is quite pretty.

My favourite garden plant is the old fashioned Foxglove. I’ve grown them from seed this summer and I recently re-potted them. Last autumn, I had a lovely, healthy batch, which I left outside and we had so much rain throughout the autumn that they all eventually rotted. I was gutted! So, here we go again! And it’s so wet here right now that I’ve kept them all inside, along with some Forget- Me-Nots.

And some Comfrey…every garden needs Comfrey!

I do love working here! It’s therapeutic and really gladdens my heart after such a rubbish two years of being unwell.

The alpines have settled into their new abode too. And just to say that in the two pots are two plants called Dodecatheon. They are dormant right now but I expect great things from them in the spring!

Here’s a peek of what they will, hopefully, produce…

And these came from a specialist in Alpine plants, (another excellent company!)

D’arcy and Everest

And finally…in my container pond…

The Marsh Marigold is now in bloom!

All is good in the garden!

I hope that you are all having a good Sunday! 😁