Hobbies and Crafts

So spring is just around the corner in your garden Vera. I love to see the Helebores coming through. We also have three daffy out, winter flowering jasmine like yellow stars on the dull days and the pansies are still going strong.

Gill you can rest on your laurels now that you garden is finished, you have been very busy.

Today OH has trimmed off the lawn and done the edges, cleaned the patio and generally pottered out there. I was busy with indoor jobs like checking the monthly accounts. I do have to go down the garden sometime to check on one of my histas, it is in a very large pot and OH says the rim of the pot has parted company with the rest of it. Sounds like repotting will be in order.

Yes perhaps we should of done a deal Vera lol ;-)

All our garden is now finished. I've replace some panels of screening, laid another flag to go with the 4 I'd already done before Christmas, tidied up all the leaves and done some weeding, edge the lawns and yesterday OH cut both the lawns so they look much better now, then of course we've put in a new water feature which was an anniversary present to ourselves for Thursday. So all in all everywhere is looking tip top now.

I had to Google your winter aconite, what a lovely plant and the yellow will look very cheery in the dull winter months. You have a lot of colour in your garden I envy you. I don't have much colour in our garden at the moment although the winter cherry is doing very well after being potted up a year ago, I'm going to try and get a cutting off it in the spring as I'd love more of them and I can't find any in the garden centres. We have some hellebore's in flower, white ones and I noticed today that we still have a couple of anemones still in flower from months ago, I think it's because of all the mile weather we've had lately.

I did plant some Begonia bulbs today, but that is the last job for now. I'd love to do more in the garden but have ran out of things to do. :-( I love gardening and would do it every day if I could.

We bought a couple of 12 foot Red Robins just before Christmas to hide next doors extension. All we could see from our kitchen window was a massive brick wall so thankfully that's hidden now, although we need another slightly smaller one to put to the side of them as the new neighbours have moved a window around to the side from the back and can now see right into our kitchen window, so that's a purchase we'll be doing soon.

We're not sure what's happening with the properly next door as no one had turned up since before Christmas. We did noticed a man in the front garden taking a photo when we were working in our front garden last week, but we don't know why.

We're a bit fed up at the moment as we noticed yesterday that the concrete fence post at the beginning of the drive has been hit and is now broken. Couple that with the broken fence panel that happened in the first week the builders turned up so we're not happy bunnies. We only had the post replaced along with the fence last May. I believe the new neighbours are planning on putting another fence there so hopefully it'll look nice and the broken post will be replaced again when they do the fence.

On a positive the front garden is looking good now the lawn has been cut and we've added a few more plants. :-) :-) The new planters we bought last year are starting to fill out with the plants and bulbs, so they look good to.

You have been busy in the garden Gill and your water feature sounds lovely. Our garden has been neglected for a few weeks but I did have a quick look at the plants when I was filling the bird feeders this morning.

The winter aconite is starting to come out and it is such a lovely cheerful yellow. OH went and cut back some ground cover epimedium as it had spread too far and was covering up some of the aconites. There is a dark red hellebore and some white ones that are full of fat buds just ready to open and there are mini Iris and daffodils in pots that are showing through nicely and daffodils in a bed are also showing a couple of inches of shoots. I'm particularly pleased about that as last year they were really late coming through and didn't do very well at all.

I had a little laugh about Gill replacing a couple of sedums with euphorbias as we replaced a couple of euphorbias with sedums. Perhaps we should have done a deal ;-)

I saw the fattest coal tit today, in fact most of the birds have put on lots of weight, looks like they've all had a good Christmas lol ;-) ;-)

It sounds like you've had lots of birds visiting your garden Ann. Did you have a nice time away? I saw so many ducks flying south this morning, I've never seen so many, there were hundreds of them all following each other and the noise they were making was so loud. Pity Sandra was still sleep, she would of loved to have seen them.

Yes, I've been very busy these past 10 days doing all sorts in the front and back gardens. I'm so glad the water feature went in yesterday though, as it was raining here this morning.

Mum called around earlier and said the water feature looks very natural nestled amongst our plants. I must admit it does look good and sounds lovely. I've still got a bit more sorting to do at the bottom of the back garden so that'll be done over the next few days, weather permitting. We're hoping the tip is open tomorrow as we have lots of rubbish to take down there.

