Feathery and sculptural, I love the flowers of the fennel plant.
They have flourished whilst we have been away, so I decided to take a few indoors.
Flowers are few and far between in the garden just now, so I also made use of my jasmine prunings.
Perhaps not the most elegant of arrangements, but nice to have a bit of greenery.
Well, the wonders of France are now behind us.
We had such a wonderful time! Dragonflies and river swims, chateaux and wine, thunder and lightning, friendship and fun.
We were sad to leave.
Arriving home after midnight following an epic 14 hour car journey, we slept like logs in the comfort of our own beds.
Morning brought a surprise. Whilst we were away, our previously neat garden has gone its own sweet way.
The lawn is now a meadow of yellow hawkbit.
There are runner beans and herbs a-plenty for our dinner.
And two special garden gifts.
The first: a flower from my hollyhock. It’s been several years since I planted it and quite frankly, I’d given up on ever seeing it bloom.
But there it is.
Just a single flower, but there will be more to come.
And the second?
A tiny sampling of very late alpine strawberries. Like jewels.
A celebration of the last sweet abundance of summer.
I’m very grateful for the garden’s gifts. They chased away any immediate post-holiday blues.
It is lovely to go away.
But it’s very good to be home again, too.
I love seeing what other people do with their gardens.
My friend Jodi and her family moved to the countryside last Easter. They took on a dilapidated farmhouse and its large, untended garden.
In less than the time it took me to decide on which wallpaper to have in our kitchen, they have totally transformed the place.
I don’t have the “before” photos, unfortunately.
But due to her hard work and dedication, not to mention style, Jodi’s is now the garden I most envy.
When they moved in, there were fruit trees: Victoria plums, damsons, two sorts of pears, and apples.
There are now also gooseberries and raspberries.
Where once there was a hovel, there now stands a greenhouse lush with herbs, peppers and chillis.
A large, enviable veg patch has been cut from the turf and filled with rainbow-hued chard, runner and French beans, pumpkins, tomatoes, kale, flat-leaved parsley in glorious abundance, lettuces, courgettes (round, yellow and Lebanese varieties), leeks…
I could go on, but hopefully you get the picture.
Sigh.
It is a valuable lesson in how, for me, procrastination is the thief of time.
Well done to Jodi (and Alan, who has transformed the house).
I stand in awe of your energy and dedication.
And thank you for inspiring me to do better in future ♥
I have a plan to plant sunflowers along the fence at the bottom of the garden.
A bit late, I know, but there we are.
It won’t be this weekend though, as we will be busy camping – and partying – with friends.
So until we can have the real thing, I found a few sunny summer sunflowers, specially selected to shine over the holiday weekend.
Just in case the sun doesn’t!
Just click on a picture to visit its source.
This is our shed.
We installed it on the ugly grey concrete-paved patio at the bottom of the garden, primarily because we had got fed up of dragging the lawn mower down from the attic every time the grass needed cutting.
I wanted a summer house. I had fantasies of an adult-sized wendy house that I would sit in, sipping my G&T, surrounded by nice things.
But then I realised that the summer house would fill up with compost, and garden tools, and old pots, and spiders. And sitting in it would not be nice. Or even possible.
So we have the shed, instead.
But I still have hankerings.
I have shed envy.
The shed might get a makeover during the summer.
I am thinking black or dark grey paint, frosted windows, guttering and a water butt.
A window box, some kind of old signage on the door, pale sweet peas twining up the trellis.
If you enjoy sheds (as, apparently did my grandfather – he reputedly had six sheds, from which he rarely emerged), you may like to take a browse through this.
Now those are serious sheds. Sheds with views.
Spectacular sheds.
Today’s spring sunshine got me all excited to get outdoors and plant stuff.
The only problem was, life got in the way.
After breakfast, schlepping around the supermarket and diy shop, hanging washing on the line, checking out a craft fair and wrangling over a particularly crash-happy eBay listing, there wasn’t too much of the day left.
Never mind.
My flowerbed is dug. The raised beds are almost ready for planting. And I now have paint for the garden furniture.
Tomorrow is a new day. Set fair.
