PUTTING A CORK IN IT

This is the windowsill in my study.

Now, in the garden you can come across things in trees. There are a small set of chimes yet also an old wooden coathanger and a disused pair of goggles.

The orange thing is a fishing float from northern Skye, the rest are corks - collected I have to say over several years.

(Phew! You might have thought I was a gourmet.) (I hear a cry - "glutton!")

I am seeking ideas at darbishire@doctors.org.uk for a use (sensible) for these corks, up a tree, in the garden. (And I have been though all the HaHa ideas for where I could put them.)

To gardening, weeding, watering - the weather forecast said it would rain yesterday and it did for 27 seconds (that is a guess) not even dampening the paving.

The picture to the right is from the bay in the living room window when a burst of late sunlight hit the lilies in the old ceramic sink and the distant fields.

I have just pruned the willow tunnel and done a bit of whip weaving - now that conjures up more ideas!

It looks like I have discovered the solution for strimmer phobia - a man who does garden jobs! - so the willow prunings can be tipped with white paint and put in beside bushes and small trees to stop him strimming them.

I leave as the swallows (nesting for the second time) streak past the window, the young buzzard mews in the trees and lunch is on the table - Gourmet not glutton!

THIS BLESSED PLOT

This evening the sun came out and shone on a golden hill to the east, a hill curved and surmounted by a bisecting fence.

In the distance the sands of Morecambe Bay glow amongst horizontal dark slabs of the incoming tide, flooding from the Irish Sea to the west.

A garden can be introspective, made of enclosed rooms and vistas but, it can also become part of the greater landscape that surrounds it, the passing of days, the moving of light.

We can see, on a good day, after rain has washed the pollution from the air, sixty miles south yet, because we are 360 feet up on a hill, the country rolls away at our feet - an extension of our lawn, beds and trees.

Our small acreage is only a small part of a bigger garden.

We can watch the seasons

pass - the dark days of winter provide us with colour when there is little growing at home, mists distort light and endow a magic air on the world.

So we have a much larger garden and we do not have to travel to enjoy its beauty

I am only glad that I do not have to mow and weed and manure the lot!

A WEEDY GARDEN URGE

Occasionally something surprising arrives

in the garden - here it is - Tall Melilot, a wild plant not known for growing here - has it come with an imported plant?

At first I thought weed but then changed my mind - that might change again if it sows itself all over the place.

Family are here and it is good weather so we sit in the garden. Apart from interrupting a conversation to leap up and remove a willow herb seedling I have espied I do nothing.

(Oh! I must make a correction - though we saw masses of agapanthus in New Zealand they actually come from South Africa - got that one wrong (sort of).)

I did trim the overhanging grass and weeds from most of the paths before family came so that the wilder parts of the garden could be accessed, if wet, without getting soaked.

One of the house plants, a clivia, has outgrown its pot and is giving small offsets so I have repotted the main plant and potted up two of the little bits.

This is the boundary on the northern, upland side of the garden, a post and wire netting fence with strand of barbed wire at the top.

The plants in front of the fence are a mixture of Rosas rugosa and slower growing hollies. I believe there are also a couple of stunted damson suckers and a prickly plant given to us when we moved in - name escapes me (like much else).

Unfortunately despite feeding the plants with lots of hope and pelleted hen manure, horse manure and growmore I do not think it will ever achieve what I had hoped - not high enough fast enough for privacy from prying sheep. On the other side of the fence is a bridleway footpath and passers-by, especially those on horseback, can see me lounging about under our umbrella.

Actually cannot lounge for long - there is another broad-leaved willow herb growing in the Japanese anemones! Must just . . . . .

SOME SOURCES OF IDEAS

First a summary - weeding, picked late raspberries, picked broad beans and broccoli, weeding, mowed all the lawns (with the rain the grass is growing like something out of a SF novel), sowed some late beetroot, demolished the willow fence/sculpture/woven bits etc in front of Wendy House at request of R and dumped them on the bonfire site.

Of course, being willow near a pond they will resprout ++.

So to the title - the top picture is of the Lake at Hilton Court in Pembrokeshire. It is about 200 times the size of our pond but we have water lilies too. Mind you they have loads of fish, (:-(=, whereas all we have are water fleas.

