Archive for Gardens

Wish away wheelie washers

Thursday morning

On my bench, with my tea, hee hee. Just thought I’d come outside for some fresh morning (or what’s left of it) air and to compose my thoughts for the day. I didn’t realise how dusty my screen had got! I’m desperately trying to catch up with the washing, oh yes, the laundry overfloweth once more, what do I mean ‘once more’? That should read ‘as usual’. I hope the weather holds so I can get it all dry. Actually it’s a bit of a tight squeeze on the bench because my beautiful Crocosmia Lucifer has grown so tall that it’s now flopping sideways and covering half the seat. I’ll have to get Rick to help me control it with one of my bargain plant stakes that I bought at the show last week.

Ughhh, the lovely garden noises are being spoilt by the sound of the Wash-a-wheeli company that come down our close. Even though we don’t have ours done, they insist on parking outside our house with their racket, and have damaged the branches of our tree more than once by squeezing under it with their noisy van. Grrrrr. So much for a few minutes peace and quiet. Ahh, sounds like they’ve finished, and so have I. byeeeeee.

OOOO, I should add that Art In Action started today, and continues until Sunday. The lovely Di East, Dora Schubert and Amanda Glanville will all be there on Di’s stand, so pop along if you’re intrigued by lampworking and see how it’s done. There are of course loads of other crafts to be seen demonstrated, and the show is well worth a visit if you’re into art and craft.

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What a boar

Wednesday morning

Another day of mousework today. Woopee, not. I made a few beads yesterday and have to get them out of the kiln, they include a glass ring, oh yes. I decided to try one of the ring mandrels that Martin at Tuffnells has started to stock, it was difficult to get a thin coating of mandrel release, took ages to dry, then after I’d made my ring, it didn’t fit in the kiln! Well, it went in but I couldn’t close the bead flap. I had to turn the kiln around and use the side door, knocked all the other beads on mandrels sliding it in, then could only fill the kiln half full because it got in the way! lol. Can’t wait to see how it turned out, just off to see……..oh it’s cool. It came off the mandrel easily, but is a bit of a pig to clean – I won’t be using my diamond drill bit or I’ll mess the surface. I will however be cutting the mandrel handle down to a shorter length so it fits in the kiln sideways without hogging all the space.

Talking of hogs…did you know that the male hedgehog was called a boar and the female a sow? or that their young are called Hoglets? I helped my daughter with some homework yesterday and we found all sorts of interesting facts about hedehogs on t’internet. The most interesting (apart from being able to swim, climb almost vertical walls and run at 2 metres per sec!) was that they love to eat snails and slugs, and eat about 200g a night. Now I could do with one of those in my garden. Some plants are looking a bit lacy to say the least, but the hostas with crushed up egg shells do seem to be fairing better now, together with the hosta with a natural mulch (it was left under the holly tree in the corner of the garden). I may even start mulching other tasty plants with my free holly leaves.

Here’s a few pictures from Hampton Court Flower show last week, it was very hard to make a choice.

Cornish gardenPlumbago in the Caribean gardenUrban JungleFlower cusionsWater lilies

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Caught at Hampton Flower Show

Friday evening

yo dudes and dudettes. I’m grinning from ear to ear (wot? there to there?) I got back home an hour and a half ago, from a brilliant day out at the Hampton Court Flower show. I decided spur of the moment last night night that I was going to take the day off and spoil my senses, and I’m so glad I did. You know a girl has to have some time off occassionally.

I think one of my favourite gardens was the Couch Potato one, full of recycled things, including TV’s full of water and aquatic plants. They even had a copper water tank on it’s side (we have one of those in the garden – doesn’t look very good at the moment though, our plumber thought I was mad wanting to keep it). I even nearly got rid of it last week, now I’m glad I didn’t.

I’ll stick some photos up when I’ve downloaded todays crop – I think I took around 260. I also bought some hot plants, Crocosmia Lucifer, Helenium, yellow Coreopsis and a lovely orange flowered one with burgundy foliage. I also bought Garlic scented chives (yum) and 5 different lavenders for our new revamped front border. OOh and a lovely white Agapanthus. I can’t wait to get them in the garden, well, tell Rick where to put them…oh dear, that sound a teeny bit rude.

Which reminds me, I spoke to one of the show garden designers who thought she had a dichromatic bead necklace on.  Hee hee.  Off to finish watching Gardeners World

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My new man

Tuesday evening

Cool at last, but boy hasn’t it been hot today. I was mad enough to make beads during the day again today, at least I got started earlier than normal, although it would have been earlier if I could have got my didymium specs over my normal glasses. It was absolutely sweltering and I think the heat must have made me careless cos I kept catching myself on hot stuff and burning myself. Would you believe it the first time I ever wear shorts to make beads I had lots of glass popping everywhere, and of course most landed on my legs even though they were under the bench. The last straw was with a bead that I’d parked in the kiln to answer the door, I caught my hand on the scorching mandrel (460 deg C) getting it back out of the kiln and then all the stringer popped off, most of making it’s way straight to me, and one bit even got my lips. Ouch ow and double drat.

