Hobbies and Crafts

Ann
It must have been rather a shock to get those results about your arm, but it's good to know that you have confidence in your doctor and he is monitoring the situation for you. The worry is much the problem in this type of situation, so it's great that you have been given reassurance.
I hope all goes well for you.


What is the weather going to do this coming week in our gardens?

Yesterday we went to Hampshire and I planted up a tub of pansies for my mother-in-law. Now there might be a really cold spell with possible frosts, I'm wondering if she'll get to see them before they perish?
It was lovely to see that a verbena, which we gave her for a birthday a few years ago is in full bloom and such huge flower heads this year. Her rhododendrons are starting to come into flower too. They are massive plants and do well in the north Hampshire soil, so make a colourful addition now that the garden gets less care.

On our way, we travelled across the Hog's Back, a ridge between Guildford and Farnham area. I lovely to see the large clusters of cowslips growing wild along that route. They always remind me of my childhood and finding fields of them on the Downs in the south of that county.

Gwyn, the blossom trees around here are beautiful at the moment, it seems every road has some either pink or white. When we were in Cornwall the 31st March until 7th April the May bushes were in bloom and the gorse was absolutely lovely.

Kandje I love Lily of the Valley my parents used to have a whole border of it in their front garden, so beautiful and a wonderful scent. I also like Azaleas
Yes the garden is very spring like at the moment.

We are just back from Tesco, not too bad, busy but not frantic and we stopped for eggs on toast first! Didn't have breakfast before we left home.

I have had a letter from the surgery with the result of the biopsy on my arm in February, surprisingly (to me and the Dr) it was a basal cell carcinoma but nothing further to worry about although he will see me in a month for a check up. So different from the impersonal way of having them done at the hospital these days. (My original lovely hospital doctor retired and left me with a specialist nurse who, although friends and pleasant has no empathy.) I am hoping any future ones will be done by him as well.

Tony is pressure washing the patio now. I have unpacked the Tesco shopping, put bedding in to wash and emptied two days worth from the dish washer. I should fling a duster around but not sure I will. The sun is shining so maybe it will be a potter in the garden. Several small things need doing although we have done a lot out there in the past week. We are really waiting for the cold weather to go away so we can plant a few of the hardier plants out that are cluttering up the greenhouse and conservatory.
:-D :-D

Gwyn, the nettle rash and thorn scratches are all gone now, but quite uncomfortable while they lasted. Not sure yet what I will put in place of the roses...... I do have a Peace rose and also two Azalea (pink and white) all in pots, not quite sure what will go where as yet...... decisions, decisions lol.

We also have quite a few bluebells blooming now and the lily of the valley are out too.Dry and bright today so I'm hoping to be outside to carry on the tidying up again.

Ann, the photoblog pictures of your garden look pretty with all the flowers out now.

Vera, you made me smile sharing tales of your OH gardening "handiwork" haha

kandj

Isn't it amazing how lush those nettles look.
A friend and I were talking about her making nettle soup from the crop in her garden, but we've never tried that.

Be care careful with those scratches, won't you?
Are you going to buy replacement roses.?

Not much doing in my own garden apart from the usual bed of bluebells.
The soil is poor, so I don't mind them taking over the patch under the silver birch trees, but it all wants reorganising and sorting out really. They've tended to colonise the area over the years, but I would like to tidy it a bit.

I enjoyed a bus ride up to Ashford this week.
We travelled through several villages and it was lovely to see so much blossom.
Camelias and magnolias were still around and the ornamental cherry had hardly a space between it's flowers.
It does seem a good year for blossom here.
2 cottages were bedecked in huge hanging blooms of wisteria, - so pretty against the white-washed old cottage walls.

Yesterday, I noticed a blossoming hawthorn.
Others locally in less sunny spots will be in full glory soon.

I'm back to clearing some of the nettle bed at the bottom of the garden. I'm remembering to leave some for the little creatures though. Also been digging
out and dumping two thorny rose bushes I bought from an Amazon site and are
poor specimens, so they have to go but I have scratches now from the thorns!

You had a busy day yesterday Ann. OH wants a really fine sieve so we are off to a large garden centre this afternoon to see if we can find one. I know we will end up spending far too much money; we always do.

Re. your suggestion of finding himself a project to keep him out of the garden. I did and he started it 3 months ago but it came to a halt after about a week because he put his back out, and then hurt his neck. His back eventually got better and his neck is improving slowly so in the last few days he has felt up to a little gentle gardening. You know what I think of his gardening skills ;-)

His project was to redecorate a bedroom and put a new shower cubicle in the en- suite. It doesn't sound too bad but it is a very awkward room. It's large, about 23ft long, with lots of angles and a steeply sloping ceiling on both sides of the room. We can only have a small shower because of the sloping ceiling and the previous owners had put in a tiny curved one. It looked wrong and wasted space so we are changing it for a square one. OH has gone back to working in there but can only do an hour or so at a time because of his neck. This leaves him plenty of time to think about the garden.

