Garden update

          It would seem that four years has passed since I spent my time “Building the Garden“. It pretty much looks as I had “Imagined” it would.

          The garden was made for sitting in, for spending time enjoying company, not for spending hours maintaining a perfect picture. I’m often to be found drinking tea or coffee with friends who have gathered around the kitchen table and migrated to the garden on warm, sunny days.

          Eldest Daughter visited, and Grandson enjoyed the shells which deter the neighbouring cats from my flowerbeds, he also enjoyed the dragons and butterfly, amongst other garden ornaments.

          The white paint has stood up well to the winter seaside squalls, any lighthouse owner would be more than happy with the promise it makes on the tin. My black cast iron garden ornaments are needing another rub down and protective coating of metal paint this summer, which in turn should prevent any new rust marks which need touching up here and there on the white paint.

          Mum-in-law, like Hubby, enjoys the sun trap I’ve created in our own little piece of seaside, personally, I enjoy the early morning coffees on the patio and the warm evenings as the sun goes down, myself.

          The roses in the left flowerbed are a year behind those on the right but now that I’ve worked out the right level of tlc to keep them happy and healthy, I’m looking forward to both sides covering the top of the arches next year.

          The winter has seen me building “Wardrobes” in the bedroom, but the fine weather is drawing me back to the garden with paintbrush and can in hand… The wardrobes will still be there when the weather sends me back to play indoors again.

          More from before : Going’s on in my “Garden“.

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Garden hole

          The soil level has been dropping in my garden, a certain amount of settling was expected after all the upheaval of “Building the Garden“, where it was quite literally all turned upside down so that’s OK. In this picture taken just after the daffs this year, you can see by the terracotta paint line which was painted before the turf went on, just how much it has dropped.

          The soil level in the flowerbeds has dropped enough for me to need an extra brick underneath the doorstep for the fairy house, and the wall in the corner behind the rose has already had a quick touch up with white paint.

          Look again at that back corner behind the rose… Can you see a hole?

          I keep piling the earth back into the corner and it just keeps slipping down the hole again.

          I wondered if it were just a drainage hole, or if something was living in there. So I placed a shell over the hole and waited for something to move it.

          My memory jerked back to when Eldest Daughter was about two, we moved to a house with a little concrete yard for a back garden. Someone had made a walled flowerbed around the three outside walls on top of the concrete. It was just a low wall, but instead of growing weeds right around the edge of the yard, I broke up the side walls and placed the rubble and soil on top of the back flowerbed to make a long rockery, and a bigger yard space for Eldest to push her doll’s pram around in. Unfortunately, a family of rats moved in through a drainage hole in our back wall and took up residence underneath the rockery so I had to call the exterminators in.

          I was very relieved when the shell didn’t move and so I filled the hole and set about the right hand flowerbed with the bag and a half of compost leftover from the grass seeding.

          I didn’t skimp on the compost, Hubby said he would get me some more so I used up all of the leftovers in the right hand bed, and still had a gap where I needed to put more in by the back wall and corner behind the orange rose.

          A few weekends later I settled down again with a new bag of compost … And spotted another hole.

          Middle Daughter has been finding similar holes in her garden and with the help of a night-time sensory camera has established that a little field mouse has moved in, under her shed. I arranged to borrow her camera to investigate the hole in our garden too.

          However, it would appear that our new lodger is braver than the one in Middle’s garden, as while I was sitting on the top step, leveling off the compost at the front of the bed, he popped out of his hole in full daylight to see what was going on.

          Apparently he’s a Field mouse and very unlikely to make his way into the house, so I don’t have to evict him. I’m so glad he’s not a rat.

          Since Mouse isn’t being evicted, I carefully placed a small roll of cardboard into the hole while I built up the compost around it without causing a cave in.

          I placed a few large shells here and there as they seem to be working as cat deterants.

          And now that the right hand flowerbed is all spruced up going into the summer months, I just have to find the “oomph” to do the other one.

          More from before : Going’s on in my “Garden“.

Illuminate

          We seem to have a new pair of wood pigeons frequenting the garden… I was a bit confused at first, I thought maybe “Fat Pigeon” hadn’t weathered the winter well, or had maybe been on a diet because new pigeon was a lot sleeker looking. Of course, the new pigeon could have been completely new, and have never visited the garden before, but the strange, and confusing thing was he came in and flew straight to where the smaller birds drop the seeds from the bird feeders. ….

          Fat Pigeon popped up again a day or so later and was definitely still more of a Portly Pigeon, and I must say, his feathers were quite a bit more ruffled than his younger counterpart. I haven’t seen them both together yet, and I haven’t seen Lady Pigeon either this year… But I wonder if the new Pigeon I’d in fact, Baby Pigeon from last year? ….

          Fat Pigeon has been protecting his territory, at one point he saw off Mr Magpie, who now keeps his distance, but there’s a blackbird nest nearby, and the blackbirds very seldom climb onto the steps for the dropped seeds, they prefer to run around and dance on the grass to catch the worms which are tempted to the surface….

          I’m really pleased with the roses this year, especially so as they had to weather “Storm Bella“… And of course, my pruning. But even after replacing one of the roses on the left flowerbed, both sides are growing with plenty of promise….

          Now that the roses have reached the top of the arch on the right flowerbed, it’s time to put up the strings of lights I bought. It’s a little early, to be honest, as the lights are supposed to hide amongst the roses and give off a nice glow, but if I leave it much longer I won’t be able to reach into the frame on the right to fix them up, so the left arch will just have to look little like a showroom dressing table mirror for a while.

          The daffs have finished for this season. There was a really good show on the right, but I’ll add a few more to the left when I plant a daffodil border in the front garden in September.

          Mum-in-law is helping me to fix the grass… It’s not very happy and my efforts to add more seeds to give it a boost last year didn’t amount to much… I’ve called in the “Head Gardener” for a bit of advice this year.

          Ive dabbed some white paint around the white walls, but the terracotta paint, the small yard floor, the back gate and the repainting of the black garden ornaments will leave me plenty to play with during the summer.

          In the meantime, when the sun goes down the flowerbeds are still full of smiles.

          More from before : Going’s on in my “Garden“.