Over the years we have watched this garden develop from when it first began, it is now mature - but, for me, I would like a few more flowers.

The second picture is of the yew tunnel at Aberglasney - hence the willow tunnel at The Nook.

Again we have watched this garden develop from the ruin it first was.

Before the "improved" digital television service we could get Welsh television here in Cumbria and watched the restoration. Since then we have visited the garden on about four occasions.

Now we cannot get the Welsh channels and suffer from a lack of a fix from Iolo Williams (and his knees) and Trevor Fishlock on his travels.

There has just been published a very good book on Pembrokeshire by Trevor Fishlock with excellent photography by Jeremy Moore.

So, family coming tomorrow from such diverse places as Devon and Australia.

Have to get the Cumberland Sausage (real stuff) out.

I have made a date slice a la Cranks, (I put a bit more sugar in it), and then realised that I am on a diet so cannot eat it!

My Lumberjack hat came today - and that's OK.

DON"T LIVE IN THE WEST UK

RAINRAINRAIN

BOREDBOREDBORED

GRASSGRASSGRASSGROWING and wet.

R loves alchemilla mollis and it flops out of vases around the house (it goes well with roses and buddleia - but not at the same time).

Unfortunately, when it gets very wet, it also flops onto any plant nearby smothering it. This is great ground cover but has to be managed. Anyway, the problem will be solved soon as it will need to be dead headed before it sets seed.

The beetroot is coming on, broad beans to be harvested, spinach blown, new stuff still there under the netting - HOPEHOPEHOPE.

The poor old plum tree branches are now down to the ground - props needed, 4 pears, 2 apples, 0 damsons - yet. The damson trees are too small having come from plants given to us by my Sister-in-law.

(Her niece N makes Agnes Rose special vinegars etc - has won lots of awards - ask your local deli for Agnes Rose products - www.agnesrose.co.uk.)

Some good news - the agapanthus despite two severe winters has turned from 3 flowers into 6. Perhaps that is because we went to New Zealand and liked it? (Agapanthus grow wild there.)

Alongside the blue of agapanthus is a lovely white rue and Acer negundo flamingo.

Also there is a muted

hollyhock now in its fourth year.

I have been collecting seed from the aquilegia, candelabra primulas and Meum athamanticum (spignel). This is stored in the study in brown paper envelopes ready for sowing soon to give plants for next year.

Meum grows in the wild on damp east facing slopes and I would like to establish it in the garden in a wild setting. Its feathery leaves smell lemony - a bit like dill. In fact the meum growing near Shap beside the roads used to be collected and sent to London as a Dill.

Tip - from friend NC - if you are interested in wild plants Geoffrey Grigson's book, The Englishman's Flora, is stuffed with facts.

It says of Spignel, Meu, Baldmoney that it is also known as Badminnie, Bawdringie, Houka, Micken and Muilcionn!

Highlanders used to chew the aromatic roots as a calmative and stimulant - both?

Must just nip out for a fix.

RAMBLING AGAIN

Rambling around the garden in my head, I suppose.

It is raining.

I suspect the weather may finish off the remaining raspberries for good.

Yesterday we had a shower so heavy water poured off the roof in a waterfall - so no gardening, just church flowers - mainly buddleia, alchemilla and a touch of feverfew. R has threatened to put me on the church rota. (I am a non goer).

On Friday we weeded (R accuses me of being a non weeder but I do do a bit) and then I have added yet more netting to a veg bed after sowing and planting in a last attempt to grow something without the bunnies consuming all.

No, I have not yet got out the strimmer - but it will have to be done one day. (Well, perhaps it doesn't but then - jungle.) It is important to remove long grass etc so that next year's annuals can thrive.

I have potted on some white phlox and white penstemon cuttings and replaced them in the little propagator with cuttings of white pinks. The verbena bonariensis grown from seed need to go out.

It is time to seriously think about trees and shrubs if I am to order any for late autumn delivery. R wants a greengage.

The weeping willow has anthracnose - leaves go blotchy and curl up before falling off - but it is too tall now to spray.

It is time to feed the roses (R wants me to get some (or one) Rosa mundi). The Rambling Rectors - one up a tree the other over an old well and some flowering currants - have been good this year.

So to the holiday.

