This gallery contains 32 photos.
Warning – this is a long catch up-post.And for anyone quick off the mark, we’re holding a “pop up” Garden open day for charity for the National Garden Scheme, this Easter Saturday at 2.30 pm – but you MUST contact … Continue reading
This gallery contains 19 photos.
Seizing the moment on a currently rare March morning, forecast to be dry and sunny after much rain, cloud and wind during the first fortnight of this highly variable month, Fiona had plotted a circular route centred around the coastal … Continue reading
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What a fortnight! Spanning the days between two saintly commemorations. Firstly, Italian martyr St. Valentine, tortured and then put to death on February 14th 269, after refusing to revoke his faith to the emperor Claudius. Beaten with clubs and then … Continue reading
This gallery contains 44 photos.
It’s only mid January, and already I’m thinking about next year’s bulb order. Significant numbers of larger bulbs aren’t going to be on it, maybe just a few Narcissus ‘Rjinveld’s Early Sensation’ but certainly lots more of those smaller gems which … Continue reading
This gallery contains 27 photos.
At last, I’ve made it to the Gower. An invitation that popped into our inbox for a day’s course on managing land to help our native invertebrates caught my eye. Particularly since one of the tutors was the naturalist Steven … Continue reading
This gallery contains 27 photos.
This may be a confusing slog – no typo. Both to write and read.A blurred rush, as is my own self-imposed challenge over all these years, through topics related to the natural world around us in rural West Wales, and … Continue reading
This gallery contains 57 photos.
It finally happened. We’ve been hit by the severe rainfall event which we’ve expected for many years, and the prospect of which had driven all our work creating rain management channels on our access track. However before this, preluded by … Continue reading
This gallery contains 24 photos.
Every once in a while, a big concept strikes home, creating a damascene like moment. I reckon my heightened awareness of the importance of fungi in the ground beneath our feet, which is outlined below, will prove to be almost … Continue reading
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Pictures? Or Words? Another Day Saturday morning, before Today begins. Warm, still, silent. Up here. Crow crudely cracks the soundscape open. Beetles blurrrr West. Blushing pink flushes swiftly gold. And valleys haze. So calm, so calm. … Continue reading
This gallery contains 55 photos.
Naked ladies, Devil’s paintbrush, Brimstone, Mosquito hawks, Hordes of toads, Erupting craneflies, Dandelion diversity. The list of interesting observations here in the last 10 days has certainly kept my eyes wide open, and my shutter finger twitchy. But I’ll begin … Continue reading
This gallery contains 89 photos.
Ignoring, no, deleting the spam comment thoughtfully sidelined by WordPress on a “Practical Pregnancy Plan” as I logged in today, this is a post with a few unanswered “Why’s”? A simple question I always dreaded hearing from a client. Demanding … Continue reading
This gallery contains 123 photos.
Rarer than an England football team playing in a World Cup semi-final. Having to write a post preoccupied with the effects of an ongoing heatwave, sunshine most days, and the drought conditions which continue to affect us here. The garden … Continue reading
This gallery contains 63 photos.
June 2018 proved me wrong. Dramatically. After the apparent crash of many species’ populations here in 2018, which I’d written about last time, Came the rebound. Or recovery, and an explosion in numbers. It began with the bumblebees on the first … Continue reading
This gallery contains 24 photos.
This week, the evening after we’d decided we could relax and leave our last single lambs outside for the night, I had my usual pre-bathtime use of the watering can outside the back door. The lambs have done very well … Continue reading
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A night disturbed by strong winds, and fitful thoughts about what to choose as a title for this post. How to capture the roller coaster of experiences here since my last post? Carnage. The beast from the East. Arctic. Welsh … Continue reading
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Eruption Long before the golden blue-grey Tints hint breaking skies, and Sun, once more. Howling Easterlies rake the facing slopes. With poached mud, frozen. Hard. Some time before the landing Creyr, wings folded in, Took patient station on the … Continue reading
This gallery contains 46 photos.
