Handpainted bird houses.....

Gardening is a fairly new interest to me....I am still learning by my mistakes! Mostly I can keep plants alive now but they don't always grow how I imagined they would. My mother tells me the Latin names and if they like sun or shade etc. Often this doesn't help as my garden is north facing and seems to have a bit of both. She has given me some beautiful books which I love to read but either I can't find the plants in the garden centre or they cost too much. Gradually over time I am getting to know what likes my boggy clay soil which is rock hard in the summer.

 

 I am trying to make my garden into outside rooms decorated with found items...mirrors...painted objects....hanging things and anything else I can make that will withstand the weather...

 

 

I bought this bird house in the pound shop and painted it with acrylic paint....I gave it a coat of varnish and it still looks pretty after two years.....

 

 

The left hand bird house above was in a sale in Sainsburys a year ago....It was already white so I just added a pattern. The right hand one was from our local charity shop which cost £1. It has a nice texture but was painted with a tacky design. Firstly I painted it with left over garden paint which had been used on my bench....then I rubbed a little pale blue acrylic over it to show up the texture. A little bit of pattern on the roof and around the hole added enough extra interest for me. A quick varnish does help protect painted items but they are still affected and weather.  I don't want the pain of putting my things away so they are left to mellow and have been out all winter.

 

Longing to be out in the garden again....x

 

Growing Clematis...

 

I love Clematis....I constructed a trellis from canes lashed together to hopefully form a screen at the top of my garden. The Clematis were planted two years ago.....they grew and grew until they went around the corner of my garden. I had bought the little wire little fences some time before as they were so pretty with gems threaded on the wires. At last I had a use for them and used garden wire to secure them to the fence....to my delight the flowers wove their way between the wire arches...my

 only regret was that I had not bought more....

 

 

 

 

These Clematis were planted at the left side of my shed many years ago, there were a few flowers each year....then suddenly they off they went covering the fence and growning across the shed. I doubled some cotton yarn ( the only string type of thing I could find) and secred it around the shed roof entwining the plant around the yarn. A beautiful garland of flowers hung around my shed all summer long....

 

Flowers make me so happy... x

 

 



Better late than never.....

I am so sorry I have not been on here for months....I had quite a bad accident...I fell down the stairs. 

I am still having physiotherapy and walking in a very strange way. I have been feeling down as normally I am very active. Never mind...I don't want to go into it all, I just thought a brief explanation was due.  I have so many photos to put on and thought I would start more or less where I left off....

 

 

 

 

These pink flowers were amazing all summer into Autumn. I can't remember the name...it was a cutting my mum took from my auntie's garden. She gave it to me last spring when all that could be seen were a couple of inches of stalks. This is probably my favourite plant now. I had to dead head it every day which was a bit of a pain. In the end I sat in the sun with a pair of scissors and a bucket and made the most of a dull job....it just kept flowering and flowering. Mum said I can divide it this spring, I just hope she comes and does it for me as I would probably do something horrid to it!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I just hope spring hurries up! x



A very small pretty garden ...

I thought I would show you a few photos of how my garden is changing.... The photo below was taken in the spring...

I moved to this house over nine years ago...I have never really been happy here, mainly because the house is just so small. This is a two bedroom house and I have the smallest room as my son Charlie has more things.. uses his room more...and need a private space to do the things 15 year old boys do. The second bedroom only being big enough to fit in a double bed along the window wall with the headboard and footboard touching the walls from end to end. I have a single wardrobe and bed side cabinet, which in no way have or ever will accomodate my clothes shoes etc. 

The other thing I hated was the garden. It has taken me nine years to get it all fenced and make it private. Originally there was low chicken wire fencing and if you stood at the end of the garden you could see along the whole terrace of six houses. When I moved it the garden was muddy turf and there were no plants. My father dug up the whole garden and laid new turf. My mother showed  me how to plant which I had never done before. After a couple of years the turf had turned to mud again...The soil is heavy clay and the garden flooded...

My father replaced the lower lawn with crazy paving which looked really pretty...but still it flooded. I raised the bottom half up with bags of sand and had a soak-away dug...eventually I covered it in pebbles as the whole thing was messed up and I still got puddles... last year I dug up the grass from the top ...raised it and layed a wooden frame work with slabs and pebbles for drainage...it still flooded!!! So this year I took it all up again ...dug out the pebble areas deeper and dug two big soak-aways which I filled with broken slabs and pebbles. How many bags of stones are in this garden I hate to think..all is I know it has been extremly hard work...hurt my back and cost a lot.

I have four old chairs that my parents gave me and told me off for using in the garden!!! Over the years they have been outside most of the varnish has come off so I am in the process of scraping off the remainder and painting them with wood stain. The one above is in my favourite colour and is for my little sunny decked area at the top of the garden...

Only one half is decked at last years good weather ended before it could be finished...

This is the area where I sit and chill...or try to as I am usually stressed....

 

I had to show you my new flip-flops...pretty aren't they...very cheap from Asda..

 

 I am starting to love my garden.....

I am allowing myself  to endulge in whatever I feel like adding to this little area.....

The fence here is just three large pallets turned on their ends with the underneath facing inwards...I did it this way as it gave me shelves to support the window boxes . The backs are filled in with off cuts of decking and whatever would fill them for privacy...It is arty...peaceful...private...sunny...and totally me.....x

Growing strawberries in the garden ...

Hi...so sorry I have not blogged for a while...no excuses really...  just that time just seems to whizz by and I have been very busy.

