A Bit of This and That ...

First of all, having said I was beginning to sort bits and pieces ready for the 'Just Add Inspiration' page of my website, I thought I'd show you the pile I've begun to look at - just to prove that I HAVE actually looked, and that I'm not just stringing you along!!

The two pieces below have a bird theme - can you see?

When I got home from Dairy House this afternoon Mum and I had a brief wander round her garden . Have you ever seen a snapdragon like this one? This is just one plant and is a self-seed. When Mum moved in the garden she took over a back garden that had only ever been used for veggies. The front garden was the domain of Mrs H, full of flowers and shrubs, and Mr H tended the veggies in the back. There was a very full compost heap which P and I distributed over the bare earth mid-way through the 'summer'. Mum has since planted a lot of trees, shrubs and herbacious perennials, but there have been all sorts of exciting finds due, undoubtedly, to the compost heap.


This day lily was quite possibly one that I gave Mum from our previous garden. We brought so many plants with us but I haven't had much opportunity to spend time in the garden, so I gave quite a few plants to Mum.

The clematis is Mum bought earlier in the year. I can't remember the name offhand, and couldn't see the label, but no matter. I'll check it later!

A little pot of thyme which she brought with her when she moved. Just coming into flower now.

Another temporarily nameless clematis creeping up a rhododendron!

A self-seed which I need to look up

And another. The bracts look very similar to clary, but they're not. The leaves are like a plant I had a few years ago, but I can't for the life of me think what it was called - and where are all my gardening reference books? Some are to hand, but not the ones I want!! And my memory seems to have forsaken me, too!

You may wonder why I'm showing you photos of plants in Mum's garden when I have a garden of my own ... but maybe not when you realise that Mum spends 5 or 6 hours a day tending hers and I am just never here long enough to do anything with mine ... which is quite annoying really, as I'd love to lose a lot of lawn/clover/weeds and create new borders and have the names of interesting plants tripping off my tongue again like they used to. I do miss the hours I used to spend in my greenhouse propagating everything that crossed my path. However, the photos below are just a peek of ours! A friend used to tell me that she loved our garden because I did 'joined-up gardening' where absolutely no soil showed at all. That was a garden created with green fingers and lots of love and nurturing. The joined up effect has happened here, but only because the shrubs that were here when we moved have all grown into one another!!

This is is perennial foxglove with tiny yellow flowers. I think it's digitalis lutea. I brought it from our old garden and didn't realise it had survived. I now need to unearth it from the straggle of twigs and leaves and tendrils that have all grown into and through one another. How it's managed to survive (in a pot) ignored for 2 years I don't know. I don't deserve it!

Deutzia which was in situ when we came. It could do with a good prune as it's grown about 3 feet in the last couple of years and is looking somewhat messy.

Last year we had no apples on this little tree, but it looks as if we should get a good crop this year. Another amazing feat considering this tree, too, has been left to its own devices.

A touch of joined up gardening ... berberis, heather, campanula and potentilla and maybe a hardy geranium in the background ...

The other side of the berberis is a very healthy euonymus ...

I think the spacing in this post has gone a wee bit haywire - probably because I shifted some photos back and forth. Hopefully it will look OK and everything will be in its right place when I publish the post. If anyone knows the names of the plants that I don't or have forgotten then I'll be delighted to hear from you! (Update: all seems OK with the spacing and even though I've shifted photos around I've managed to retain the enlarge facility. Do have a look at the enlarged version of the snapdragon if you haven't already. There's so much detail!!)