Tuesday 21 June 2016

A little wander around the garden


It was my birthday on 6th June and when my sister-in-law and her partner came to visit last week, they brought some pressies with them :-)  The first was this group of resin toadstools, which I think look very good peaking out from beneath the ice plant...

 

 ...and the second was this handsome ceramic frog, now sitting just a hop away from one of the nature pools :-)

 

There is still plenty of staining to be done.  I only got half of my work shed finished last year ~ what a difference between the two halves, eh!



I gave the bird box a sprucing-up.  The woodstain is called Pale Thistle, by Cuprinol.  It's a very pretty colour and I will be using it elsewhere in the garden.  Adrian had saved an offcut of roofing felt leftover from the chicken houses which I glued to the bird box roof, so it has a bit more protection from the weather now. 


 A man and his tools LOL

 

Creeping Jenny is a recurring theme in my garden.  I know it can be a wee bit invasive, given half a chance, but I find it very useful for filling in odd or difficult spaces, and keeping the weeds down.  It's easy enough to simply pull up plants when they start to stray into areas where I don't want them.


I really like Jenny's pretty yellow flowers :-)


Some of the houseleeks are starting to flower...


and all the offshoots are now settled and doing well.


I bought this purple sage at the Triangle Garden open day the weekend-before-last.  The leaves smell divine and the flowers have already had numerous visits from bees.


I don't know what variety this geranium is but I've had it ~ or rather, offshoots of the original plant ~ for a good number of years.  It's a very pretty shade of blue and grows well in the garden.


This is Osteospermum Weetwood.  The pretty white flowers close up, like other daisies, at night or when it is a very dull day, which I find very endearing :-)


The flowers on the campanula are starting to open now.


I finally got the fern, liriope muscari and pulmonaria planted in their new home.  I decided to add woodchips as a mulch and I'm very pleased with how it looks.

The pot on the right now has a very young garden mint in it, another plant I bought at the Triangle Garden open day.


Do you like my new outdoor rug?  I wanted something bigger than a standard doormat to put by the patio door, and found this online from Matalan.  It's been rained on in this photo so the colours look a tad duller than they really are.



Some of the coping stones on the brick raised bed have come adrift, but hopefully Steve will fix them before winter comes this year. 


View from the patio door.  As you can see, the garden is only small but it keeps me occupied and out of mischief!

2 comments:

Sharon said...

I love, love, love your garden! Your birthday gifts are very cute. (I am partial to frogs) It must be a real pleasure to sit out there and just look ...

SharonLarkin said...

awwww, thank you so much Sharon! It's only a small space but I'm really happy with how it's shaping up now :-)