I thought I would show you some photos of my garden that I took a few weeks ago.I have been meaning to put them on and have more on my camera , I hope to get up to date as every day my garden seems to change.

I didn't buy many plants this year as I have divided older plants ...grown from seed and been given many from my auntie and my mum....

I have never grown from seed before and was unsure of what to do with the seeds my mum collected from her garden. Her instructions were ....scatter them!!! So I did. I was thrilled when they started growing...however... Mum took one look and pulled a face that told me all was not well. Mum said  'They are far to close together...there are far to many...you will have to pull some out'.  Well I haven't pulled any out...I couldn't bare to. I have decided to wait and see what happens!

My Bluebells....





Some Pansies...



 Primroses..

I made this trellis last year by lashing together canes...I was a little surprised that it withstood the winter... I planted  honeysuckle,clematis and Jasmin, which are now winding their way around the canes and obscuring the view .



Clematis...

 Nemesia...

Snapdragons...

 This mirror was made many years ago by my Uncle Mike who is sadly no more with us...I  treasure the mirror and have painted it many times. I thought it would look good at the end of the garden which is my special place. This little area is where is sit and chill...I am letting myself indulge in my favourite colours..it is arty and decorated with found objects. The back fence is made from pallets stood up an end and the decking is also on pallets... 

Forget-me-nots...

Clematis...

This photo is taken from the end of the garden.. Last year I bought a strawberry plant and let it run into other pots until I ended up with eight plants. This year I have put some of the plants into hanging baskets. Apparently the runners will hang down and I will have hanging strawberries..also the slugs can't get to them....

 More clematis...one of my favourite flowers...they are filling up the trellis...

The view up my garden to the sunroom....

I love my little garden...Thank you mum for showing my how to grow flowers x

Butterflies in the garden ...

Firstly I must apologise for not blogging for a while...

I have just been so busy...up to my eyebrows.

I had to take some time off with the Easter holidays to spend with my son. I had some orders to finish and my parents were due to visit which meant a massive tidy up. My parents live in France and mum had to re do her passport...it was sent back as in the photos she was too close to the camera. By the time they had the photos re done, sent them back and waited for the return of the passport Easter was long gone.

My parents arrived on Saturday and needless to say I had to down tools and spend time with them as they were very much missed. 

You may remember this photo a few posts ago....

And this one....

Well...I finally finished it...

I decided to put it in the garden ...mainly as I could find no where suitable in the house.

I gave it a couple of coats of varnish....





and hung it on the side of my shed.

I had quite a problem working out how exactly to attach it and sorting through my tools I came across some white 'things' with nails in that are used to attach cable to walls...I think!

Anyway...they did the job. I did however manage to bash a lump of paint off when I missed the nail and hit the side of it by accident... 



To the left of the butterflies is a clematis that I am going to train across it..

and I planted some white Nemesia in the window box below it..

This may have taken me ages to finish .... but I love it !



This is just a little peep at a cupboard I have nearly finished...another on going job.

This is one of those things you think about for ages...mulling over exactly how to go about it...putting it off as you know it will be time consuming....and then starting it and sort of wishing you hadn't.



x

Flooded garden ...

I have just realised that in April I will have lived in my house for nine years....

Previously I had  a three bedroom Victorian terraced house with very large rooms and I had a lot of furniture.

My son and his friend helped me move in and put the beds together so that at least we had somewhere to sleep. Charlie has the biggest room and at the time I had two single beds, so I slept in with him for the first few nights until he got used to it.

 That evening I sat on my back door step and viewed the garden with such dismay....it sloped down to the house with a path of large cement slabs down the middle...there were no plants...the grass was a muddy mess and the fence was just awful...a low chicken wire fence with grey cement posts. My furniture was stacked all in the wrong places and I knew I would have to part with many things in order to fit into this tiny two up, two down.

I sat and sobbed...

 

That first summer my father dug up the entire garden...he levelled it into two parts...dug me a border at the top, edged it all in bricks and re turfed it for me...it was really lovely.

Three years later it looked like the photo above.

It kept flooding so I dug up the grass on the lower level...raised the whole level by a foot and put down crazy paving on sand...it still flooded killing off many of my plants...we dug a soak away filled with a ton of pebbles...we put in a pond and my dad made the seat with trellis for me. I dug down about fifteen inches in the left hand border removing sack fulls of clay and re filled them with compost... and I built them up about ten inches.

 

I fenced the garden last year but bad weather stopped us from putting up the last panel. During the winter the fence started to lean backwards as I do not think we used enough cement.

On Saturday we dug out around the posts and added more cement pulling the fence upright and put up the last panel....I am so pleased... you can not imagine how much...at last it is private. 

There are buds on the apple tree...This is royal gala grown by Charlie from a pip..

 

 

I have raised flower beds at the top of the garden....they are made from an old wardrobe.

This is my washing line post which really bugs me...

 

 

I cut some plastic covered wire trellis and wrapped it around the post.. I planted some ivy to grow up the fence...

 

 

And....I bought this wonderful...evergreen clematis armandii.

 

It says...it grows six meters up and across....with scented white flowers in March...April and May....

This is when I wish my mum was here as she knows what she is doing....I very carefully planted it and unwound the leaves that had wrapped around each other and the supporting cane....I only broke two!

This should grow up the trellis and hide the pole....then along the cane trellis I made that adds height to the fence to obscure the view.

 

I have three other clematis growing up the back fence...also a honey suckle and Jasmin....They are climbing up bamboo canes that form part of a trellis I lashed together last summer.