He has promised to discuss with me what needs doing before he does it but I am not optimistic that he'll remember.

Just been to two garden centres. You can tell that people missed their Sunday trip out. Both car parks were really busy with people waiting to park as cars left. All in all spent over £70! That included bird food, three 60 litre bags of compost, One 60 litre bag of manure, plant food, spray for the apple tree, a Heuchera (I wasn't going to buy replacements for those we lost last winter but we both loved the Lime marmalade), a fern, a tray of 20 mixed geraniums, 5 basket type plants, 2 larger geraniums (pelargoniums not hardy) and a large tray of purple primulas for a £1. Oh and a book!!
Now they all have to be planted! :-D :-D


I can't remember if I said that I put my photos of Cornwall and Dorset on the photo blog yesterday.

OH spent a few hours in the garden this morning, I was washing and tidying up and downloading photos from the holiday That was photos from three cameras. I always have more than one but this time one of my compact cameras, my main one packed up and from reading on line is not repairable, so we went to Dorchester and I bought another camera.

I then managed one hour in the garden and managed to weed and tidy the hosta bed and containers which are all looking great at the moment. Also weeded out the central gravel bed. It is all looking good out there now.

Anyway photos have been downloaded onto the photo blog.

Oh dear Vera, what can we find to keep him occupied and away from the plants? Isn't there a project you can find for him. I do empathise a bit with the listening and not hearing or forgetting, then denying anything was said but so far only aggravation no damage done. I used to do all the flower gardening and planning until we retired now I do most of the planning but OH goes his own sweet way in the garden with clematis..... He likes, dahlias...... He likes, Aquilegias.......... He likes are everywhere. Still they look good so I can live with them.

Feel free to rant away :-D

Ann, what a shame about your fuchsias. I took some fuchsia cuttings a while ago and they have now grown in to quite sturdy little plants. I put them outside about 2 weeks ago but I have something handy to cover them with if a cold night is promised.

As for OH.....words fail me :-|. I have had some lovely feathery grasses in pots for years. They are so old that I have long forgotten what they are. In the winter, 3 pots are grouped in the garden and the other one goes by the front door and I have pots of something colourful in front of it. I thought the other day that they looked a bit tired so decided to experiment with them. I cut one back hard, one about half, one had a bit of a trim and the one by the front door was left untouched.

I told OH what I had done. Today I was horrified to find them all cut back, including the one by the front door which looks completely stupid. It's now about 3" tall and can't be seen much behind the pansies that it is supposed to be the backdrop for.

We had words. It's not the grasses - they'll grow or they won't and they can be replaced. It's the pretending to listen, the nodding and saying yes, but not actually hearing a word I've said and then going his own sweet way. I was fuming. At the moment he may not reach his 80th birthday in May. I might strangle him before then.

Thinking about it, while he spent a lot of time on our old, large garden, mostly he was doing the 'big' jobs, mowing, digging, hedge cutting, compost making, putting up bean canes etc. I did all the actual growing and nurturing of plants. Now we only have a tiny garden he has turned his attention to the plants and, boy, are they suffering.

Thanks for listening to my rant. I feel better now but I am milking my anger for all it's worth. So far he has made me a nice cup of tea, brought me a buttered hot cross bun and brought a bottle of my favourite wine in from the garage :-D

:-D Vera, you know you are supposed to keep your OH away from plants. Hopefully the grasses will be fine and he will be 'smug' and say 'told you so' .

We have come home from holiday to a bit of a jungle but the forgetmenots around the red tulips look good and there are some lovely big white tulips that we don't remember planting plus a lovely clematis is all over the fence. Unfortunately it was unexpectedly hot while we were away and the small fuchsia plants I left in the conservatory couldn't cope with the heat, one died and three are scorched. Our neighbours opened the doors but it didn't help. If we had been here I would have put them outside. That is the lenalty of going on holiday.

I agree with you Joan and Gwyn - the gardens are lovely right now with everything coming to life and looking so great.

We have had a good display of wood anemones this year. Two years ago OH planted about 100 and we were disappointed last spring when only a few came up and even fewer actually flowered. They must have been getting their roots established because this year they all seem to have appeared and flowered. I'm hopeful they will spread now.

The pansies are extra good this year as well. I have a big trough by the back door and three big pots by the front door and they look really welcoming.

I have been doing all the work in the garden as OH has had a back and neck problem for nearly three months but today he decided he would cut back some grasses we have. Oh dear :-(. I really should have kept him indoors. These particular grasses are supposed to be cut by about half any time between April and July. His idea of a half and mine are very different. The poor plants have had a crew cut! I hope they manage to recover. Men ! :-|

That sounds beautiful Joan, - such a lovely treat to see all the brightness after the dark days of winter.

