This gallery contains 22 photos.
My order for writing these posts seems to have developed into consistently being: ideas, research and taking photos, fix a title, write the text and finally upload the images. So, two days ago when I fixed on the title, it … Continue reading
This gallery contains 20 photos.
Just in time to save our sanity the sun returned to this small part of Wales and reminded us of the delights of winter. It really turns our days’ activities upside down after all the greyness. Frosts, mists return and … Continue reading
This gallery contains 19 photos.
A cacophony of climate confusion perplexes me as we head into a New Year. December 2010 saw the coldest UK December on record, whilst autumn and December 2011 were the warmest on record. In between, a record-breaking sunny, dry and … Continue reading
This gallery contains 19 photos.
In a typically unrestful lead up to Christmas, chance comments with friends led us to embark on retro fitting of extra insulation to part of our home. Also typically, it will take us at least 3 times as long as initially … Continue reading
This gallery contains 22 photos.
So it’s official. Wales (and Northern Ireland) have had the warmest autumn ever recorded. This certainly confirms our impression. However the whole of the year has been very strange, weather wise. The PV inverter record for the year confirms the … Continue reading
This gallery contains 23 photos.
It’s taken 3 or 4 days to find a chance to start writing this post. This might seem strange since the days are now so short, but it’s been tidy up time after the efficient tree surgeon team from Lampeter … Continue reading
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A fortnight ago we set off for a rare holiday, and en route stopped off at PenPont house outside Brecon to collect a Welsh Blanket, which by some fluke I’d won in a questionnaire raffle a couple of weeks earlier, … Continue reading
This gallery contains 20 photos.
I managed to find a seed of an Erodium manescavii about to be released which I’ve included below, after mentioning the fantastic form of its seed in my last blog, and how the seed augurs its way into the ground … Continue reading
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The gap since the last post was caused by a very busy period of garden activity – more later, but a couple of night ago I walked out into our copse just as dusk was falling. The air was laden … Continue reading
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Writing these pieces occasionally when I get the chance means that there’s an inappropriate time lag for today’s 24 hour rolling news savvy readers. So, since I must record the fantastic start to October with the hottest days of the … Continue reading
This gallery contains 16 photos.
Four interesting observations and 2 wonderful new garden discoveries for us, and all in a week when the weather has been profoundly gloomy. The 2 new gardens are both privately owned and created by their current gardeners, and both are … Continue reading
This gallery contains 21 photos.
Along with Crocosmia, Sedum and Japanese Anemones, it’s increasingly the Asters which I really look forward to seeing flower as we move into mid September. I’m a fairly new convert to their prolific autumnal show, and by chance we seem … Continue reading
This gallery contains 17 photos.
The day after my last post I was filming wasps demolishing a Red Melba apple when a vehicle drove into the yard. Things often seem to happen when Dave arrives (we saw the Sparrow hawk take a Pied Wagtail earlier … Continue reading
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We’ve now moved past the brief period when although midsummer has passed, the evenings seem to hang on to their long daylight hours. Over the last fortnight the day length seems to be shortening fast. I love this time of … Continue reading
This gallery contains 21 photos.
The title of this blog isn’t a solution to a strange local variant of the game of Cluedo, but developed from a bit of research into Hydrangeas, inspired by a couple of days away looking at other gardens in Herefordshire. … Continue reading
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Living and gardening here is very like my previous existence as a small animal veterinary surgeon. Hardly a week goes by even after all these years, when you don’t see something new. Or a significant variation on something seen previously. … Continue reading
This gallery contains 23 photos.
The weather year is shadowing the last 3 or 4. Glorious dry and sunny springs, followed by cloudy, wet and cool summers (85mm of rain in the last week, 35 mm in the last 24 hours). But really one can’t complain, … Continue reading
This gallery contains 23 photos.
It seems a long 10 days since we ventured up the M4 to visit the Hampton Court Flower show for the first time. We were fortunate to enjoy pleasant sunny weather with only a single shower, and were hugely impressed with … Continue reading
This gallery contains 23 photos.