I have to say the best bit of the day was when we had a 5 minute shower. I could tell it was raining because that lovely smell you get when it’s been hot and it’s just started raining, came wafting in on the only cool breeze (in fact the only breeze) of the day. It was a lovely feeling sitting melting my hot glass, with the smell of hot wet dust and a cooling breeze and the sound of rain on the plants and the studio roof. Bliss. Have a cool evening.

ps. here’s the new man in my life…..

new garden sculpture

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Mozzie Watch

Monday morning

A quick hello before I go to my studio and make beads. It was already 17.5 degC out there when I turned the kiln on. I’m hoping to get a head start and make beads before the scorching heat comes today.

In the battle of ‘mozzie versus me’, I prowled the upper hall last night before bed on ‘Mozzie Watch’ and managed to split a good number with my trusty pink critter splitter. The score last night was Mozzie 1, me 9. Forget the World Cup or Spring Watch, it’s all happening here. And a quick update on those old snails….I decided to try protecting my beloved Hostas with a crushed up eggshell mulch, and so far it seems to be working a treat. One poor Hosta that they munched almost the whole thing might just be recovering, not sure, but the last one they were attacking is now unfurling it’s tender, if not small, leaves. My hostas are not looking at all good this year, I did have 8 or 9 large plants, but only one large one this year, and most of the others are non-existant. That’ll teach me to put all my energy into beadmaking at the expense of my plant collection. Hmmmph.

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Snail fest

Monday night

Oh the joys of wet weather. I’ve just come back indoors from my second snail hunt of the evening (after dipping my new mandrels first that is). The first one reaped about 15 – 20 and the second one 15 more. As I said in a previous post I really dislike killing garden or house pests, but when it comes to my Hostas (which I adore), it is the Hostas that win every time. I see it as a service to the birds, I’d rather squish them (or get Rick to squish them) so the birds can eat them, than use slug pellets which do a great job but can harm the other animals if they then eat the snails. I must say that I’ve found it even harder to squish them since I used to watch the kids programme ‘Snailsbury Tails’ (which I also like…..but not as much as Hostas).

If only they would munch the plants you don’t want in the garden, like the weeds. I almost felt like putting them all amongst the Ground Elder, which has come back yet again (am I surprised?). They could be a new type of weed control, people might buy them by the bucket load for keeping their weeds at bay. Maybe I should put some up for sale on my website?

All this reminds me of when I stayed in France as an eleven year old with a French family. We came home from a wet day out, the kids excited that it had been raining and we tore around the garden collecting snails, and carefully putting them in a bucket. When Francine, my host announced we were having Les Escargots for dinner I nearly heaved! I think we may have had steak that night instead.

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Cool for catzzzzz

Sunday night/Monday morning

Hi there, just thought I’d pop in and say hi before I trot off to bed (after I’ve tidied the kitchen and stuff). I survived the week, just, lots of late nights (2am) getting ready for the Open Houses in Worthing, and Barton Beading day (that was today). I had a lovely afternoon at our private view in Sheilas house in Worthing, (address No. 9 and on the events page) and took time out to chat with the other exhibiting artists and admire their lovely work. Sheila has a lovely ecclectic mix of styles of work displayed in her house, but I suppose the thing that links all of it together is the amount of colour that we all use, most pieces are very colourful, from patchwork to papermache, and resin jewellery to lively cat paintings. The walls are covered in beautiful paintings, pieces of decorated driftwood, colourful crochet scarves, silk paintings, hats, bags and there is also rumered to be a cabinet full of glass jewellery by me. I even treated me to a wonderful garden sculpture based on the idea of the faces at Easter Island, now I have to tart up the garden so it looks fabulous in it.

Gotta go and get some zzzz’s in…….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

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Pimms O’Clock

Saturday evening

Evening all, and what a cracking day it’s been. What a scorcher. I’m sat here on my bench again, no tea this time, and I can see my screen. I’ve been in my studio all day and boy was it ever hot, but sat out here now I could be in the mediteranean, all I need now is a nice cool Pimms with cucumber, mint and stawberry. Unfortunately I won’t be having one because they now give me migraine, maybe I’ll go for Cinzano Bianco instead or a nice Sauvignon Blanc. I just love cool evenings after a hot day, it’s so lovely to sit and listen to the hum of my neighbours around me (oo, someone just blew their nose rather horn like) and smell the aroma of barbeques wafting on the gentle breeze, and listen to the bird song as they get ready for bed. This is the life, I love the feeling of holidays when I’m still at home, it really refreshes me. Have a lovely balmy evening.

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How to juggle a cat – well a parasol really

Friday morning

Here we are again, safely installed on the garden bench for another mornings thoughts. I say safely because it wasn’t safe five minutes ago. This corner seems to get sunnier and sunnier every day, now I’m not complaining, as many of you who know me will know I adore the sunshine, and have a hard time staying in the shade now they know all they do about the sun’s damaging effects. Anyway, here I was, just installed on my bench, turning up the brightness full pelt and I still couldn’t see my screen. Drastic action had to be taken, I trotted back to the house, collected the parasol from by the front door, poured myself a cup of Breakfast tea and gingerly walked back down the path with tea in one hand and parasol in the other. So far so good.