On the way south on the Friday we stopped at the Dorothy Clive Garden near Market Drayton prior to lunch with RJP, H and Max the dog but no sign of Arthur Pint. Max had a maccident.

Then, on the Sunday, went to open gardens at Llanmadoc

on the Gower - very hot and one or two interesting and beautiful gardens.

On Monday stopped at Colby Gardens near Saundersfoot. I told R how we had been before and it had changed so much. She could not remember any of it.

Whilst in Pembrokeshire we visited Hilton Court for a cuppa and a cake (or scone - R) and a walk around the lake.

Later in the week we went to Upton Castle Gardens - this where I am submerged in Humble Pie. This is the garden I remembered - we had never been to Colby!

I am still being reminded that I was wrong and R was right!

Ah! Senility thrives.

(Pictures top to bottom - Dorothy Clive Garden, Frog Cottage in Llanmadoc, Colby Gardens, Hilton Court.)

CONFESSIONS OF AN ABSENTEE GARDENER

So I have to admit that the last three blogs were written two weeks ago and put on a memory stick. Then, using R's laptop, I released them one by one. The first from The Gower, the second from Pembrokeshire and the third from the Malverns.

Now I am home it is back to the usual - mowing lawns, trying to tame the jungle, picking fruit that are going over an so on.

We made raspberry jam yesterday (Mrs Beeton) - very easy - recipe on request.

The first picture is of one of the oriental poppies in the poppy bed. Cuttings will be taken.

Now a message for G in Belgium who sent us a card with a four leaved clover - I think it is a clover, just a pity it is not a shamrock. (There is a touch of the celt in G.)

The evil strimmer - you know I love it - is just got to be deployed after I discovered an attempted rabbit hole 20 ft from the kitchen door - on the banking.

R has to do the flowers for church this weekend an was wondering what we could take from the garden.

I suggested armfuls of buddleia and alchemilla.

The second picture is of Crocosmia lucifer - would that be allowed in church?

Finally a rather attractive yellow plant has appeared by the valerian at the cattle grid.

It is tall mellilot, a wild plant.

So I got out the flora of Cumbria and it is not recorded anywhere near here. How it arrived I do not know - I suppose with some plant I have bought - but I have put nothing in that bed recently.

The House Martins are investigating the gable end over the garden again but are being harassed by our swallows - and the sparrowhawk has been back whilst we were swimming in the sea - a wood pigeon this time - neatly plucked just outside the kitchen.

Time to tidy the sea of feathers, mow lawns, weed, pick fruit, strim, lie down, have a cuppa, have a beer, doze in the sun . . . .

THIS AND THAT AND SO ON

Let us start with bad news - R does not really like the meadowsweet which grows inabundance in the wilder parts of the bottom garden.

I quite like it but it does have one failing - it is very susceptible to mildew (a bit like me).

For now it stays but . . .

The yellow rose here was a freebie from David Austin Roses with an order.

It looks wonderful, especially cut with alchemilla, smells great and loves its wall tucked at the back of the house - a little feeding and pruning and it seems happy.

A little horse muck, well rotted, a boost of pelleted hen manure, a judicious prune at the right time seems to do the trick.

The frame to which it is fixed is just a load of old hedge thinnings tied together with wire and then, again, tied over the top of the wall to a few large stones.

A bit scruffy but it works.

The next pic shows the oriental poppy bed in full flood. I hope to expand this so have not dead headed the plants and will take root cuttings.

They are now over but the self sown opium poppies are coming into flower all over the garden.

Finally there are the strangely coloured

sycamore leaves coming out of this old stump left behind by the hedge layers.

Sycamore can have wonderful red young stems and cascades of yellow/green flowers.

If only it had a good autumn colour and did not seed itself everywhere.

Poppies I can take but the sycamore (and ash) trees are a pest.

DO NOT LOOK AT MY FINGERNAILS

As you can see we are into the picking season - raspberries, goosegogs and the blackcurrants.

I inadvertantly got my hand in this shot revealing a sticky plaster over the injury from the hand fork into the pulp - you cannot see the gooseberry thorns and nettle stings. I have studiously avoided the rue and hogweed - a blister too far.

Friends have given us plants - my ex partner PJR gave us many when we first moved in - some are wonderful and some are frankly invasive - but they did a good job when the soil was bare.