The daffodils around here are mostly over, just a few later varieties are in bloom.
My friend, who does church flowers is always on the look-out for later blooms to decorate the church in yellow and white for Easter. We have plenty of forsythia to offer, but not much else.
Bluebells are opening in the gardens, so it won't be long until we see them in the woodlands round about.
I did notice some cowslips in their usual place on the hill, but I've never been successful with them in the garden, - Too much clay, I think.

Hawthorn trees have their flower buds, so we will have a burst of 'may' blossom soon. The leaves are such a vibrant green. I remember we used to eat them, when I was little. Not sure why, just because someone said that we could, I think.

edit
Forsythia is over now too.

I saw a lovely tree of open lilac blooms on Tuesday.
Everything is bursting into life.!

Our Snowdrops have gone, just their lush green leaves remain, I will be lifting some when the leaves start to die down & spread them around.
The Crocus have also been & gone, but we have a lovely show of Primroses & Primulas which have been in the garden for many years, they have doubled up nicely & even seeded in places, I usually lift the self seeded ones & replant into more suitable places.

The garden is awash with Daffies, we have sooo many now, & we can see them from every window, mostly the big yellow ones but we do have some white ones, we also have some double daffies in a peach colour which are rather pretty, & a few 2 coloured types (yellow & orange) that have 2 small heads to each stem.

The various shrubs & ferns are bursting into life & the trees are starting to show their leaves, at the moment all is good in our garden.

Joan.

Weather has not been too bad since Saturday which was showery. Yesterday was sunny and warmish. We went to Gendurgan, a NT garden which has lots of Camellias in it, very pretty plus a few rhododendrons. After we left there we drove to Falmouth which was heaving. The beaches were actually crowded. We managed to park where we could sit in the sun and look out over the bay. Ate in Wetherspoons early evening and they did an extremely good lamb shank with mashed potato and roasted winter veg and rosemary and red wine gravy.

Today has been light cloud, dry, chilly with a strong wind. We have been to Trellissick gardens and house, again NT. Disadvantage now is the children are on Easter holidays and the gardens all have puzzles etc for them so the locals seem to take all their kids (and they seem very productive) in to do the hunts. It was quite noisy at times today. They do seem to enjoy it though so it is very good for them.

We had lunch in their cafe (spicy veg soup) and then drove to St Agnes and Capel Porth beach. We wanted to take black and white photos of a tin mine for the photography group. We found Wheel Coates so that was ok.

Well I am not sure what happened to the 'I am not doing so many baskets this year. I have just potted up eleven baskets and one tub with petunias, million bells etc and they are now in the greenhouse. I do find it tiring on my back these days but so glad it is done now. Might go and sort Hostas out after a long lunch.

Ugh Vera, I am afraid I do use slug bait on my Hosta bed. I put it down in February and March before the Hostas grow, apparently the slugs pull them underground to feed their babies and it kills them off before they develop. I hate slugs, don't like snails in the garden but hate slugs eugh!!

Just looking out of the window (upstairs) and at the end of the garden we have a clematis which is a quite large bush and it is covered in small bell like deep red flowers, it is beautiful. Trouble is we don't get to see it in flower much because it is a really early one and not near the house. (Planted in the wrong place!)

I have just seen my first big, fat slug of the year slithering across the patio towards some cuttings and seedlings that I have been overwintering indoors and just put out for a bit of air and sun. I am not a happy bunny :-(

Vera,

I'm sure your garden looks very spruce after it's tidy and 'haircut'.

Aren't the warmer days making a difference to the gardens lately?

I've just walked home through nearby roads and saw a magnificent magnolia in full bloom with many of it's blooms opened out.
Just across the road from there, different aspect, their magnolia just has small leaf buds, no blooms.
Lots of blossom locally, - I think some is wild plum. The almond tree in a nearby road is looking very pretty.

On a grass verge some dark purple violets made a lovely show, ......until the council workman came round with his mower, at lunchtime today :-(

A pleasant day here today. It's not particularly sunny but reasonably warm with hardly any breeze.

After 6 weeks OH's back has improved at last and he felt he could manage a bit of gardening this morning. He was under strict instructions from me to stop the minute he felt the slightest twinge. He managed to give some grasses their annual haircut and do a bit of weeding and I cut down the mini buddleias that are in containers and a fuschia that is in a pot in the conservatory for the winter. I also tidied up some penstemons, though I am leaving the more exposed ones for another week or two. It's surprising the difference a couple of hours tidying up makes to the look of the garden.

Now I have to go and tidy myself up as we are going to see granddaughter in "The History Boys" tonight.