These are my thought processes:- Put tea down carefully, after all there is a laptop here and we don’t want to get it wet do we? So I think I’ll put my tea where I sit well away from my laptop. Now to put up the parasol without putting anything down, gotta be ambidextrous for this. mmmm, spikey bit goes down the hole, ah, I need to bend over and undo the clamp, OK, now put spike in hole and do clamp up again without dropping umbrella bit or swiping laptop off bench, yep done that. Now to put the umbrella in the spike, oo carefull, the base is on the edge of the paving slabs at a jaunty angle and will fall over with more height. Better push it onto the slabs with my foot while I hold the brolly. OK, put up the shade, ah, it’s caught on the shrub next to me, better move it to the left, and back a bit so it doesn’t fall over. Phew, that’s done, I’ve got me a nice bit of shade to work under now. I better sit down and get cracking………..noooooooooo, I sat on my tea.

Note to Rick – it’s OK only me, my undies, the bench and the slabs got wet.

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Ricky the Mozzie Slayer

Thursday morning

The birds are tweeting, lawnmowers are humming, in the distance a holiday jet passes overhead….you guessed it, I’m in residence on the bench again.  OOh, there goes  a siren, actually I wish they’d pipe down a bit, those birds are making a racket!  The only problem with this is that it’s sooooo bright I’m having difficulty seeing my screen even with the brightness turned right up and I keep loosing my trusty arrow.  Also in an attempt to scoop some fresh bird poop off the bench I picked up a the nearest leaf to use and pricked my thumb, it being a holly leaf and all!  But I could really get usd to this.  I’ll sit here all day, blogging, surfing the net, and sipping Twinnings tea, wot  a life.  I could be a ‘Lady that lunches’, except I don’t think Rick would be too pleased.

Talking of Rick, it’s that time of year again when the mozzies come out in force and Rick does his balletict poses to keep up with them and splat the blighters.  Normally he’ll go around with rolled up paper or a magazine leaving fetching coloured splats and smeers on the wall and ceiling where mozzie goo and ink have mixed, but this year I had a cunning plan and insisted on buying a twin pack of attractively coloured plastic fly swotters in Ikea the last time we visited.  What a difference.  Even I can get the critters now, with my go faster aerodynamic (it has holes) critter splitter, and it’s such fun, it’s like playing tennis but with mozzies, well, against them, well, actually using them like balls, only they don’t bounce, or ping across the room, or make that lovely popping noise you get when you hit the ball really well.

Now you might think I’m being cruel, and I generally don’t like killing creepy crawlies, poor things, but when it comes to mozzies, especially when you have fifteen of them flitting around, it has to be us instead of them.  I just don’t want to be seen walking around with a line of red bumps where some vampiritic fly has had a five course meal with starters and desert folowed by coffee and mints.  It’s not on, you know what I mean?

Oh well, enough of that, I’d better go and pour another mug of tea and get on with some of the orders that I have, I may even take some photos….although I could have a problem there – but I’ll tell you about that another day.

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Tales from the big bench (homage to Tears for Fears)

Wednesday morning

Well, Rick mowed the lawn (back and front), shared cooking dinner and hoovered the floor this morning AND cleaned the bathwoom sink. Yahoo, I must get very busy more often. Actually he did a good job on the garden when I was on my course last month, I cheekily left him a huge list of jobs to do in the garden, including assembling the bench I’m sitting on as I write my blog this morning, oh yes, are you all jealous? I’m sat here sipping my Twinnings Breakfast tea as I write, enjoying the lovely morning sunshine. I thought I may as well blog while I gather my thoughts for the rest of the day. Anyways, he romped through the list and even had time to take our daughter swimming and visit his family around the corner. I must do that more often and then maybe our garden would look half tidy, after all, it needs a few hours done every week, it’s getting so bad I even thought about hiring the gardener who does one of our neighbours gardens evry week.

At the moment I have a huge patch of thriving Ground elder that’s just coming into flower, looks very pretty but I know it’s a lurking threat. I’ve been trying to get rid of it as long as we’ve been here, but hate using poisons and always forget to do the follow up treatment. Also I have a nice row of dead annuals still in their polystyrene cells that I bought last year and never got around to planting. I don’t know what it is a about June and July but they just seem to get busier each year, and the garden’s sufferring for it, poor thing. Oh well, better trot off and get on with my humungus list. See ya.

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Is you Wisley or is you ain’t

Hi there, I hope you all had a lovely Easter holiday. I just realised I haven’t blogged for over a week, been to busy.

We’ve been busy doing this and that, but the highlight last week was a trip to RHS Wisley gardens, where we go a couple of times a year and meet up with my parents. This time there was a lovely seasonal Spring walk to follow, which took you past the best of the daffodils, tulips, Hellibores and all the gorgeous spring blossom. So much to see and unfortunately never enough time to complete the walk, I think we only did about a third of the trail.

Hellibores Prunus blossomFallen blossomTwiggy pea stick Framework

Gunera ManicataWhite Magnolia AlpineAcross the water

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