GARDEN GLIMPSES 16

It is now well and truly spring. Indeed, Easter Day was the day before I took this shot. I wanted to show you the front yard, with the pallid daffodils begining to fade and the tulips and grape hyacinths begining to bud and bloom. You can also see how the chopped brambles and weeds have died down to make a wildlife patch in the center.

The Pieris tree is surviving, the purple berry tree begining to sprout buds, the clematis and rose are begining to show signs of post-winter activation also, along with one fuchsia and the azalea. The camellia continues to flower. Dad used to say it flowered from Christmas thru Easter - but this season it began early December and is still going...

In the back yard, I have completed the first two veg plots of the year, and sown peas, borlotti beans, and yellow tomatoes to fill in the spaces. Alas, the photo does not show one veg plot, which runs along the overgrowth of hedgerow along the fence due to shadow...but you can see the patch in front the bird bath pretty well. So far, only radish have erupted.

Easter Monday I dug over, redug, and then planted the patch behind the pond, between the ornamental mini hedge (which is somewhat overgrown) and poly tunnel, in front of the apple tree and bluebells. Peas and red tomato have been planted there.

I additionally chopped ivy from the smaller apple tree and cut back some hedge and brambles.

A few days later, I reshaped the hedges out front. I trimmed the outgrowth that roamed beyond the property edge backwards in the corner on the privet, snipped the holly into submission, and attacked the shape and size of that horrid prickly bush that I will gradually do away with as other bushes grow to take its place. The result is that the holly needs to grow taller to fill that gap!

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Alas, despite this being the second flowering baby daffodil, it too has suffered similar fate to its early brother - and been munched. Who or what ate it I do not know. Apart from birds, we get other peoples' pet-cats, hedgehogs, mice, and occasionally a squirrel or fox, so...

However, the pallid daffodils in the front yard were doing much better on my return from a mid-March weekend in Paris. they are flowering well among the cut down hedge, bramble, and weed clippings. Two days after this shot, they were mostly all out - at least a dozen or more of them. 

 

A few days after the former shot, the smaller brighter dills were budding without being munched. In front of them, the fatter shoots are hopefully of the flowering onion bulbs I transferred last year.

One of my first outdoor tasks after returning from my trip, was to tidy up the yards. In the front, I cut brambles, trimmed hedges, snipped ivy, and then got to work in the back yard. As you can see, beyond the mini hedge, mint and strawberry patch, lies a bed of garlic - 2 of which were planted later 2014 and are big plants, the rest planted 2015 have yet to surface.

Beyond that are 4 mooli and the remnants of a clump of chives. 2-3 chives are still alive and so I am hopeful the whole bunch will rejuvenate in a week or two. meanwhile, I dug over the next section of plot and scattered seeds of edible Calendula and mooli radish in the hope the warm spell would last.

There is also a 'something' further along - but I am not sure if it is a garlic, onion, leek, daffodil, or snowdrop until it gets bigger...

GARDEN GLIMPSES 14

With the arrival of spring/March, I began my activities in the yard. I have 2 garlic plants, planted late fall, doing well - but decided to pop a few more cloves in, hopefully...

The patch between garlic and strawberry is now filled with garlic. It will be warmer than sitting in the fridge, so hopefully more garlic plants will appear shortly.

Additionally, I had cut brambles, planted poppy seed, trimmed the cotoneaster...

Shortly before hopping off for a weekend in Paris, I trimmed azalea, chopped brambles and cut ivy in the front yard and pre-dug over the veg plot in the back. Here are two shots of the front yard to show the approaching daffodil and tulip explosions, which unfortunately were due to coincide with me trip to Paris.

Also a shot of the camellia to show it is still blooming happily and with many a bud left to go. As I mentioned above, I had dug over the veg plots shortly before my trip. It is only a pre-dig, and another dig over is due prior to planting. I also shall need to remove the bindweed roots.

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These shots show the late arriving snow drops did survive my replanting attempts from last year. I had forgotten where I had replanted them, so been waiting for them to pop up! In the tub, possibly in a second tub, and the ground near the rose arch base I have spotted what might be snowdrops - and this recent flowering has proven that at least one patch was a correct guess.

The only work I did in the yard during the first two weeks of February was to pick up some fallen sticks and twigs and pile them up near the broken bird box and crate. I think we have a hedgehog hibernating in the former birdbox, so I was careful when I placed them around to make sure it could get out gain after its zzz.

During the last few days of February, I took another look about - snowdrops still doing well, kitchen windowsill tubs sprouted new batches of parsley/coriander and 'something', and camellia still will buds and 1-2 flowers.

March has now arrived - also spring. The frogs have been 'at it' in the pond, croaking and egging away over the past 4-5 days. We appear to have a minimum of 8 frogs - possibly around a dozen.

As you can see from the last shot, they have totally taken over the pond lily patch - I have managed to rescue a few plants and replace them at the side of the pond, but many disappeared under the eggs or got shot off to other pond areas...

