This week's garden favourites

A few minutes ago I was inspired to go round the garden with a camera. I am waiting for some laundry to finish, and this was a fun way to pass the time.

Firstly, right at the back door, and now fortunately elsewhere, a hardy geranium. I think that this is Geranium oxonianum thurstonianum.

Then one that I haven't been able to identify yet. We call it "small white", although it is slightly off white. It grows like mad and seeds itself everywhere, but is easy to identify at a young stage.

This allium is nearly through with flowering, but has been looking splendid for the past couple of weeks.

Phacelia gets sown as a green manure in our raised vegetable beds, and I always try to keep it growing until it flowers. The form of the flowers and the scent make it one of my favourites.

I think that this is a Tiarella. It is an unassuming plant that has spread to a few locations over the year. The tiny flowers start off cream and turn red with time/pollination? 

We have finally established flag irises in the margins of our pond.

The small maple tree we moved in 1995 has more flowers on it than ever.

The first few of these poppies are out, and as you can see a snail has climbed into the centre. That doesn't worry me as then it isn't eating my salad leaves.

Our viburnam is just getting going.

We have aquilegias all over the place, and frequently pull them up.

Blue flowers don't photograph well for me, but the form shows even if the colour is distorted.

Entranced ....!

A couple of  weeks ago I watched "Later with Jools Holland" on TV.
Not certain whether I would stay awake for the whole programme I recorded it.

There was a great lineup, but the track that stuck with me was "Step" by Vampire Weekend.
I watched the recording a few times the next day, then found their website which included the lyrics.

This has now haunted me in the most pleasant way ever since.
I can be weeding in the garden, or dropping off to sleep all at the same measured pace.
I can't remember when the last time was when that happened.

No doubt I am missing some aspects of the lyrics, but the melody and rhythm are just right for me now.

A couple of days later just as it was getting dark the garden took on a magical quality.

All the white blossom jumped out at me, and I took my phone out to try to capture it.

This image is now part and parcel of the song for me.

Uggh slugs! ... or the trials of a cool wet "summer"

As has just been officially announced, we have had the wettest June ever.
Where we live in the East Midlands, we haven't had devastating downpours, just rather more wetness than we might prefer.

This has meant that our suburban garden has been inundated with unwelcome slimy visitors. 

Here is a close-up of a gathering I took 10 days ago. 

I didn't mind them creeping over the leaves of a lanky geranium on the path, but tonight I was so fed up.

Round about 19.00 I picked 15 slugs, some very large ones included, off the foliage of our broad beans.

Last night I found a couple munching their way through the best bean pod! 

Again, taken 10 days ago, this was to have been the lettuce for our lunch.

I had held back on eating any, as I knew that Ian would be home the following day.

It hardly seems worth planting seeds when this is what happens.

However, it is not all gloom and doom here.

Some plants are reviving as others are being cut down.
Both this clematis and the pink jasmine are giving a better showing than ever.
Perhaps they shouldn't be so far away from the path.

Despite the rain, Albertine is flowering well, and although we have removed slugs from the flower spikes, we have one delphinium giving a pretty good show.

We now have this rather odd double rolled-petalled geranium established safely in an out of the way place.

We have many pink geraniums scattered around the garden. 

Periodically we remove pink geraniums if they get in our way, but this flower type first showed up just at the back door step.

I have kept it there, and attempted to encourage it elsewhere.

This year's hardy and weed geranium flower count taken mid June gave 19 different flowers.

The double one is on its side, bottom right.

Plenty of white paint ...

I've been silent for too long.

The reason why, I've been busy at shows and seminars and most of all preparing a studio for myself at Long Eaton Art Room.

When we opened the Art Room in 2006, we had hoped that sometime we might be able to have studios for rent.

Well that time has come, and I have taken the plunge and rented space for myself.
I was so impatient to get on with the painting that I forgot to take a camera along to do the "before" image.

My phone camera died on me in August, and I really miss the spontaneity of having it to hand.
But, not enough to go through all the hassle of selecting and purchasing a new device.
This one, bought three and a half years ago is purple, just the right size etc. etc.
As with the two previous handsets, I'm inclined to wait until it dies before replacing it.

