Beastly

Mulch underlay or recycling . . . 

Ah, the sound of packing tape ripped from cardboard.  The essential trawl of local take-away options.  Mlle DoodleFace doing zoomies with a gigantic poster tube in her mouth while Mizzy BunnyButt climbs a Seuss-ian stack of clothes.  Mr BigNose sighs from a safe place on the couch.

Yes, it's done.  My worldly possessions, the critturs & family've been shifted to our new locale.

I desperately want to explore the garden.

Alas . . . moving coincided with the Beast from the East.  The new garden hides its secrets under snow, so your first tour will be to see how the travelling plant show survived.







1.  First order of business, feed the birds.

Dinner's ready!

In addition to the feeder, we've sprinkled raisins outside the dog area, & piked some fine apple halves.  Our water dish still hides in some unknown box.  Prayers've been offered for its resurrection.


2.  The Little House

On the day, the movers gave me untold grief about what they referred to as my Little House.  Any advice I offered on how to manhandle it  - something I'd done myself, I might add - they immediately disregarded.  Only an idiot would own such a stupid thing, & they certainly weren't listening to an idiot.

Ill treated composter.

It didn't surprise me to see how unceremoniously they dumped it in the new garden.


3.  A new dearly departed.

Not a pet this time.  For all the movers' dyspepsia with me, initial inspection of the potted forest reveals only one fatality - an Asian pear (in this photo, the horizontal stem).  The tall vertical sticks are bamboo cane to ward off bulb-eating fox.  The short stub of a twig near the label (about the same height as the daffs in the pot), that's what's left of the trunk.

Formerly known as an Asian pear.

This particular tree failed to thrive last year.  On calling the nursery for advice, it was determined that the tree, not myself, was at fault.  A free replacement arrived at my door in November.

Prior to the move, I'd thought the original still had life in it, but seeing how easily it snapped, perhaps a bit optimistic.


4.  Frozen Fatsia

On moving day, our last plant load happened close to midnight.  My thoughts were on duvets rather than dahlias, so it wasn't until the next morning I saw the spider fatsia.

This poor fella needs a fainting couch.

I've wrapped the pot in fleece & cover the plant itself at night.  Hopefully it'll perk up when the weather changes.


5.  Optimistic future.

For all the drawbacks to snow, it does give the garden a surreal, exotic feel.  The ordinary looks familiarly unfamiliar, maybe like we do in fancy dress.

Snow-improved lavender. 

The day before the move, I lifted a failing lavender & stuck it in a pot, rather than leave it behind to some unknown fate.  With the bare stems coated it snow, it suddenly looks like it has its whole future ahead of it.  Which I suppose is what even dying things have.  What else would be ahead except the future?


6.  Lovely in death (or dormancy).

And just look at dear creeping Jenny, herself tucked in for winter, worthy of a Victorian death portrait under her bonnet of snow.

Sleeping Jenny waiting to creep again.

So there it is, a week of delaying gratification.

Apple delights.

Next Saturday, the landlord comes to discuss the garden.  There's rumours of weed barrier & pea gravel, so I'll use the week to fortify my alternate plan.

Until then, there's a community of wonderful gardeners featured at The Propagator whose own Six on Saturday haven't a speck of snow on them.  Run over & find out why.

See you next week!

No More Snow, Please

Old man, Mr Big Nose loves the snow.

Most mornings, Big Nose & myself walk along the school route.  See that young fella there with his head down, the one whose expression says he'd rather be in bed?

He'd be yet another anonymous school lad if it weren't for snow mornings.  The merest of white dustings & suddenly, he's cheery, chatty, not able to stand still.

Before emigrating, I battled mountain snow for years, & fervantly hate all snow now.  No clue why this boy chooses to share his snow glee with me, of all the dog walkers he sees.

Snow.  Bane of my existence.

1.  Snow will be tolerated on the holly.

It does look nice w/that dark green foliage.

2.  But look at my poor foxglove.

Long-suffering foxglove.

3.  The bergenia managed a brave face.

O, the indignity of it all.

4.  And I suppose the fatsia seed heads are actually improved.

Looking more alien than usual.

5.  But the snow brought it's no-good friend.  

Ice!

Confined to the glass top of the patio table.

The glass top has since been brought inside.

There'll be no sitting outside today.

Not exactly the hot seat.

6.  The witch hazel only lightly dusted.   

Snow witch.

Not that it worries about snow.  Actually, there's barely any snow on the witch hazel, but it's having such a great blossoming, it deserved to be featured here again.

Love at first sight.

So there are my Six.  Rather than end on a snow note, I leave you with something I love.  You may remember a few weeks back, I told the story of my crooked cherry tree.  The sight of it in full bloom, growing through a shrub, well how could you not give your heart to something like that.

As always, I remind you to visit  The Propagator who'll have his own Six, plus hosts links to a vast array of Sixes in his comment section.

A Garden Transitions

Doodle Disruptia.

          With plants transitioning from warm weather to cold,
          the garden has tons of colour.