My late partner IFS's wife S gave us

trees - beech, copper beech, an oak and a horse chestnut (indica I think) shown here.

The copper beech is at the far end and will, I hope grow as a good back colour for the six white birches.

The oak in in the lawn below the house and now six feet tall.

She also gave us a red strawberry which was planted as shown here beside the path to the Wendy House, a barren bank of hardcore.

Though the soil is very poor it has thrived though the euphorbia shown is pushing hard.

It has fruit but I have not yet tasted them. I suspect they will be small and woody.

I am looking out of my window at the big ash tree with the rose Rambling Rector tumbling through it and have noticed a pretty white flower at the foot of the tree.

(Nipped out)

Mmm! - pretty flower turns out to be Ground Elder.

B***** Romans, why bring it here?

IT'S MONKEY TIME

Well, it is monkey flower time.

Down by the pond plants are flowering - mimulus (monkey flower) has spread to good effect as have both of the primulas - the earlier flowering pulvulurenta (I hope that is spelled correctly, I certainly cannot pronounce it), and the soft yellow of the slightly later veris.

Both seed and I will save seed to, I intend, end up with a river of candelabra primulas by the stream and pond much like the RHS has at Harlow Car.

There are, of course other flowers - the astilbe that R does not like, (there is a national collection at Holehird, the Lake District Horticultural Society's garden) loosetrife, both pink and red, yellow irises, both

plain and variegated and so on.

As to the inhabitants of the pond the tadpoles seem almost reluctant to turn into frogs, the whirligigs whirl and the pond skaters skate. Water Beetle larvae eat everything moving and caddisfly larvae hide in their little houses. The stream has freshwater shrimps and other crawlies.

Now, we have at least 6 compost heaps around the garden, most just mowings, and you would think this would be ideal for grass snakes and slow worms but not a one has been seen.

I have heard that the blackbirds in the south are having a tough time.

I can lend you a few - we have plenty.

I can especially lend you Blackbird the Barmy who is still waking me as dawn comes - and dawn comes really early here - sort of just after sleep comes!

FULL ENGLISH

So much happening.

My couture mentor has died aged 83 - at least that is the impression the family give me - Peter Falk in a Mac rather like the tattered Burberry my father would wear on the Fells.

The willow tunnel is exploding in growth and I am wondering how wise it was to create it.

I am also concerned that if I get a tractor mower the tunnel may be too narrow and I will have to use the old mower.

And we have had an explosion of feathers outside the kitchen. A sparrowhawk, I think, has got one of the collared doves. The doves will perch on the edge of the roof like sitting ducks - if doves can be ducks? They are too tame - I found one in the shed yesterday perched on the edge of the sunflower seed sack helping itself.

One of my birdbaths is going

rusty though the colour contrasts well with the catmint.

Birds - fledglings everywhere - some hyperactive like the bluetits, some mentally deficient like the robins and the blackbirds, some just pushy and greedy like the greenfinches.

Things are very picky at the moment - 5 pounds of gooseberries, six pounds of blackcurrants and a couple of pounds of raspberries.

We also had some spinach and the rabbits had some spinach and now we do not have some spinach. The bed with broccoli is like Fort Knox - chickenwire, netting etc and they still got in!

This is a beautiful white geranium.

I am still waiting for the beautiful white cosmos to flower but will not be long.

Put in some back up plants today and some verbena bonariensis I have grown from seed.

We went to one or two gardens in Ulverston on the open day on Saturday. They are so neat compared with our jungle. The weather was hot yesterday and today and very humid. The soil was warm to the touch and you could almost hear the plants growing. (Weeds and lawns especially.)

Having talked about summer weather - I think we have just had the summer - the temperature has dropped 7C in the last hour.

PS. I am now an old age pensioner - Happy Birthday to Me!

R asked me what I would like to eat for dinner tonight so we are having a Full English!

WHAT R LIKES AND A FINGERY STORY

Let me start with what R likes.

R like Alchemilla Mollis, Lady's Mantle.

Now we have three types in the garden - the

alpine - small and neat, the wild - very green and the garden variety - yellow flowers and slightly hirsute leaves to hold those crystals of water after rain.

She also likes valerian, another wild(ish) plant - well there are two wild varieties - the red and the pink marsh valerian.