So, back to the studio, this is a room with a view!
The walls were an unattractive (to me) shiny magnolia/beige.
Three full coats of matt white emulsion were needed to cover this up, and that took a long time.

Then having brushed over the dabs of the beige that were on the ceiling I realised that I needed to paint that too.

Oh, how I wish that I'd painted the ceiling first!
It would have been much easier to see the difference in colour when the room was less white.
I'm not sure that I really got it all covered, but my eyes start boggling looking for tine differences in colour above my head.

So, now it is painted and I can sit and look at the view into the cemetery.
On the windowledge at the moment is a small branch off a gage tree from our garden.
Just before the leaves came out I shaped the tree, and I thought that the branch was too attractive to be consigned to the compost heap.

I hope that being here without the distractions of home will help me to focus and develop my own practice as an artist.
So I am about to pick up where I left off when I graduated in 2001.

Lucky dip or nothing ventured ....

Spurred on by the weather forecast last night promising rain and the fact that I'll be away at the KCG AGM at the weekend, I finally got my act together today, and sorted some things out in the garden.

Both of us buy seeds, and they accumulate over the years.
At the weekend, I sorted through them and picked out all that should have been planted before 2011.
They went into two containers, one for flowers, and the other for herbs and vegetables.

Over the past week, I have cleared some of the default pink or white hardy geraniums from a few areas.
Then as I needed to empty some well rotted compost, this has been spread and dug in.

This afternoon I took my "seed soup" and sprinkled it on the designated areas.
It has been covered with a thin layer of spent compost, and gently watered in.

So, what I want to know now, is what happened to the promised rain?
It is nearly 18.00, and so far we have only had a few drops!

Years ago ...

 .. we grew some deep red poppies, something like this, and this year we have the original colour together with some variations in colour and texture. These poppies are all self-seeded, and get pulled up if they are in the way.

I took a petal from the original poppies and colour matched it to a paint card. A year or so later, in 2000, we had an extension built on the back of our house. I already knew before this wall was planned what colour it should be. Here is a petal from this year's poppies placed on the wall to verify how close the match is.

Another item that has taken years to show its worth is this rhododendron. Bought at this time of year, something like seven years ago, it has just flowered for the first time. I had forgotten what it might be like, so this was a pleasant surprise. The first colour showed on 19th May, and it has just gone over today.

.

The next question is whether I should repot it or just leave it?

And lastly, a quick tally of geranium flowers this year. I managed to find 15 different colours this morning. We do have more, but this is a candid shot taken when most are flowering.

Blowing away the cobwebs ...

It's a great blustery drying day (10 C), and I've got a line full of laundry out.
I daren't even think about using the clothes props for fear it will all blow away to the next county (only a mile away)!
Some small branches have been torn from the cedar, as often happens in these conditions.

And as it is too brisk out there to do much in the garden, I've finally remembered to update here.

Since I last posted there have been a few trips here and there. This was to north Wales looking at some former slate mining sites with friends on a very atmospheric day.

Our local council have a tree giveaway in early December, and this year I was in town on the right day. Here are the 5 tiny saplings I brought home with me. They are temporarily placed over winter, awaiting our decisions for permanent placings.

The last of the apples lying on the ground for the birds to eat over winter. Some of these also came in, and became an apple pie.

Then in mid December we had some snow. Over Christmas we stayed inside as my mother was with us, and there were treacherous conditions underfoot.

The Tuesday after Christmas it thawed somewhat, and we ventured out to Attenborough Nature Centre for a stroll and a chance to see some of the many visiting birds.

 

With the sustained cold weather the Erewash canal froze over, as can be seen by the footprints on the snow covering the ice.

In January I took a few weird and unrecognisable (possibly accidental) photos.

In February I knitted a few small items that went off to friends. This one paused long enough for me to photograph it.

One Monday I was in the town centre and had time to visit "Miss Ellany", a local shop selling all manner of used items of furniture etc. I saw this tiny mug in a cabinet, and asked to take a look. Not surprisingly it came home with me.

 It has images of a small boy with a basket of fishes and two small girls, one knitting and the other spinning. It seems to have been made in Bavaria for the tourist industry in Volendam and Marken in the Netherlands.

Mid February found me in Brighton, volunteering at the stitching show, and getting a little sea air. One night this appeared in the town centre.

