Wednesday 20 April 2016

Coming along nicely...

First of all, welcome to Margaret via Bloglovin.

We painted our new garden gate yesterday, managing to get both coats done in the day. The first picture is from the street into the garden:
This one from the garden looking out:
The front garden, now it has had some sun to go with the rain, is bursting into life. The first picture is the temporary cover for the pond as a local cat keeps drinking out of it and fishing for the tadpoles:
Bottom right to top left of the garden:
Bottom left side to top right of the garden:
The pond gets more camuflaged as the season progresses.

We want to start painting the fence as soon as possible but it is now a shared fence and for some reason, they don't want their side black but are not sure if they want it brown. Well, we shall do our side black and have offered to paint their side when they make up their minds.

11 comments:

  1. Is'nt the bursting out wonderful? Nice tidy work all round! We have a troublesome cat who is after the birds.

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    1. Won't be tidy for long, the weeds are already starting to grow!

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  2. Hurrah! You have a gravel garden! This is what I'm after!. Jim has finally acquiesced, and has been busy digging up the turf of our (pretty small) lawn and we have an order of gravel coming soon. I want herbs and lavenders growing through it, and somewhere I want room for a very small pond; I don't want fish, but a little haven for wildlife is what I'm after - frogs and newts would be great! Any tips on gravel growing would be welcomed. Not much on you tube, unusually, and not much in the way of books - Beth Chattos Gravel Gardens is a bit on the pricey side I'm afraid! Is your gravel direct onto soil, or have you put membrane down first? So excited to see this! Lxxx

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    1. When we decided to change to a gravel garden, we got rid of anything we didn't want, dug up all annuals before laying a weed membrane. Each plant was then planted through holes in the membrane before gravel put over it. Over the years said membrane is not as intact as it once was but still doing a good job. Weeds do still settle but mainly into the gravel and are easily removed. I feed with blood fish and bone or chicken pellets with the occasional scraping away of gravel near the roses for some manure. Seems to work well for us. Pond is a wildlife one, no fish!

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  3. Dc - do you find anything (apart from the weeds of course!) self-seeds into the gravel at all? I'll be doing the cutting crosses in the membrane to plant some herbs and lavenders, but was hoping that poppies and such like (chives in particular) might seed into the gravel. I've read recently that the minerals in the gravel wash off with the rain and become accessible to plant-life, can actually sustain plants with no other medium at all. Wondered whether you find things growing in your gravel.

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  4. Californian poppies, aquilegia, borage, all self seed very well. A few lavenders each year usual show themselves amongst many others, so you should be okay. lt may well be true about the rain and minerals but anything hungry like roses and some others, I still like to give a boost to.

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  5. Ah, that's good - we have a very old strain of aquilegia which I brought from the garden of a very old house about 15 years ago… they self-seed all over the place and we don't restrict them. Poppies- we have some large varieties but I'm searching for some of those lovely little Welsh poppies. Well, I guess it will be trial and error; if the gravel-growing doesn't prove successful enough there are always containers, and of course I shall plant some things through the membrane as I said. Thanks for the advice, Dc - always welcome!

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    1. I think I meant Welsh poppies if they are the yellow ones. If they are I can pot you one up if you like?

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    2. That would be lovely of you, Dc, I have been on the look-out for a couple of years. I suppose I could go online to one of the specialist places, but can't understand why they aren't more readily available. Yes thanks, I'd love that …. can you get in touch through my blog? Happy to come to you or meet you somewhere. x

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    3. I will pot one or two up and when I know they have survived I will be in touch.

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    4. That's great, Dc, many thanks!
      Lx

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