I'm off to bed now as we think the builders will be back next door tomorrow morning, making noise and waking us up early again.

I hope you've had a nice start to 2019.

pretty gill!
Happy New year to all of you on this thread.
Gosh Gill christmas week and you have been busy in the garden. I have to admit to not venturing outside at all, the garden has not been touched for a while (well we were away for 6 days, but the only time OH has been out in the garden has been to feed the birds. we still have the blackbird visiting for his mealy worms, her probably wondered where we were last week. did see a great tit on the feeder this morning and the goldfinches are still around.

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<3 <3 <3 HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE <3 <3 <3

It sounds like you've got a couple of very lovely plants there Ann. I bought a few Helebores but they are only small, even so they have quite a few flowers on them which is nice to see.

There are lots of flowers around by you Gwyn, it's lovely to see some colour this time of year. We've got a winter cherry in flower, we moved it this time last year so I'm quite surprised it's flowered this year. In fact it's the best it's ever been and such a lovely splash of pink at the bottom of the garden.

Yes, Vera it's been lovely and quiet since the builders stopped working for the Christmas break, no doubt they'll be back making their noise again soon though.

We've been very busy this past week or so in our garden. I've replaced a few bits of screening as it got broken in the wind so hopefully that'll weather in soon so it blends in with the rest. Then today we had a water feature delivered so we've spent the whole day installing that. It looks really nice, much better than I thought it would. I've put lots of plants around it to soften the edges. It's a cascading waterfall and looks as if it's been in our garden forever. It was an early Anniversary present we treated ourselves to as it's our Anniversary in 10 days time. We also bought two 12 foot tall Red Robins to try and hide next doors extension, which seems to have done the trick, they also give us some of our privacy back that we lost when next door had one of their windows moved around to the side. They could see down the whole length of our garden which is over 80 foot long so now all they can see is the first few feet. Unfortunately they can see right into our kitchen window so we're going to buy one more Red Robin so they can't see through our window anymore.

Yesterday we tidied up the front garden and popped a few plants in there, then I trimmed around the lawn which now looks much better. I found the weather has been quite warm lately but it's forecast to go cold this week, so I'm glad most things have been done now. Never mind it was nice weather while it lasted.

I've decided to have a day off tomorrow and stay in doors to catch up with some programmes I've recorded. I'm quite sore after all the work today so a day off will do me good.

Had a bit of a glance at the garden this afternoon when we got home from the L District. We have 2 Helebores out, a lovely white one with masses of flowers and a dark red. We also have two daffodils in flower

Gosh you must be in a micro climate there Gwyn, they would have rotted off the branches here ithas been so cold damp and wet.

Lots of fluffy pussy willow buds fully out, on the edge of a local field.

I always associate that with Spring, not Christmas!

Yes onwards and upwards now Gwyn. Sounds like the glowers in your area are really confused.

No real gardening as such and the council suspend garden bin collections until the New Year, but I did go out and trim some branches of a small fir tree we have.
My friend usually asks if I can help out, so it gets a yearly trim as 'thatch' for the stable roof at our local church nativity scene.
I collected ivy from alongside a public footpath too, so that will go for window displays.

When out and about yesterday delivering local Christmas cards, I noticed a beautiful full clump of iris. I didn't know they flowered this early.There were a lot of flowers fully open.
Lots of bulbs poking through the surface in many gardens, - some quite a few inches tall actually.
Soon be spring, now that we have got to the shortest day.

Hope you are now builder free for a few days Gill.

Today hasn’t been bad at all. It was sunny this morning though the cloud came over this afternoon and the wind seems to be picking up now. We’ve had a lot of rain over the last few days and some high winds but everything in the garden seems OK.

This afternoon OH has at last brought in our Christmas tree. It’s been in a bucket of water in the garden for the last two weeks. Life seems very busy at the moment. Right now I have a gas man here sorting out our boiler which has been playing up, and then we are off to yet another Christmas party. The rest of the week we have visits to rellies and various appointments so I’m not sure when I’ll get around to putting lights and decorations on the tree - December 2019 at the rate I’m going :-).

We have a very soggy garden today as it is chucking it down outside. We have a Christmas lunch to go to in the village. We were hoping to walk but no chance in this and we now have also to go and pick somebody else up.

