Garden looking good

Garden at the end of June

The snapdragon stands out in the bright sunshine (posh name Antirrhinum)



White hebe flower close up.



Water Soldiers (Stratiotes Aloides) show up nicely in the sunshine - as does the duck weed unfortunatly.



Skye has to get in on the act when the camera is out.




The trampoline has moved to give us a chance to sort the lawn out. However this has hidden the mini kingdom in the bath.....



...where the Gnomes live.

Blossom in the Garden

The cherry tree looks good...



...but there is one downside - a pond full of blossom.



Seaside garden plants - a euphorbia...



and an unidentified grass.



Sue's solution to letting the chickens have fresh grass but not letting them create havoc.

Frosty Morning

After a long period of mild dull weather, the frost on Saturday morning was quite a shock.



The poor daffodils suffered.



Once the sun came out the japonica flower looked stunning.



Skye was happy frost or no frost.



Fast forward 12 hours and the moon was also stunning - my camaera is not good enough to show its full glory.

The garden at the end of February

The Camellia is in flower…



…and the hellebore is also coming into life.



The daffodils are coming out.



Skye watching and wondering what’s going on.



We were pruning again.



This time we gave one of the fir trees a bit of a trim.



While we were concentrating on the fir tree one of the chickens escaped.

The Garden at the end of January

The snowdrops have started to appear during the last week.



There is the odd splash of colour elsewhere - Cotoneaster horizontalis



and the Skimmia japonica 'Rubella'



We have decided it's time to do something to the border that runs along the bottom of our neighbours garden. The fence is about to collapse (replacing that may feature in a future blog) but for now we have decided to remove the cherry tree which shades the border in Summer and is not a very good shape. It doesn't look very tall in this photo...



... but when you are vertically challenged....



....you call in the professionals - or you hack at the upper branches, trying to ensure you don't decapitate yourself in the process and try to look as if you know what you are doing by wearing a hard hat.



Annie and Clarabelle decided to have a dust bath as far away from us as possible.



Only when we had finished for the day did they re-appear. You will note that the trunk is still standing. I decided it will be a nice feature but I think it has an appointment with a chainsaw sometime soon.

Early October, garden Part 2.

Same view as yesterday but the sun came out today, Unfortunatly you can see the lawn needs cuttting.



Sixth form college student hard at work



Our neighbour's house while an extension is being built - I hope we don't get a repeat of the 1987 October hurricane as I think this will act as a lage sail and the whole lot will take off!

The Big Pond Clearout

The pond; too full with lots of duckweed.



Helper Number 1



Helper Number 2





This was the fun bit...I don't think




Much to my helper's disappointment I didn't fall in.





Ever helpful Skye...



She couldn't resist a little drink.



After all that hard work all we had to show for it was a lot of muddy water - hopefully we will see the benifit next year.