SPRING CLEANING 31

Two weeks of Winter season remain, but the frogs are croaking and assuming spring is here as temps have upped 4-5 degrees. I regard the tasks lying ahead of me, which hopefully shall be attended to by the close of spring 2015. The main task is completing the upper hallway. I firstly need to shift the laundry tubs, china cabinet, and other items away from the area. Secondly, I need to attend to some rather large cracks...

 

Once these have been sanded, polyfilled, and re-sanded, I can empty my pot of cookie-dough paint onto the last patches of ceiling and wall. Then, I am stuck until my friend drives me to B&Q to collect another tin of Tibetan Gold paint, as I have run very close to the end of the second tub; it will not be enough to complete the trim, toilet door, loft cover, and blanket box on its own.

Other tasks I need to attend to this spring include digging over the yard, making a compost hole so as to allow the compost tub compost to rot down prior to use, hedge trimming, sanding, polyfilling, re-sanding and painting the toilet, selling and dumping stuff so I can finally paint the spare room, and polyfilling and ceiling painting the coffee hide.

Obviously not all these tasks will get attended to - as they all rely on either the weather or other people, rather than just myself - so, I am sure to have plenty of time to enjoy turning out my pantry and fidgeting about with decor in the lower hallway!

One task I am not looking forward to is buying another new vacuum. Floor-runners, or cylinders as they call them in this country it appears, do not last very long in England. The one I had over in NSW, Australia lasted me over 5 years and was still functioning when I left. Over here in Sussex, England, I ended up my father's upright - thankfully as I dislike uprights -, bought and stopped using a Dirt Devil (its main nozzle broke down on me after 2 years and you cannot buy replacement filters)...

I currently use a Hoover Telios - which is wearing out. It will not allow me to use maximum suction - only going to half the possible level before blowing the fuse. I would definitely NOT recommend this model to anyone buying a new vacuum. It has lasted me around 14-16 months and is already ready to be dumped and replaced. I need full suction in this house!

WINTER WONDERS 26

Incense was the next minor tidy-up chore on my agenda. I had bought three or four 6-packs and decided to spread them out into the boxes rather than leave them in their own collectives. This way, I can take a box of assorted incense downstairs for use over the kitchen sink at some point.

My next task was a small one. It was both simple and quick - or should have been. During the second week of February, I planned to re-stick the blue plastic wall-hook that hangs the shower curtain across the bath. There is one each end of the bath, and both were begining to peel away at the top.

It might appear to be an easy task to fix the hooks - JUST a drop of strong glue behind the top of each hook, press and wait a minute and job done...

...but something happened to make it last a bit longer. I had purchased a tube super-glue at Sainsburys earlier in the week and unscrewing the cap positioned the nozzle ready to apply one squirt on the first of the two hooks.

Nothing happened. After fiddling about with the nozzle and cap for a few minutes, I tried again - again, again, and again. Eventually, glue came out - rather rapidly - with the result of covering my thumb and the wall as well as the hook-wall gap.

Luckily, my thumb was not glued TO anything in the incident, but it took a long time to get it clean of the glue. I had to use my grandmother's glasses to read the teeny tiny print on the tube to see what to do for glue on skin mishaps - and quickly applied the soapy hot water it told me to. I assume many people have glue-on-skin problems as they did mention it on the pack. I had to scrape and soap and scrape away for several minutes to get the gunky glue off, though. I then - with success - attempted the second hook.

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It was time to stop messing about in my pantry and get some serious work done. I began by sanding down the airing cupboard and bathroom doors, ready to paint in Tibetan Gold. They stayed that way for around a week, before I finally gave them their first coat of the bright golden yellow paint. 

It was 2 days later that I top-coated them and had 'done' the western end of the upper hallway - leaving the eastern side untouched. This will not be as bad, as my son lives in the western side - so when I polyfill, sand, paint, etc, I will not be as likely to disturb his daytime sleeping. This also means that there is no reason why I cannot go right ahead and DO the last chunk of hallway except for laziness - oh!, yes, AND the fact I need to buy another tin of Tibetan Gold gloss! I have a toilet door, blanket box, windowsill, and loft-lid to paint with only a tiny amount of paint left in the tin.

February arrived and I noted that the window cleaner had not visited in January. He skipped one month in 2014, also. The weather has not been behaving itself and he had indoor decorating jobs on last time; I have yet to discover why he failed to appear in January.

Along with the fact that in Australia one tends to only clean the windows once or maybe twice a year, it makes me wonder why the English custom is to have ones windows done monthly. Maybe it is not the case all over the country - but my father had his windows done since being too elderly to safely climb a ladder, and the neighbors all get theirs done monthly, too.

Maybe the fact that in Aussie many properties are single-story, not just the 'bungalows' - or perhaps the fact that one has less emphasis on the exterior and more on the interior in Australia. Either way, personally, my main reason for retaining the family window cleaner once dad died is that it is hard to take good photos with bird poop all over the place.