I thought I’d do a near wordless post, having just held our annual snowdrop opening weekend for charity for the National Gardens Scheme (NGS). I last did a similar post in 2014, and it’s surprising how the garden has changed … Continue reading
This gallery contains 85 photos.
The New Year began with snowdrops aplenty, but as I mentioned last time, no warmth for them to spread their petals wide, so a selection was brought inside for a New Year’s Day lunch, along with some snipped Daphne bholua … Continue reading
This gallery contains 85 photos.
How much energy is needed to melt a cubic metre of snow? This question popped into my mind after our previous heavy snowfall here, and whether we’d even manage to escape down our track, and make it to our Christmas … Continue reading
This gallery contains 63 photos.
I rarely dream. Never have. Just the odd bizarre vague memory on waking. And usually sleep quite well, for which I’m grateful. However in the last month my sleep has been unexpectedly broken twice. Firstly by an insect loudly buzzing … Continue reading
This gallery contains 116 photos.
This week the valley roared, the birch bowed.The daisies danced.And the lashed larch littered mossy paths, with twiggy lichened debris. Storm Ophelia’s much heralded arrival lived up to expectations. Potentially movable detritus was tidied, travel plans for Monday were cancelled, … Continue reading
This gallery contains 76 photos.
The garden mourns. So begins the poem written by Hermann Hesse, in translation, which you can read in full below, and which was chosen by Richard Strauss, right at the end of his life, to form the basis of one … Continue reading
This gallery contains 74 photos.
It seems a long time ago, but we did briefly achieve our annual Welsh fifteen moment in the garden this year, when more than fifteen butterflies, of the usual 3 suspect species – Red admiral, Vanessa atalanta, Small Tortoiseshell, Aglais … Continue reading
This gallery contains 91 photos.
Another month of significant physical effort here, in part influenced by a late season request to look round the garden by a small recce group, for a possible party flying in from over the pond. Sometime next year. Perhaps. We’ve … Continue reading
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Waves have gripped me over the last fortnight. Made me stand and gaze. And wonder. Not those which batter our nearby coasts, crashing on rocky cliffs, or transporting drifting fleets of jelly fish, as seen recently near Cwmtydu.But those that … Continue reading
This gallery contains 57 photos.
Frost. Sun. Wind. Fire. RAIN. The elemental forces which have played out over the beginning of May and shaped our outside work, and the garden’s feel. Never mind the gardeners’ state of mind. Following on from the very dry April, … Continue reading
This gallery contains 60 photos.
I’ve been pondering the issue of why we garden of late. Why do we do it? A simple five words which interestingly brought to mind for both of us a clearly remembered song from decades ago – though I’d mistakenly … Continue reading
This gallery contains 60 photos.
A day after the novelty of waking with the bedroom suffused with golden light, I hit the keys under grey gloom, first thing. Lowering mists, a full rain gauge, and the still cold saturated ground, struggling to recover from yesterday’s … Continue reading
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As February lurches violently beyond dangerous Doris – storm number four of this year’s named sequence – and onwards towards St. David’s Day, there have been two recent fleeting occasions when the sun has shone and the temperatures risen. And … Continue reading
This gallery contains 27 photos.
Starting to write this on the last day of November, after a freezing night, as the thin clouds glow neon pink towards the Black Mountain. Sennybridge made the national weather news at 7.00 am with minus 9.4 degrees C. On … Continue reading
This gallery contains 36 photos.
Struggling for a title. Even a word to get me going. I hit on psychedelic. And a journey of discovery begins. Isn’t that what’s meant to happen? (All the images accompanying this post, are from the garden in the last … Continue reading
This gallery contains 71 photos.
At last, a rain-soaked scene keeps me indoors and tempts me to the relief of the keyboard. The rakes hang stiff on the old smithy wall. The pitchforks lean straight, tip toed on sharp pronged steel, and achy muscles sigh … Continue reading
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A fortnight for personal, novel observations. So what’s new? There’s always something different to spot without leaving the home plot. We grew few Hydrangeas before we moved to Gelli Uchaf, though we did bring with us a cutting of H. … Continue reading
This gallery contains 54 photos.