          This week, I put on my spectacles to consider six plants
          in various stages of the process.










1.  Let's start with something still in bloom.  Before we moved here, this unknown mint spent years self seeding all over the place.  I like the way it & the corydalis soften the brickwork areas of the garden.  Here, both grow in the shade near the leaky the water tap.

Unknown mint creeping under the corydalis.

2.  The leaves of this spider fatsia are just starting to turn.  We got it earlier this year to fill a shady spot on the patio.  Although it didn't bloom, its foliage met all our expectations, as well as those of whatever has nibbled on it all summer.

3.  The honeysuckle, also on the patio, is getting a really nice yellow.  This fella gave us trouble during the rainy season because, situated between these 2 chairs, it didn't have enough ventilation.  I raised it on some bricks, then spread a layer of mould barrier grit on top.  There were few blossoms, but I was ecstatic that it returned to health.

Honeysuckle & Mizzy BunnyButt

As you can see from the mushrooms (& the moss on the cement), damp will be an ongoing problem with this little guy, so next year, it'll probably be either relocated or elevated more.

Mushroom in the honeysuckle.

4.  What's a garden without verbena bonariensis, eh?  It looks great on its own but plays well with short guys, tall guys, strong colours, pale colours . . . low maintenance and it lasts forever.  My kinda plant.

Verbena bonariensis in full bloom

Amazingly, these two photos were both taken this week, & on the same day.

And nearly done.

5.  Seedpods are to autumn as blooms are to . . . something.  Oh, summer.  A season that doesn't happen in the UK.  I don't know which crocosmia this is, as it's one of those guys I fell in love with in some long ago garden & have taken with me on my subsequent moves.  Here, it's thinking about laying down for winter on top of the purple sage - an old friend purloined from 2 houses previous to the crocosmia.  

Crocosmia seed heads.

6.  I'll end with new growth.  This sea holly created quite the stir when it showed up at our house earlier this year.  A single stalk ending in one nearly done bloom, it looked like a piece of art rather than something that grew in nature.  It died back soon after planting, but not longer after, voila!

Eryngium bourgatii Picos Amethyst.

And here, with Mizzy BunnyButt for scale.

Mizzy BB never looks impressed.

There's my Six on Saturday to last through the week.  Be sure to stop by The Propagator for his Six & links to many, many other wonderful half dozens.

Mr Big Nose Dog on his colourful walk.

In Only A Week

Acer leaves the colours of a Van Gogh.

At this time of year, posting Six on Saturday highlights how much change happens in a lil ole week.  Bees are hand jiving in the fatsia japonica while the acer leaves that were golden only three weeks ago, are now shrivelling into a burnished copper.





1.  At the beginning of the week, I had to accept that the lawn needed one last mow.  CFS keeps me on a strict energy budget & mowing sends me into serious, angry-letter-from-the-bank overdraft.  I bit the bullet & bought an electric mower as my hoped-for solution.  No petrol smell, no petrol weight, no metal parts.  For the moment, a great & inexpensive solution to the year's last (anticipated) mow.  We'll see how long this light weight baby lasts, come next year.

My new mower.

2.  No surprise that bulb planting gobbled up a good portion of the week.  None of these bad boys were mad purchases of exotic new residents, unfortunately.  Rather, a clutch of brown bags containing bulbs that'd grown in pots - narcissus, tulips, daffs & some Can't Remembers (i.e., bulbs I didn't label so can't remember what the heck they are). 

Planting last year's bulbs is like getting a card from a really good friend who's moved away.  Except for the Can't Remembers.  That's more like reading what people wrote in my year book all those long years ago, wondering who they were & what they were talking about.

Old friends & forgotten favourites.

3.  Planting bulbs got me close & personal with what's already setting the stage for next summer.  My daisies bloom in late spring/early summer, so they didn't surprise me so much.

Daisy in waiting.

4.  But the Michaelmas daisies did surprise me.  On the other hand, this fella bloomed in mid-summer for the first time, so perhaps it's changing its game.

Aster getting an early start.

5.  I came across a little green stranger snuggling next to the purple sage.  Obviously not a weed, but what the heck . . . oh my goodness, how did I forget that I'd planted a sedum there this year?  Probably because after a short struggle, it'd withered away.  I'm very glad to see it didn't succumb.  This may've been a Purple Emperor, although here, it looks quite green.

The sedum lives!

6.  The last 10 years've been fairly nomadic for me, with a new garden every few years.  My current one is the first I've had with no pond.  But since there's a Doodle at our house, we must have water to splash in.  This week, the pool got drained for winter, with some help from said Doodle.

I think all the water's out now.

While I love the blousy look of late summer & early autumn, everything happening this week tidies the garden for next year.  The sudden neatness gives the whole place a feeling of anticipation.  I guess every week in the garden is a good week after all.

Once again, thanks so much for stopping by my little patch of the world.  Do check out the gardener behind Six on Saturday for his own six & links to all the other great Six gardeners.