Hope the builders have finished gill.

What terrible weather yesterday, the wind was so strong one of my pots got blown about and ended up leaning over to one side. Thankfully it wasn't damaged and didn't hit any other plants as it was leaning on a rock. That's been put back in place today and after having a good look around I noticed it was the only plant that moved, so we've been quite lucky. I hope everyone else's garden's survived the bad weather.

I love those white star type narcissus Gwyn, I'm not sure of the name either but they are very beautiful. I've been surprised at how many flowers are still around that shouldn't be this time of year. I don't suppose they'll survive if we have any frost or snow though, but for now they're pretty to look at.

We took a plant out of the front garden last week, I don't know the name of it but it looked well past it's best, so come the spring I'll be looking for something to put in it's place. The workmen next door said it would be alright to put the old plant in their skip, so that saved us a job of getting rid of it down the tip.

I thought the workmen weren't coming back until after Christmas but they have been next door for the last two days. OH spoke to the bricklayer and was told his job would be finished today, so hopefully we'll have a bit of peace and quiet until next year now. There weren't any workmen around for a couple of days at the beginning of the week so all the birds came back to our feeder which was nice to see. They've been staying away with all the noise and people around. Hopefully if it goes quiet again they'll be back. Mind you they make a lot of noise themselves, especially the Starlings, but Sandra loves watching them and gets excited at how many there are all together.

Bitterly cold this week and very little spare time in daylight hours, so no work in the garden lately.

Walking in the local area, I did notice a lovely clump of white narcissus. I don't know the variety name, but they looked like lots of white stars on the long stems, - quite beautiful.

In another garden were some little purple violets. There are still summer flowers about, as we haven't had really hard frosts locally, although country area just a few miles away have had them.

I moved a large fern in the summer Vera and it was okay, I put it in a pot and kept it well watered, mind you there was a heat wave at the time so that would of probably helped. Maybe you could put it in a pot and pop it in a greenhouse over winter then re-plant it in the spring, or just move it in the spring once there is no frost around. My Helebores are in pots so I can't help you there.

I'm starting to get used to the wall now, we went out yesterday to try and find some tall Red Robins but they wanted £300 each which I thought was a lot of money to hide a window, as we'd need about three of them. We do have two large Red Robins although they're not very bushes at the top, but we might move them and then buy some smaller ones to put in their places, to keep the cost down. I've been very busy with Christmas and there's no one living next door yet so we'll probably sort out the privacy issue after Christmas now.

The council sent us a letter with a link to their website so we could see the plans, but they had already started the work when the letter arrived. It did say in the letter we could object, but there isn't any other way they can do the job so I'd rather leave it and put plants there to give us a bit more privacy. Luckily the new neighbours have two children living in Australia and apparently visit them three times a year so I don't expect to see much of them and the window, I think, is going to be a spare bedroom so probably won't be used very often. They seem really nice people so I'm sure we can come to some sort of arrangement between us if we let them know our concerns.

We have moved Helebores Vera but it is hit and miss, I don't think we have actually lost any but they were not so good the first year after moving. All my ferns are in containers and I haven't moved them at all so can't help there.

Gill, I can understand you want to be on good terms with your new neighbours but I would still be inclined to check if you have any rights with regard to light and privacy. Even if the size is within permitted limits I am not sure that they can just build what they like. I expect you are feeling quite stressed by it all.

The garden is at last "bedded down" for the winter. We still have a few blooms on some Campanula, both blue and white. I don't remember ever having it in flower this late in the year before. I also have blooms on two different Viburnum shrubs and they seem a little bit early.

Does anyone have any experience of moving hellebores or ferns? I have a fern that has grown right over a hellebore so one of them will have to be moved. I've done a bit of googling and most sites say hellebores don't like being moved but will pick up after a year or two. There doesn't seem to be a lot about moving ferns. Any advice would be welcome.

It sounds horrendous Gill, regardless of how nice the new people are. so, if they didn't need planning permission then you had no opportunity of contesting the building. I think there is such a thing still as right to light which might apply to your window and their wall. I know that you won't want to upset them but it doesn't seem they are so bothered about upsetting you.
Not sure what you can do but I know if it was me I would be looking to see if the council are aware of the extension and how intrusive it is to you.