She likes the three colours grown in gardens (and on the walls of St David's Cathedral) - red pink and white.

Here at the first two, the latter has not yet flowered and is in a bed by the Wendy House.

To move on to rabbity talk and bare veg beds - chomped and munched to death. This autumn, if not sooner, a stout wire netting enclosure will be put around at least two of the raised beds to keep the b*****s out.

(It is all in your mind - bunnies!)

And then there is the idiot who was vigorously weeding with a hand fork and rammed a tine into his left ring finger palp. (That is the soft bit on the end).

I yelped and howled worse than a professional woman tennis player. I could see the fat from the inside oozing o.. - sorry - shut up - OK I will.

Of course I was not wearing gloves, do you think I am stupid?

R does.

Have to go, the barmy blackbird is attacking its reflection in the back window again!

That makes two of us! Barmy I mean.

OF LOGS, FIGS AND TADPOLES

In between the rain showers (and longer spells) tidying is in order.

The log pile up the garden gets smaller and the leg shed gets more full. The willow logs, no roots, sprout away - there is one in the centre of the picture.

Now, come the winter, we will have to light the woodburner and then retire to the kitchen as the living room gets too hot.

Willow is not an ideal wood for the burner - the ash burns slower and better - but it is better than nowt! (Local dialect for nothing, not a new type of tree.)

Just near the woodshed is a cylindrical pot with a fig growing in it - to restrict the roots and get more fruit. This has not worked this year and we have only two figs and a runt - the picture shows one and a runt.

I do care two figs, wait - I do care, two figs are/is? disappointing.

Though not alarming - this morning R looked out the window and TWO rabbits - very worrying. Where there are two there are twenty. It seems that despite the very cold winter most people locally are crawling around their gardens in desperation as their prize plants are nibbled. (I have just changed a mistyped 'o' to an 'i' in the last word but nobbled is as good.) Some gardeners are crawling with shotguns at the ready. PB, a friend, bagged three the other day.

Am I in favour of shooting the bunnies? This is difficult when a baby bunny looks up at you with big innocent eyes - "What me sir? As if I would." But then they do.

Somewhere in the garden lurketh the makings of a warren - but bunny warren/barren garden.

This brings me, somehow, to tadpoles, note the legs. We saw frogs in the pond last week - very yellow and green - and there are a plethora of tiny toads wandering around.

To serious matters and the severe drought in the east and south of the country.

Well, they need worry no longer.

Wimbledon fortnight is here so they will now get plenty of precipitation.

I seem to remember using an old tennis racket as a crude sieve but for what? I cannot recall.

I do recollect making cottage cheese at University from unused milk, letting it go off and then draining it through and old pair of tights, one leg inside the other.

The smell pervaded the whole wing of the Hall of Residence.

Where I got the tights from I cannot recall.

(It was before I met R.)

YELLOW CAN BE DIFFICULT

At the moment most of the garden is pink and red and blue and other similar shades.

Yellow is a problem and things will have to be moved.

I can manage the broom

as it is down on the banking but the perennial wallflower is stuck in completely the wrong place.

It is surrounded by pinks and lillies and roses and penstemons and so on - yellow especially seems to clash with white.

Daffs and dandelions are spring flowers when we need cheering up but now the year is more mature it lapses into subtler shades - reds blues and pinks - all of which are satisfactory with whites.

Later in the year the yellows will be back with sunflowers and rudbeckias (black-eyed Susan), dahlias and so on.

Down by the pond the yellows are flourishing without clashing - iris and mimulus and particularly the soft yellow candelabra primulas which always seem to come out just as the red ones are fading.

As before I will save seed from these and keep them in the shed by the window as seedlings over winter - then plant out.

The blackcurrants are now getting their act together - as are the gooseberries.

These are thinned and now ripening.

I have just mowed the lawns but - went to Armers to get blurb on sit-on mowers - with a trailer to cart muck from the horse-ladies field to the garden.

I will look for a second hand machine but it will fill the shed. When it was ordered I made sure it had double doors - the shed not the mower.

Nearly trod on a small rabbit by the back door last night and TWO squirrels hoicking (I think that is how it is spelled - the computer spellchecker does not recognise the word) bits of peanuts out of the feeders by the shed with their fingers.

