An Ode to Spring II

My main aim in the garden this year is to increase the number of flowering, fruiting and edible plants.

While last year involved a lot of clearing, this year I hope to plant more.  It's wonderful to sit here and look down the garden at an expanse of lush vibrant green.  Until last year your gaze would have been arrested by an ominous wall of dark, deep green conifers, which we have taken out.  We cut down a lot of trees, so this year we are planning on planting new ones and have also put up bird boxes and feeders.  I've planted a walnut tree at the end of the chicken run to replace two large conifers that were shielding us from our neighbour's view at the side of the garden.  

I've tied in the young apple trees I planted last year and am excitedly waiting to see them blossom.  James Grieve looks to have lost its' lead shoot, which is a little worrying, but there are 2 other healthy looking verticles, one of which I guess will have to take over.  

In the hexagonal greenhouse the fig and olive trees have made it through the winter and are starting to wake up.  And above is a picture of the cutting taken from the grape vine in our old garden, which is sending out new leaves and shoots. My Mother's Day gift this year was a quince tree, it is presently in the greenhouse, I've not decided where to plant it yet.  

We have managed to erect the frame of our other greenhouse on the veggie patch.  Just the glass to put in now and then it too can be used to propagate new life.  There are 3 more raised beds to finish building on the veggie patch.  In one that I constructed last year are autumn planted onions and garlic that seem to be surviving the chicken's attentions at the moment.  I guess the chicken's will have to be confined to their run once seed sewing starts in ernest, otherwise they will just be digging everything up as quickly as I can put it in.

Little geranium plugs in the greenhouse

In the hexagonal greenhouse I've sewn nasturtiums, tomatoes, chilli and cavalo nero seeds.  36 classic red geranium plug plants will soon be joined by some Geranium Appleblossom Rosebud, which look gorgeous in the catalogue.  I've two Viburnum shrubs waiting to go out, and cuttings from lavender, curry plants and a few other shrubs from my mother-in-law's garden.  

Meanwhile, potatoes are chitting on top of the quail brooder.

Of our quail; Amber and Sleepy are thriving, Squeeky Cheese remains much smaller and we are hoping this is because Squeeky is a male.  In Japanese Quail they tend to be smaller than the females.

0

A Spring Walk in White

With the children back at school after Easter Holidays the dogs and I have returned to our walks across the fields at the back of the house each morning.  When the Little Foxes are around we tend to head down to the lakes where there are path's suitable for their bikes.

Today's walk was so beautiful I wanted to capture it on film and share it with you.  It was all about the fresh Spring whites and greens of new growth.  The smells and sounds of Spring and the promise of summer sunshine.  So, so beautiful. And with new and exciting changes hovering on the horizon of my and my family's life this year it seemed like a promise of good things to come.

The first elderflowers of the year...

the white flowers on the "dead nettles"...

my May-time favourites, the flowers of the hawthorn bushes...

the white flowers on the broad beans the farmer has planted in the fields...

blossom on the crab apple trees.

And finally in my garden the white lilac is flowering beautifully.  We had been threatening to cut it down as it has had so few flowers on it in previous years, but this year is the best ever:

0

Happy First Day of Spring

Springtime egg box flower wreath - instructions to follow

And it's finally starting to feel like it too. xxx

0

How does your garden grow?

We live in an old house.  Just as our home tells the stories of the people that have lived here before us, so too does our garden. 

When we moved into our house the garden was a bit of a mess.  The previous owners had obviously stopped caring for it, at least during the long process of selling.  When they left they decided to have a big bonfire on the small lawn, take up the patio and dig up some large plants that they wanted in the garden of their new home.

In the garden that remained there was also clearly still the mark of the owner previous to them.  A man called John, who owned two Rottweilers, who is at least a generation older than us, an avid gardener, with quite a traditional English tastes in gardening.  My neighbour, Jean, who is in her 70's, often bemoaned the ‘lovely’ garden John had left behind.  She also told me about the Rottweilers who are apparently buried under some rose bushes.  John loved roses, had a veggie patch at the back and liked privet and little brick walls.  I know the latter not from Jean but from what my garden has revealed over the years.  

Jean’s garden is how I imagine mine used to look.  Boarders along each side packed with perennial shrubs and every flower of every colour she can fit.  A lot of hard landscaping, including a few 'interesting' statues and perfectly clipped lawn.  

I have two red rose bushes; a rambling rose and stately hybrid tea rose (I think) that marks the Rottweilers' resting spot.  Two white rose bushes; a climber (above) that we have not quite persuaded to take flight over the pergola and another hybrid tea rose (I think) with a dusky pink centre that is highly perfumed(below).

When we first moved in I was not a massive fan of roses, mostly because I am a little intimidated by them.  There seemed to be a lot you have to do to look after them.  I didn’t want to remove them straight away, mostly because I was a little scared of finding the Rottweiler skeletons.  But they were very thorny and I had an unsteady toddler.  They were also rather leggy, covered in black spot, whitefly and with very few flowers the first year.  But, with a little pruning and feeding they have worked their magic on me.  This year the white ones have just started to bloom and they have already made me glad I kept them.

And what I can’t show you is the beautiful smell; cut roses do not have it; rose water and eau de cologne doesn't capture it either.  But a bit of rain, a warmish evening and you understand why they are the flower of love.  The smell is so wonderful.  

So, thank you John for our roses, aren't they beautiful?

I took all these pictures this week and other than a bit of edge blur, I've only done digital touching up on this last shot.  I only say this because the beauty in the pictures really is entirely down to the beautiful roses themselves and some lovely light in the garden on Tuesday evening - thanks for the tip Mammasaurus.

And for some more gorgeous gardens this post is part of Mammasaurus', How does your garden grow... linky.

23

Paper Bunting # 3 - Flowers

Mrs Fox made this bunting for the first Fairy Tea Party.  The inspiration was Mary Blair and her amazing art direction for Disney, in particular Disney's Alice in Wonderland.  

Concept Art by Mary Blair for Disney's Alice in Wonderland

To create the flower bunting I used:

Crepe paper in pink yellow & purple plus green.
Glue, scissors, pencil
Gold glitter paint
Blue bias binding, about 10 meters.



1.  I drew designs for 3 flowers and a leaf.  On each flower  I decided which colours to use on each section and cut the shape out of card to be used as templates.  I left a tag (a square of paper) at the top of each of the largest shapes where the flowers would attach to the bias binding.

2.  I then traced and cut the shapes out onto crepe paper.  Layering the shapes one on top of the other I glued them down, creating the flowers in slightly different colour combinations.  Once the glue dried on the flowers I used a little of the gold glitter paint as highlights to cover areas where the glue was showing a little.  The nice thing about the crepe paper is that once hung it is slightly transparent and means that the back of the bunting looks almost as good as the front.  

3.  Once I had my flowers and leaves (And I also cut out some crepe paper strands to imitate slender vines) I organised how I planned to hang them from the bias binding.  

Leaving about a meter at each end I folded the bias binding in half down the length sewing it together to form a strong ribbon.  Placing the tags I had left at the top of my flowers between the bias binding with approximately 20cm between each flower, I machined them into the bias binding.  Between every few flowers I also machined either a leaf or a few vines of different length.
  

At Mrs Fox's we also created paper fairy craft kits for our Fairy Tea Party and these fairies were strung onto the flower bunting. 

0