Hobbies and Crafts

Holiday and baby photos on the photo blog :-D

Thanks for sharing the photos Ann. They are lovely as always. Inara is such a pretty baby.

It has been really cold today, more like March than June. Plenty of rain again as well so I hardly got outside at all. All I managed to do was cut back one pot plant that had gone over.

Has anyone tried the dwarf buddleia plants for the patio? Googling, it looks as though there are a couple that have been specifically bred to be dwarf and I am wondering if they really do stay small. I've got a couple of large pots with lilies in, but I have had the lilies for years and am getting a bit fed up with them. They make a lovely show but only last for a very short time. I thought that I might empty the pots of lilies when they have finished and get a couple of dwarf buddleias instead. With luck they might encourage a few butterflies into the garden.

Just looking at your Avatar Ann.. aww, a beautiful baby Inara, will look at the blog now.

Tess, you are more than welcome to join us as we share bits and bobs together.
You might have read that I have been on a serious "mission" clearing lots of very
tall nettles leaning over the path at the bottom of our garden. You will find, it's
time consuming, hard work and the nettle stings are not nice at all. I was told
by Ann and Vera to leave some nettles as the butterflies leave their eggs on them

I agree Vera, I think the garden is getting almost waterlogged. The ongoing heavy
rain is spoiling the roses and the coloured poppies are looking battered too..

Men! :-|. Mostly I love OH dearly but right now I could cheerfully strangle him.

He is always meaning to do things in a minute, then forgets, so garden tools don't get put away or don't get cleaned. A couple of years ago I got fed up with having to hunt for and then clean up dirty, blunt secateurs so, when my birthday came, I asked for a good pair of secateurs for my use only. These duly arrived and all has been well for a while.

Just glanced out of a window and caught a glimpse of something red on a bench. Yep, that's right, my secateurs that have been out in the rain for two days. Apparently, his lordship broke the other ones, so used mine and meant to put them away but got distracted. He then wandered back to the computer while I went out in the rain (yes, it's raining again) and rescued them. I have now washed, dried and oiled them and put them back in their correct place.

As I said at the beginning.........men, Grrr

Vera, I have lost count of the number of times I have bought garden tools so That I know where to find them, only to have OH use them and leave them down in the greenhouse. The only ones he doesn't take are a pink pair of secateurs and a pink pair of snippers. He has also been known to squeeze his hands into my gardening gloves but always refuses when i offer to buy him his own. 'Don't need them' is usually the answer.

Sometimes they are so difficult to love!! :-D :-D :-D <3

Vera and Ann....... where would we be without our men??

I am the only one using the garden tools now and I keep losing secateurs and
I have also managed to lose just one of my favourite gardening gloves.... no idea
where either the secateur or the glove is hiding right now???

Ann I have just looked at your photo blog. Baby Inara is gorgeous!!
The Allium seed head, Buddhist Temple n the river Leven are my favourites this time. Thanks for sharing.

Glad you enjoyed them Kandj. the conishead Priory and temple is such a lovely peaceful place, the cafe is very reasonable, they make a lovely soup and the staff are all lovely, some are in normal clothes, some in buddhist clothes. We love it there. And the River leven is the one that runs right next to our timeshare. Lovely, except the twice it has flooded, it leads from Windermere to the Morecombe bay estuary.

Yes where would we be without them?
All I have done in the garden today, because we went into town, was to pick some raspberries and Loganberries for tea.

Just added photos of Luke and Adam.

Ann, I agree with you Luke and little brother Adam have really grown.
Lovely gt gt grandsons. Thank you for sharing them with us here.

glad you enjoyed seeing them kandj <3

Beautiful healthy gt grandchildren Ann. You and OH are truly blessed.

Yesterday we had the usual men here to trim the two back garden trees and
trim the front garden shrubs. They do an excellent job and always tidy up afterwards.
It's a pleasure to see the trees and shrubs looking cared for. Sadly,my days of climbing
on top of step ladders has well and truly gone several years ago.

I wish my 78 year old OH would accept that he shouldn't be doing it as well Kandj.

Yes thank goodness, so far all grand and great grand children are healthy. Can't wish anything better for them than good health. :-)

Just had a look at the photos Ann. Adam and Luke are beautiful boys and look so happy.

I have the same problem as you with my OH who is 79 and still thinks he can do what he did at age 40. I have managed to persuade him, for the first time ever, to get a painter in to do the outside of our house - our exterior walls are painted. I couldn't stomach the idea of him clambering around over the top of the conservatory etc.

I am feeling particularly old today. It's my daughter's birthday and she is 51. How can I possibly have a daughter that old? I'm far too young :-D

To add to the slugs, snails and rosemary leaf beetle, I now have viburnum leaf beetle. :-| I have used a spray based on natural pyrethrum on it but I am not convinced it is going to work. I'll see how it goes this year and if necessary I'll replace that viburnum with one of the varieties that are less susceptible. So much for my low maintenance garden!

