Such a Long Time...since I posted

I can't believe I haven't posted since April.  I mentioned then that life was a bit fraught - storms causing damage to our house and devastation in the garden, then serious illness in the family. Hmm well, yes the year has been somewhat difficult since then, but I know it has for many, many people.

So as a dear friend once said 'Let's Look on the Bright Side of Life'.  Mother Nature has helped us through the year - gardening is the most wonderful distraction  - and brings such lovely little surprises along the way.
When our huge, old and long fence fell down it took out three established clematis and three beautiful rambling roses, not mention a couple of shrubs and some plants we weren't able to rescue.  My new wild garden vanished under a hard pan of earth.  As the new fence went in, no apparent roots were left behind,  we were sad but O.K. with that, one of those gardening challenges.

After about three months, green bits began to appear alongside the new fence......two purple clematis came back to life, the American Pillar Rose started to climb back up the old Cedar and 'New Dawn' showed signs of life from the depths.  Later the two shrubs began to appear and shoot.  Such excitement!  Meanwhile the 'dead' raspberries managed to pop up to produce a handful of berries.  Lovely!

As a little bonus we had a huge crop of 'free' tomatoes that self sowed themselves from the compost spread on one of the veg patches - which was just as well as the ones that were nutured and planted - rather too late - as usual in big planters were very poor this year. The nasturtiums have taken over though - cheery.

Do you know this little poem by Dorothy Frances Gurney called 'God's Garden'? This is one of the verses, and you can Google the rest if it appeals to you.

The kiss of the sun for pardon,
    The song of the birds for mirth,
One is nearer God's heart in a garden
    Than anywhere else on earth.

So, here are the pics. to accompany all the previous tarradiddle:

The wild garden patch.

Nasturtiums break free!

Clematis back to life and two pictures from the gravel garden

 

And finally a little treat.  I fell in love with a wonderful Edwardian style doll that my friend Celia Thomas of ktminiatures.com had for sale on her website.  Then I saw her for real.  She's mine now! We don't know when she was made, or who by, if anyone knows do get in touch. There are other really charming and interesting dolls house dolls for sale, as well as other lovely vintage and antique goodies, do take a look!  Thanks Celia.

Thanks so much for looking - it's nice to be back.
Robin x

Then Someone Brings You Flowers.....

Although I have been reading your blogs I've not posted for a while...life's been a bit fraught lately.

When there are days that are difficult, sometimes just a smile from a lovely neighbour, a phone call from a friend or a bunch of flowers from a special friend, makes everything so much better.

Aren't these fabulous daffodils? A gift from a lovely friend; my other half immediately decided we must grow some next year.  Rushed to online plant sales and we reckon they might be 'Tahiti'. Made a note for the autumn ordering.

As things go - not too well this year - we have loads of planting space in our garden.....  The awful storms earlier in the year ripped off some huge tiles from the roof, smashing through a velux window in our dining room!! Horrors!  The next morning we found that our 150ft garden fence was mostly flat in our and a neighbour's garden.  To be fair it was pretty ancient and my other half and our lovely neighbour had been propping and patching for a few years. You can probably imagine the devastation..........so much smashed.  So many plants demolished by the fence and the big boots of the (wonderful) chaps who replaced it for us.  I have discovered though that hellebores in full flower can cope with an overnight move to the veg. path and back again a few weeks later...who'd have thought it?

This is Exochorda 'The Bride'  which escaped.

To compound our woes a very serious illness in the family has brought us pretty low. Then there was the horrific news of the war in Ukraine.  Keeping busy and distraction is the only way to go!! Let's face it we have a garden to bring back to life which we are determined to view as an 'opportunity', not a disaster!  And the bluebells have forced their was through the hard baked ground to cheer us up and bring hope.

I might not blog for a bit, but I do read yours, even if I don't comment.

Stay safe, and thank you for looking.
Robin
 

Is It Really Nearly Spring??

Here in Oxfordshire the first snowdrops are out, daffodils are pushing through the soggy or frozen ground and finally in our garden the primroses are raising their delicate heads.  At last!!

 

Every year I buy the first English daffodils which are such a cheery herald of spring.  They are likely to be Cornish from a county I love and lived in for several years.  Late winter or early spring brought forth daffodils in abundance; from gardens, the foot of hedges and verges to glorious golden fields of them.
The story goes that during the second world war the daffodil fields were dug over to grow  much needed produce but rather than throw them out the growers poked them onto any verge, foot of hedge, nook or cranny where they might survive.  And they did!  I'm told that in more recent years it has meant that old cultivars were rediscovered and brought back into culitvation.

In my conservatory hangs a (amateur I think) watercolour of round cottages in Veryan, another lovely Cornish reminder, bought for next to nothing at a local Car Boot Sale near here.   Legend has it that 'back in the day' the local vicar worried about the lack of work for the men in tough times,  paid them to build these cottages and a few others.  Round, so that the devil couldn't hide in any corners, and with crosses on the roof-tops to signify their link the The Church. The cottages inspired me to handbuild a number of my own in 1/24th to 1/12th scale.  'Blackberry Bottom' pictured is in 1/24th scale.

Back to the conservatory which comes into its own at this time of year.  Once again our wonderful Strelitzia (Bird of Paradise) is coming into bloom. I've made my own attempts in miniature but you can't beat the original which is now 40 years old and ...can you believe it.....grown from seed.

In the background of the picture you can just see a miniature 'Willow Man' which I made some years ago from an armature fashioned from a wire coat hanger and wrapped in raffia painted (many times) with wood stain.  We used to drive past the original just outside Bridgewater in the West country on a regular basis. Created by Serena de la Hey  in 2000 and standing 40ft tall in open fields it has always seemed to me to be as iconic as Anthony Gormley's Angel of the North, which is truly awe-inspiring.  Sad to see it is deteriorating and no longer in open fields - I hope it can be saved.

Also tucked up on the shelf are a couple of Flower Fairy plates - crab apple and hawthorn.  I had more, but downsizing meant relocating some to the charity shop, but I kept these two favourites.  My plant- loving, gardening Mother loved the books and passed it on to me and then the next generation of girls.  How lovely to see that they are still so popular.

Stay safe, and thank you for looking.
Robin x