Sensational Sunday completely passed us by in a blur of forks and rakes. For the fifth and last time this year, I opened the back door to the smell of half dried hay this week. A wonderful scent to be … Continue reading
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What a week! Or perhaps 10 days. The personal, everyday, seasonal. Interwoven with unique moments of (inter)national and historic gravitas, prompts this very brief post’s personal jottings, before the memories fade. _____________ A Rural View Sheep shorn. Votes cast. Counting … Continue reading
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Well over 20 years ago, we needed to chat with Dad about a longstanding family issue, and since my birthday was approaching, arranged to meet him in the gardens of Sheldon Manor, outside Chippenham. At that time the garden was … Continue reading
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A fabulous week of warm sunny weather here, has straddled the passage from spring to summer, May to June. Quite different to the 43 mm of rain in 24 hours with which June 2015 began, or indeed the torrential rain … Continue reading
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Picture the scene. You’ll have to, since the camera was inside as I turned from filling the watering can and spotted a robin perched on the highest point of the rusty chair’s back. Fluffing herself up (and you’ll see why … Continue reading
This gallery contains 50 photos.
Fiona often reminds me of the danger of using the word “never” when referring to natural events. No sooner had I written that I’d never seen bumblebees visit snowdrop flowers in our garden, than I spotted one determined to prove me … Continue reading
This gallery contains 48 photos.
After the excitement, for me, and the interest from readers in the ice spike featured in my previous post, I thought I’d write a little more about these unusual natural phenomena. Ice spikes, or my earlier ice vase, below, from … Continue reading
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At last. A nearby West Welsh village, Eglwyswrw, had featured in the national media as it closed in on the 90 year old UK record for the longest continual run of days with some rainfall recorded (held by the Isle … Continue reading
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2016 begins with some pretty impressive new records. Maximum rainfall levels across many areas of the UK have been smashed, not just broken, and any readers in the UK will no doubt have followed the flood devastation images, (if they … Continue reading
This gallery contains 31 photos.
Hello friend(s). I’ve missed you. The curiously addictive challenge of chronicling the everyday, off the beaten track. So after nearly a month’s absence, I can briefly gaze again upon a few years’ scribblings and photos before returning to isolation once … Continue reading
This gallery contains 22 photos.
Who were the real stars of last Thursday? The wonderful enthusiasm and communication skills of our speaker? The gorgeous late autumnal light? Our massed Persicaria vaccinifolia and Saxifraga fortunei rubrifolia? No, on reflection, I’ve come to the conclusion that whilst … Continue reading
This gallery contains 53 photos.
July and August 2015 will be remembered as very poor summer months in this part of the world, with some rain on the majority of days, generally low light levels, cool temperatures and very few, still days. But we had … Continue reading
This gallery contains 29 photos.
Like much of the UK, this part of West Wales had a July of huge extremes – the hottest day of the year at the start of the month, then a steady decline to one of the coldest July nights … Continue reading
This gallery contains 46 photos.
The day began with a flash. A brown flash. Or should that be a streak? Word selection has suddenly become much more important. I’d nipped back to pick up the metal watering can outside the back door, when a fair … Continue reading
This gallery contains 52 photos.
How big is a bee’s brain? Clearly much smaller than ‘pea-brained’ size, as in my ‘Pea-brained!’ derogatory insult sometimes hurled at siblings in the battles of teenage youth. Although it seems from quite recent archaeological discoveries, that one of our … Continue reading
This gallery contains 50 photos.
Sublime songs have serenaded us over the last 10 days, whenever we’ve ventured into the lower parts of the garden. Initially I’d thought it was a swallow, without paying it too much attention, and then realised that the mellifluous, clear … Continue reading
This gallery contains 52 photos.
The extraordinary sunny, dry and chilly, start to April, deserves a burst of photos. Only 14 mm of rain has fallen by the 24th. The Rhododendrons are late – R. ‘Bruce Brechtbill’.The Amelanchiers have the fewest flowers for years.The Camellias … Continue reading
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