Vera you have obviously planted a garden tasty to bugs. Do any of the bugs you have got do any good besides eating your plants?

I do have to admit to using slug bait in moderation when I plant new plants. Mainly I put it down round where the hostas are in February so that, apparently they are dragged underground by the slugs and they die there and don't multiply. It has certainly worked since I have done that. When we had hedgehogs in the garden I didn't use them but we don't get them at all since the strange woman in the bungalow at the end of our garden blocked up all their run holes.

Yes they are happy boys apparently. GrandDiL is talking about coming to visit us sometime. Although one part of me says that is great, the other part is frantically trying to work out how to make this house child safe, which it definitely is not at the moment since the grandchildren grew up. :-D

Busy day today, first the weekly food shop, - that is always exhausting.
then, last week we got and OH fitted two new ceiling pendants in the lounge, the old ones were about 30 years old and are waiting to go to the tip. So this morning we decided the three matching (to the old lights) wall lights had to be changed. A visit to B&Q and OH is now fitting the wall lights. I can hear hammering and groaning so I guess he is on the outer wall trying to get screws in. Anyway it will all look good when done.

followed that by a visit to a small local garden centre where we bought a few plants to unfill parts of the garden. Stopped there for a coffee and shared a sandwich. Adjoining this garden centre and run by the man who owns it, is The Butterfly garden, an educational and landskills project launched in 2002, all sorts of things there apparently, veg gardens, classroom, chickens, cows and ducks. It is open to all students with learning difficulties, currently over 60 a week. They built a cabin and run it as a charity shop for the scheme. It just shows what the dreams and ideas of one man can achieve.

We have not seen the actual place where the project runs, we have had coffee in the cafe run by students once a week, and when in the garden centre we see the students passing through, all full of enthusiasm.

I am still plodding away in the back garden. Still need to dig up dome nettles and brambles, but quite a small pat h now, so doesn't look so overwhelming.
I will be leaving some nettles and brambles ( or at least, I think that they are brambles, they have thorns + + + and small white flowers).

Planted some heathers last week. Have also got dome Hollyhocks to plant. The ground has been ( just about) prepared.
Weather and energy permitting, I might call into my local garden centre on the way home from Tai Chi tomorrow. Thinking of getting some herbs, which will go in special pots that I got years ago and find, and didn't get round to using.

P.S. Inara is beautiful!

Thank you Tess, bless her we think so of course. Would love to see her and have a cuddle.

Sounds as if you are getting on with the garden, it certainly takes a hold once you start on it doesn't it?

You sound as though you have had a busy day Ann.

I have also resorted to slug bait this year though I don't really like using it but I would have no plants left if I didn't. The little devils have demolished several newly planted asters and some miniature bean plants and have left holes in a number of other plants. I have copper tape round the big pots containing hostas which works fine as long as you can keep the pots well away from the wall or fence, which isn't so easy in the small space I have now.

I think that we probably got as many bugs in our old garden but the damage wasn't so noticeable because it was a big area.

Never mind, life's too short to worry too much about a few bugs eating the plants.

Keep your eyes on the nettles Tess.... they have a habit of multiplying very fast,
as I well know.

Vera, I had 3 sun flowers doing nicely in pots and decided to plant them out in the
back garden and now they have been eaten and look a sorry sight. I hadn't
thought about slugs, but I think perhaps they could be the culprit.

When do you go to be with all the family again Ann? I think July was mentioned
but I could be wrong. It will be lovely for you to cuddle Inara and Adam. Does Luke feel he is a big boy and too old for cuddles now? He is growing up fast bless him.

No Kandj, Not seeing the babies for a while. Luke is three today, bet there is excitement in his house. We don't see Inara until about October - such a long drive for OH up there. and we have yet to find somewhere reasonable to stay in Hampshire to see Adam and Luke. We are however, going to see the two youngest grandchildren next weekend, James will be home from Uni and it is near to Sophie's birthday. :-) :-)

I found a good buy yesterday, an orangey coloured dahlia reduced from £3 to 63p. I think it had been allowed to dry out and some of the leaves had gone brown but it had 3 flowers open and lots of buds. I took off the dead bits, gave it a really good soak and planted it out and it is looking better already. I do like a bargain.

I'd like a bit of advice please. Should I deadhead my salvias or not? I've googled but as usual there are conflicting views. I don't mind leaving them as the spent flower spikes are quite attractive anyway but I wondered if I would get a new flush of flower spikes if I took the old ones off.

I did have a picture of them as my avatar till a couple of weeks ago. I tried to put it back on so that you could see which plants I am talking about but I've had no luck with doing it. The system keeps telling me my profile picture has changed, but it has removed the old one without uploading the new one. I am doing it on the iPad but I've changed it several times before on the iPad with no problems. Any idea what I am doing wrong?