The more usual other night time memories are of the Royal Pavilion.

And now it is time to pop back downstairs to hang out the next load of washing ....

492 in three days!!!!

That's the number of gooseberry sawfly caterpillars I picked off one bush over the course of three days.

This bush is a rogue bush that was probably seeded by birds and landed in our rockery.

It is right by the fence, and we left it to see how well it would fare.

Unlike the other gooseberry bushes further down the garden, it was pretty much untouched by caterpillars earlier on in the year.

Getting to it isn't easy, as it means trampling some geraniums and then balancing on mostly unseen small rocks. Not to be done in sandals, only in trainers!

However there are enough fruits on the bush this year to justify keeping it for the time-being.

Summer rain

All week we have been having rain, ranging from hair-curling drizzle to full blown thunderstorms (although only a couple of these).

So everything is growing at a mad rate, and that includes the lawn.

At this rate we may not get it cut for a while as it is constantly too wet.

Typically the more frail roses are opening, and then being washed away before we have had the chance to enjoy them.

Of course we should be out sowing more veg and flower seeds, but the conditions are too wet to want to do it.

But the highest priority, after the sawfly caterpillar removal, is tying in the autumn fruiting raspberries.

Autumn Bliss fruits on new canes, and has put on a growth spurt.

So for the next little while I'll be down the garden with twine and scissors.

It is even less fun when they are all wet, but leaving it another day will make the job more difficult. Thank heavens the row is only about 3 m (10 ft) long.

And to give a bit of an idea of the wetness here, take a look at part of Asda's carpark on Sunday.

Yesterday when getting thoroughly drenched while cycling there were beautiful oil patterns on a bit of road. I was too wet to want to stop and get my phone out, so you will have to imagine the bright haze that spread across the tarmac.

Garden delights and our weekend exhibition

No time to take pictures today.

Last night, as I was cycling home from the "Woolly Wednesday" knitting session at the Art Room it was raining.

So naturally the traffic lights near the library failed to detect a single cyclist wishing to turn right onto the more major road. After two failed sequences I just went at the time the traffic opposite got to go.

Then there were the drivers who suddenly did u-turns in front of me and came to a dead stop, twice in one 10 minute ride!

But best of all, the garden got some rain, and the temperature dropped further.

Last night it dropped back to not much above freezing, quite a contrast with the 25C in the shade at the weekend.

This is the week of the Chelsea Flower Show, which is getting lots of coverage on TV.

This year Rachel Carter, a local artist, has a stand. She involved some local people to help out with willow weaving at the Art Room over the past couple of months.

Tomorrow, we transform the Art Room for the Bank Holiday weekend as four of us take part in Derbyshire Open Arts.

More on that later....

Treacherous cycle lanes and other hazards ...

Gateshead ...North Shields, and Hoddesden celebrate the season!

The past few months have been full of odd hazards.

Firstly I had that virus again, you know, the one where I lose my voice for weeks on end (only 5 weeks this time).

That took me from the end of October into early December.

Somehow, feeling grotty and speechless, I have little inclination to chat electronically either.

Then we ran into problems with internet access.

Those seem to have been solved firstly by buying a new computer, and this week by getting a new phone line into the house.

Now the new machine is up and running, comes the inevitable search for those black holes where files hide themselves when you most want them.

I have modified some pictures, and they aren't where I thought they were.

I'll just have to retrace my steps ...

In the meantime we were lucky that our projected trip to Lille was due to take place just a couple of days after the Eurostar trains got stuck.
We hastily cancelled our hotel booking, and headed north to Newcastle.

A reasonably priced "secret" hotel booking turned out to be the Hilton in Gateshead.We were only there for two nights, and only slotted in one 20 minute swim in their pool.

(When we were in Madrid last summer we just missed the opening of the hotel pool by a couple of days. We saw it being filled, which was little comfort.)

So we got used to walking on icy surfaces on hills before the cold spell really took hold here.

One of the early manifestations was just how quickly it had frozen over, snow had turned to ice over a storm drain on my journey to the studio.

Today, most of the remaining few centimetres of snow has been slowly melting, and we no longer have the idyllic scene pictured below.

No time to show some of the knitting I've been doing recently, or the pictures I took of December colour in the garden prompted by Leigh's posting here.