At last after a fairly ordinary, cool and damp June, a recent sunny spell has seen the temperatures rise and allowed me to catch up on some routine garden maintenance. We’re lucky to have a lot of level changes in … Continue reading
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As the nights start to draw in, are the gardening times a changing? Readers will detect a steady theme in this blog’s content, of gardening to work with insect diversity, indeed to positively encourage it. So as a loose link … Continue reading
This gallery contains 21 photos.
After seeing a Dragonfly in the shrubbery last week, and with a return to warmer nights, I thought I’d take the still and camcorder cameras down to our natural ponds to see what was on the wing. We always get … Continue reading
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There’s a real satisfaction in the achievements that take a long time to mature, whether in the garden or elsewhere, and gardening lends itself to these long term aims. Not many quick fixes here. And some of the plants that … Continue reading
This gallery contains 22 photos.
Firstly an admission. I got it wrong, when I said that Crocus ‘Cream Beauty’ seemed to be sterile. This followed last year’s attempts to self pollinate it with no apparent success and discovering that there didn’t appear to be viable … Continue reading
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This has proved to be the most difficult post to put together so far, and will end up I fear, being rather bitty but mainly because of the last political section. So I’ll include lots of garden photos early on, … Continue reading
This gallery contains 23 photos.
It’s strange how things just happen. The ‘chance events’ which occur and sometimes lead us off in new directions of thought or action. Last week after finishing my post with thoughts on helping my mother-in-law prepare to leave the family … Continue reading
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Last week the plea was for rain. 2 days later it thankfully arrived, but not before 2 interesting events which happened because of the long unseasonal drought. The first was seeing smoke rising from an immature oak wood on the far … Continue reading
This gallery contains 26 photos.
After what was perhaps the biggest global internet media event ever, the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton, I had to start with a brief mention of Lily of the Valley. We inherited ours when we moved into a … Continue reading
This gallery contains 36 photos.
How do you deal with weeds in a garden ? And what constitutes a weed in a garden anyway? A visitor last year, walked through our vegetable and fruit garden and remarked that we allowed a pernicious weed, Creeping Buttercup, … Continue reading
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There was a certain satisfaction in managing to eat our first forced rhubarb of the year, roasted simply in the oven with orange juice and sugar, 4 days before Jill Archer mentioned that it was too soon for her to prepare … Continue reading
This gallery contains 14 photos.
Going away from a garden at this time of the year is always risky. Every day brings dramatic new growth, flowers and of course this is when the battle with annual weeds really begins in earnest. Still another couple of … Continue reading
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We’ve just returned to the fresh air of Wales after a rare trip to London. We haven’t visited the (English) capital for over a decade, and were very pleasantly surprised by how much cleaner and graffiti free it has become … Continue reading
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Fiona is used to getting excited shouts from me to ‘Come and have a look at this’, usually at pretty inconvenient times, and often after dark! One such happened a couple of nights ago when I went out about 9 … Continue reading
This gallery contains 20 photos.
There’s nothing like the prospect of visitors, combined with longer days and dry weather to kick off another garden project, just after we’d decided all our major works were completed. In this case, it was reassessing an area we’d worked … Continue reading
This gallery contains 22 photos.
The aim was to do a once weekly post – more than this, and I run the risk of being accused by Fiona of becoming obsessed with this new blog thing. More to the point, when can I snatch computer … Continue reading
This gallery contains 10 photos.
The temperatures haven’t improved much here over the last week. Still little rain, and some quite frosty nights, so it’s only in the last 2 days, that Narcissus “February Gold”, and N. obvallaris, the Tenby Daffodil have struggled to open … Continue reading
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The garden has been in a state of suspended animation over the last week. Influenced by the high pressure which has dominated recent weather patterns, we have had gloriously sunny days, no rain and hard frosts at night. Good for … Continue reading
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As we pass St.David’s day with only a few Narcissus ‘Tête-à-tête’ in bloom, we have at least the Crocus to lift the spirits as the temperatures drop, the wind blows from the East, and at last today, dawn till dusk … Continue reading