The blooms & beasties in our garden this week.

This is Clematis 'Miss Bateman'. It's a large-flowered clematis with creamy-white petals tinged with pink. The claret coloured stamens make a wonderful contrast.

On top of the table are pots of herbs and baby tomato plants getting the sunshine on the patio. Underneath the table are this week's plants on my eBay auctions. :)

I did this at the weekend. It's a wigwam of bamboo canes. Runner Beans (Scarlet Emperor) will grow on the outer ones and Sweet Peas on the inner ones.




This is the lilac tree from underneath. It's growing next to a weeping willow, so it has to stretch way up high for the sunlight and all the flowers are at the top. It creates a pretty dappled light.

And, of course, we have fairies living in the garden whose help we couldn't do without ..... a little bit of magic fairydust works wonders! Oooops, looks like they have a pet rabbit. Can you see him?

I've ruined my Constance!

fuchsia Constance

Last year, round about this time, I began training a standard fuchsia.

<--------- This is what a standard looks like.

The variety I choose was Constance, gorgeous with her pale pink sepals, purple corolla and mid-green foliage. She was a baby when I potted her up thinking what a perfect standard she'd make with her nice straight stem. During the following months I carefully and lovingly pinched out each axillary bud as they appeared, to prevent side shoots from growing.

<---------- some botany.

Constance was very obliging, growing quickly and forming a pleasing shape. She even produced many fine flowers that first season. Round about November she went into the greenhouse for the Winter, safe in her container and stem tied loosely to a stake for support. Just this week I noticed that she had the beginnings of a whitefly infestation so I brought her outside for some fresh air. Whitefly is caused by warm temperatures so she needed to be outside, despite me opening the greenhouse windows fully each day. We've had very high winds in the U.K. over the past couple of days and the wind had blown poor Constance back and forth, loosening the soil round her stem. Hubby carried the heavy container to the patio for me, where she would be more protected and I set about firming the soil round the stem. Alas, I wasn't as gentle as I should have been and snapped it! Hearing my cry of dismay, hubby looked round and all he had to say was, "I'm bl**dy glad I didn't do that."

From the remains of Constance, I took about thirty cuttings. Oh well, here goes again......

Happiness in the small things......

Hey I've been tagged and the culprit is..... er, I mean it was that wonderfully talented writer by the name of Greenfingers at A Gardener's Life in Motion.

Here are the rules:

1) Name the person who tagged you. Mine is the aforementioned Green One.
2) List six unimportant things that make you feel happy. I've taken the word 'unimportant' to imply everyday things, and so here are mine:

* Walking on the hills or through the woods with our dogs, feeling the stillness and 'hearing' the silence except for the birds calling to each other.

* Watching sparkles of light dancing round the garden, reflected off an old glass lampshade hanging from one of the trees. Charlie, one of our dogs, likes watching that too. :)

* Going down to the greenhouse in the morning to open the windows. Every visit feels like the first. I feel so lucky to have this greenhouse..... hubby built it out of various bits and pieces and it's fab!

* Having a break from the day's work with a nice cup of Earl Grey and a good book.

* Spotting a germinated seedling in the garden that I didn't plant. It's either been from a seed in a bird dropping or blown there by the wind, etc...... a gift from Mother Nature. :)

* The postman bringing me some 'interesting' mail..... usually stuff I've ordered off eBay. :O)


3) Tag six people and make a link to their blog. Here goes.....

Tileena in Behind the Lens
Barbara at The Serenity Gate
Gledwood at Gledwood Volume 2 (Main Blog)
David at Snappy's Gardens Blog
Nancy at Writing Novels
Small Footprint at Reduce Footprints

4) Leave a message on those peoples' blogs to let them know they've been tagged...... and off I go. :)

Early one morning......

Here's our Charlie enjoying a few peaceful moments surveying his territory in the garden. It's early in the morning and all is quiet for now. You can just see the red brick Methodist Chapel in the centre of the photograph, and all the crates filled with plants are in readiness for our 'big' sale at the nearby market town of Stanhope this weekend. We take our plants there every year and the people look forward to seeing us, as we do them.

See our 'posh' brolly! It doesn't have a base and is merely stuck in the ground. It's there to give the dogs some shade because our garden faces south and is a fantastic sun trap. Mind you, they lie everywhere but under the brolly and we end up having to take them, puffing and panting, indoors...... and the dogs fairly puff and pant too!

The patio is full of cracks and looks like it's ready to fall apart quite soon! But if we replace it, we'll disturb all the mice, frogs and toads that live under it. Still, the house is almost 120 years old and that old stone has never been replaced so it can bide a bit longer. :D

Here's Charlie again watching one of the wood pigeons stopping by for his breakfast. If you look to the left of Charlie, you can just see him (or click on photo to enlarge).

Whitworth Hall Revisited ~ County Durham, U.K.

It's nearing the end of the childrens' Easter school holidays and here we are at Whitworth Hall again..... at least we were earlier today; it's just after 11.30p.m. now. I love this place and it doesn't matter how many times we visit, I still get an overwhelming sense of the uplifting beauty here. Strolling round as slowly as I can, I think to myself, "This is what Heaven must be like right here on Earth."

Apple trees in the orchard

Grape vines which will start into the new season's growth soon

This is a 'folly' that was built out on the lake. The materials were taken from part of the older church that stood in the grounds (a more recent one was built in its place). The folly is lit up in the evenings.

I couldn't resist taking this close-up of a Rhododendron flower while walking in the woodland gardens

.......... and here is the woodland walk. You can see the church in the background. This is the church where family members of Whitworth Hall attended.

The church and its grounds deserve a post of its own. There are beautiful old gravestones and vaults covered in lichens and mosses and wildflowers growing amongst the grass. The grounds of the church aren't neglected and overgrown though, but well-managed with wildlife in mind, as are the woodland gardens.

In the walled garden, where the orchard is, the bees were buzzing round clumps of Pulmonaria (Lungwort). The gardeners knew what they were doing when they planted it there, attracting all those bees which will, in turn, pollinate the fruit trees. Sometimes a bee will linger in a particular flower and you can easily get a good close-up photograph but they were flitting in and out of the pulmonaria flowers in the blink of an eye and it wasn't to be. Forgive the pun! It was amusing to see them with their backs brushed with grains of pollen. I like bees. :)