Eating spinach, rhubarb recovering, asparagus left to its own devices, parsley planted, sweet pea sticks strung to aid the plants climb, bottle of J2O opened, crisps about to be crunched - Bye!

A GARDEN PLAN

I think it is time for a garden plan.

To start here is a Google image - the one you can see if you look at The Nook now.

This is at least six years old - before we built the house and started on the garden.

You can see TJ's old prefab and his garage, now, of course, gone.

The plan - at the bottom of the blog - is very confusing as so much is in it but the lawns are light green and the wilder areas darker.

Zooming in on the blog may help.

The house is top right, the Wendy House bottom right by the ponds.

This brings me to tales of animals.

Last night we were standing by the Aga (yes, we have one and I know all the arguments) when I looked out of the glass doors to see a grey squirrel just sitting there. We stared at it, it stared at us and then put its head to one side as if assessing the situation.

It shifted when I got the camera but not before this snap.

Then R was down at the Wendy House and as she came out she found a baby rabbit sitting on the grass. They stared at each other until R moved forward and the rabbit shot into the pond and made its escape.

The worry is that where there is one rabbit more cannot be far behind.

The next picture is a view up the garden from one of our bedroom windows.

It shows the hoggin path to the left leading to the veg and fruit area and the gravel path on the right which heads for the woodland. In the distant left there are the small stand of white birches. The mass of white in the foreground is the crambe behind the roses and catmint in the foreground.

WHITE

Though colour is very important in the garden as relief from the predominant one of GREEN, white is also essential.

This can take the form of variegation in foliage, flower colour or even white stones, painted walls and other painted items.

The first plant shown here is a white Iris rescued from the rubble of the building of the house. This was one of TJ's plants - he also had a blue which I also saved.

This Iris is one of R's favourite plants in the garden and lights up the area by the slate path from the paved area to the hoggin path.

Though there are wild flowers

of white such as daisies - both Ox-eye and common, foxgloves now interbred with the wild ones and pignut they pale into insignificance with the explosion of the crambe or the penstemon - right. (Took cuttings of this and catmint).

One recent introduction is the white form of the biennial honesty. It is important to keep the rotation going by sowing seed for two years and then letting them get on with it. At out previous house I did not do this and we had alternate years of white and pink.

So, what have we been doing - eating the thinnings off the gooseberries and freezing some for later. Leaving one berry every couple of centimetres (gosh metric!) will give us a fine crop in a few weeks.

Broad beans have been sown for a second crop and pumpkin and squashes are in. The turnips and rocket are through but some of the rhubarb still looks sickly - did it get a side swipe from the weedkiller used on the paths?

Yesterday I picked an enormous vase of roses and their scent now fills the hall - Emma Hamilton, Gertrude Jekyll, William Shakespeare, Jude the Obscure.

It sounds like we are having a celeb. party though I am not sure how they would mingle? Plenty of Burnet wine and some Bombay mix should do it.

BACK FROM THE BIG SMOKE

After a weekend in London - sadness at leaving family there - but joy at returning to a place where there is no drone of traffic, no people pressure, no feeling of being in the bottom of a claustrophobic canyon. Having said that, Primrose Hill is probably a good place to be if you like open spaces though, having been taken to Camden Market on Saturday, some of the people pressure is overwhelming.

Back to mowing lawns - after golf.

Then looking out over Morecambe Bay to distant Ingleborough and the Forest of Bowland - do I prefer that to sitting on Primrose Hill and looking at The Gherkin, The Shard and the BT Tower - ?! No contest.
So here a few pictures taken today at The Nook -

from top to bottom - An explosion of crambe, roses and catmint, foxgloves and red, pink and white campion in the wood and roses with the poppy bed in the background.

When we came back he bird feeders were empty - their contents inside chaffinches, greenfinches and coal tits amongst other birds. Now they are filled again.

The small rabbit seems to have taken up residence and all I can do at the moment is pray it has enough grass to keep it off other things - like the last of the asparagus we had at lunch.

The garden is now growing and in places getting out of hand - grass exploding next to the paths and I will have to get out the dreaded strimmer and cut it back.

Many of the tadpoles have legs. Soon we will have frogs - with legs - no, sorry - Non!

I would rather they ate pests than we ate them.

Now snails in garlic butter - Mmmm!