cuttings, currants, carpet and a cat

I took several cuttings from my mum’s garden and have potted them up, not sure they will take but it is worth a try,

Tuesday was a good day and so while the opportunity was there I thought I would attack some of the weeds……

I filled the organic compost bin and have hardly dented the weeds and grass, I did find the flowering currants I planted in Feb ’08 which should have been moved last winter so I really must this winter or it will become impossible, I also found some blackcurrants that had self seeded in among the flowers so I transfer them here at the beginning of the year good to see they were still surviving,

while I was doing the weeding I had a visitor…..

 

I don’t know who it belongs to but it is beautiful and very playful, he/she kept jumping and chasing imaginary things, lots of pouncing and high twisting jumps :o)

 

as I have filled the organic bin I looked for something else to do, not hard as there is so much needs doing, this was heather but I cut it back last year when it looked like the rabbits were burrowing, this is where the south westerlies hit,

I am trying some New Zealand broadleaf cuttings (if anyone knows the official name I would love to know please), I weeded and put some old carpet down to suppress further growth, if just half take in a few years they will make a good wind filter (should have done it years ago….sigh),

before I covered with the carpet I added some composted loam, I was digging it from the pile of composting turfs when I was surrounded by beautiful white tailed bumble bees, I had disturbed the nest….. I have quite a lot of bee visitors in the garden, I hadn’t known where any nests were before, I will leave that area of the pile,

weather became wet again today so spent the afternoon dreaming of plants I’d like to buy………..

on the Edge in York

I’ve been on the mainland helping my mum pack up her treasures for when she moves yet she still doesn’t know when that will be, it’s nice to be back home,

 

I thought I should post something textile but have not got many photos just now, must take some soon, I am a member of Edge textile artists Scotland and we have an exhibition showing at the Quilters Guild York  just now, the work is from the Out of the Blue exhibition in Edinburgh last autumn, the exhibition is on until the 23 December 2009 

allium detail

another day in the garden

the weather was dry with just a little breeze so I did some more work in the garden, this bed is also in the front near the house so get little sun, there were not so many weeds here and a large clump of drumstick primmies which I split, the brown leaves on the shrub are from Tuesdays gale, the twiggy stick is an Olearia cutting I stuck in earlier this year and it has taken, I will trim it down in about a month,

  

looking west

 

the pebbles had become half buried and messy so I took them up and was going to put a line of sand then replace most of them but instead I made a dry cement mix and placed then on it, in time they will become fixed, I am hoping this will keep tidier,

looking east

nice day and bit of play

it’s hard to believe that less than 24 hours before I took this photo we had a force 9 gale with winds of over 70 miles an hour, 

calm after the storm

today was lovely and I had a little walk in the castle grounds, I liked the pattern and shape of branches on this tree,

branches

I thought I’d play with it so gave it a neon glow, I love it,

neon glow

I then followed the instructions to make an old fashioned photo,

sepia look

revisiting my garden

I have neglected my garden this year, I became very low about it due to the rabbit infestation, infact I have been low for much of the spring and summer not interested in doing much of anything, I would get spurts of enthusiasm but it never lasted long,

 

I started reading blogs again and found I had subscribed to Zen Habits, I must have done it as I stopped reading and had forgotten, I was reading Zen habits this Sunday and decided to try some of the things suggested to get me interested in the garden and my home again,

 

As yesterday was nice even though a bit breezy I made a start on some weeds in the garden, there are loads and as ZH says ~ one small step at a time, so…..

 

I thought I’d start with this area, it is at the front of the house so north facing which means that due to our northern latitude it gets no sun in winter and lots of sun in summer as the sun is directly above (well that’s when we get summer sun),  I have not had much success with the plants previously put here as the soil is very peaty too, last year I gave it a good digging over and added some compost (something I do not have a lot of), I then planted some Johnson Blue Geraniums, I have lots they grow like weeds so I thought they might cope with the conditions, they have and flowered beautifully this year, I never got around to planting anything else there so weeds grew in the bare soil and it looked like this…

weeds before

one hour later I had this….

weeds out

 

and now it looked like this….

clean bed

now I knew if I left it the weeds would take over again, I have learnt the hard way that you must never leave bare soil, as I was weeding I was thinking this over and also noticed that some plants near there are becoming over grown….

thugs

so the simple solution was to move them, they can be thugs and I am hoping they will be to stop the weeds and grass, I cut them down before moving them and I know I probably should have waited a couple of months when they are dormant but I have done that before and found with our very short winter days (about 5 – 6 hours of daylight) I don’t get time, before planting I dug in some grit to help with drainage, so this is what it looks like now…

planted

I felt satisfied I had achieved something and felt enthused to do more, I did some more weeding and then had to get ready to go out in the evening, I was looking forward to doing more today but this morning lay in bed hearing the wind and rain lashing at the window, so no gardening today,

 

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