My Garden at the end of September

We’ve had a lovely end to Summer with  a week or so of warm, sunny, dry weather.  I love the low sun at this time of year, turning everything golden.  The only problem is that it is behind a big cypress tree in our neighbour’s garden which throws our garden into shade for much of the day.

 

The border I planted last year has grown and filled out.  It has been quite successful this year with lots of colour.  Less colour at this time of year, but lots of different textures

I have started to replant my pots on the patio for autumn/winter and am filling the greenhouse with the summer flowering perrenials

Finally a fuschia border near the house is really filling out.  I tried to take some photos of the lovely little fairy flowers.

My Garden in July and update on adventures

Oh gosh!  It is rather a long time since I last blogged!  I have been busy with my 2 adventures: puppy and Etsy shop.  I’ve set up a sewing blog to go side by side with my Etsy shop.  It’s here if you want to pop over and have a look.  I’m really pleased with the blog header, but not so pleased with the photos in the blog posts!  I need to get husband to take some better ones.  All I need now is some readers, so I have been avidly commenting on sewing blogs.  If you are interested, there are some great blogs in the side bar.

Anyway, my garden is looking fabulous this year after replanting the south facing border last year:

I’ve managed to do a fair bit of gardening this Summer, even though I generally have a little helper:

 

He is pretty good at ‘helping’ with the housework too!  Here is is having just jumped onto the sofa!

We are taking him out for short walks now and he is very friendly with people and other dogs.  Puppy training classes start tonight, wish us luck!

Sewing wise, I am making a dress from one of my Vintage patterns, a 1969 shift dress.  I’ll show you when it’s finished. 

I am slowly taking photos for Rinda’s scavenger hunt, need to get a move on with this! 

August–Month in Numbers

Welcome to my month in numbers for August.  As usual I am linking up with Julie’s blog. 

It’s been a productive Summer in the garden.  I have harvested 6 different vegetables: beans, chard, tomatoes, cucumbers, courgettes, sweetcorn and beetroot.  My largest cucumber measured 13 inches long, and weighed 1lb 8oz.  My largest tomato (so far) weighed 14oz.

I picked 3 corns and we had them for lunch one Saturday.  They went straight into the pot from the garden, and boy! did they taste sweet!

I visited 2 stunning gardens this month.  Christopher Lloyd’s garden at Great Dixter in East Sussex is somewhere I had always wanted to go:

This last weekend, we visited Charleston House, country home of the Bloomsbury set in the early part of the 20th century.  It is in East Sussex too, just past Lewes.  No photos allowed inside the house, but here’s a few of the garden. 

We loved the inside of the house!  Every piece of furniture had been painted by Vanessa Bell or Duncan Grant.  Such lovely muted colours and designs!  I really want to have a go myself.

There was 1 very large wasps nest that was in our loft.  The wasps were very busy, there must have been thousands in there!  The Pest Control man from the council came to cover it in toxic powder, and now the wasps have gone.  6 wasps escaped into the house, 5 of which were killed by his spray and 1 survived to be let out of the window.

We had 2 rides out on the new bike (Triumph Bonneville). 1 to Charleston above, and 1 to Petworth, a pretty little village in West Sussex that is full of antique shops!  Within a walking distance of half a mile radius there are 24 antique and interior design shops!

 

That’s it from me this month!  Do pop over to Julies blog to have a look at what everyone else has been up to in August,numerically of course!

My Garden in July

What a difference a month makes!  Especially such a sunny warm month.  Here’s my border at the beginning of July.  Still lots of bare earth.

And now at the end of the month.  I have planted out some sunflowers, and they love the hot dry weather!  Look how they have grown!  The blue hisbiscus is beginning to flower.  It has taken over a bit and hidden some plants beneath, so when it finishes flowering I will remove the bottom branches.  My dahlias have begun to bloom, a red Bishop of Llandaff and a gorgeous orange one.  I have not grown dahlias before because of the slug problem, but these were started off in pots and planted out with plenty f slug pellets!

Here’s a couple of photos of our resident Mr Fox.  He loves to sunbathe at the back of the garden!  He likes the old carpet that we put down under the gravel paths!

I am linking up with The Patient Gardeners Weblog for an end of July look at our gardens!

See It, Pin It, Do It- April

I’m joining in with Fiona at Staring at the Sea for SIPIDI this month.  Foolowing on from my garden theme, I pinned this picture from The Galloping Gardener Blog.  This gorgeous scene is at Great Dixter, somewhere I have yet to visit.

Walking round the garden this morning I found this:

Love the blue and yellow combination!

Garden Inspiration

I have a new border to plant!  Here’s what it looked like last October:

These shrubs and trees had gone wild since we had the big cedar tree chopped down.  I think they saw the light and grew and grew!

They were getting way too big, and that is a south facing border, ie prime real estate in my garden!  I have longed to have a ‘hot’ summer border, so we set to it and chopped them all down:

After a few Sunday mornings hard work and several trips to the dump, it now looks like this:

I had a few plants to go in there, such as this red rose called Ruby Celebration.  But I needed more inspiration!  So Mum and I went to Arundel Castle gardens.  I’ve blogged about the wonderful Earl Collector’s Garden several times, here for example.  Suffice to say it was a riot of tulips this week!

We decided to take notes as we went around and made of wishlist of plants we’d like (not tulips!)  WE hotfooted straight to the garden centre to buy them!

I haven’t managed to take photos of them yet, and it is pouring with rain right now so I’ll report back later!  I’m ‘auditioning’ them at the moment.  They are placed in their pots on the border to see if I like the placement. 

Anticipation….

I have just bought this rose.  It is a floribunda rose called Ruby Celebration, and has these gorgeous deep red flowers.  But look at how many buds it has!  I have counted and there are at least 40 flowers to come – can’t wait!

Here’s some of my favourite flowers which are flowering now in my garden:

A gorgeous frilly double day lily.

A delicate pale pink single day lily:

Cool blue agapanthus.  I have several varieties – this is the largest.

Blue hibiscus.  I love those  purple veins!

My lace cap hydrangea is not doing so well this year, but the japanese anenomes always do well.