Very Slow Progress!

As I expected, very slow progress is being made with the renovations to our garden.  I am hoping it will be completed by the autumn -but maybe I am being too optimistic!  

I do however have a lovely sitting area now which is almost complete, it is a very pleasant spot to sit in the sun and have a coffee - when it isn't raining of course, which we have had loads of lately and everywhere is very muddy!  I spent a lovely time at the garden centre recently buying some cottage perennials that I haven't had for ages in the garden because the dogs trampled everything that was planted in the ground, so these planters are the solution to that problem!

I love Astilbes.  This dark red one was the only one at the garden centre, but I will be looking for more soon!  I want a cream one too.

We had to move our Hazel which we had only just replaced as our original one died, but it didn't like being moved and has died, hence the dead twiggy thing in the middle!  We will get another one though and try for third time lucky.

Yum Yum - First Strawberries!

I thought it was time to update again!  First of all and most important - the first strawberries are ripe!  These are the ones we grew last year, this year's new plants in the strawberry planter aren't ready yet.  I had 3 and they were delicious!  Can't wait for the next ones to be ripe!

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Also, we have got a girlfriend for Alfie (photo on previous post).  We might breed them in a while and maybe keep one of them too!  Her name is Alice, she is shy like Alfie, I had hoped she had been handled more before we got her as she came from a home breeder but I will have to work with her like I am Alfie, he now feeds from my hand but still won't let me pick him up!

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Not much has progressed with the garden renovations due to hubby being back at work!  A couple more planters have been built and we have a new bench!

 

 

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Our garden is long and thin, and goes quite a way back.  We have a gate which some people think is the end of our garden, but beyond that is the pond and veg patch (we also have an allotment but grow some things here too).

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The first Cosmos is flowering, I buy these every year and try and get a mixture of colours.   They flower for ages as long as I dead head them regularly!

These Canterbury Bells seed and grow everywhere in the garden each year, we have blue and white ones.  They can get a bit untidy but are lovely nonetheless!

 

I always grow sunflowers every year but had run out of seeds so I pinched some from the wild bird food!  Not sure what type they will grow into!

And finally, thank you Janet for identifying my Crown Imperial Lilly!!

Major Changes!!

There is quite a lot going on in the garden at the moment!  We decided that as we have 3 dogs and they have ruined the lawn, we would dig it up and make some major changes!  So as to have a clean canvas to work from we also decided to take up the path that was there too.  So at the moment it is a huge mess as things are in the process of being renovated, but of course there are still plenty of flowers and lots are in the front garden which isn't being renovated - yet!

These are in the front garden, I just love this perennial geranium, it is a mass of flowers

Before

After!

We are having planters placed around the garden so that the plants have more chance of survival, plenty have been trampled by the dogs over the years, which is such a shame.  I will update the blog in a few days as lots more changes have taken place since I took these photos!

 I have wanted a strawberry planter for ages, we had a search round the local garden centres and couldn't see many we liked.  We finally got this one which is smaller than I would have liked but will do for now!

And finally our new addition to the pet family, a baby guinea pig we have called Alfie.  He is painfully shy but we are working on getting him more used to us!

Bluebells and More!

 I love bluebells, we have some in the front garden.  We did have some in the back but they seem to have disappeared so I am not sure what has happened to those!  I have an idea the dogs may have flattened some that were attempting to grow!

We have these perennial cornflowers flowering in abundance in the front and back garden, no matter how often I pull them out they come back and spread even more!
 

We have some pots of pansies on the front door step and they have been flowering for weeks and look gorgeous in the sun!
 

The first of my aliums are just breaking into flower.  These are new ones I planted last autumn, I can't find any trace of the ones that were in the garden from last year so it is a good job I put some new ones in!
 

We have a lot of yellow Welsh Poppies and every so often an orange one appears!  

 

And finally Thomas who was watching me take the photos of the flowers!
 

Glorious Blue Sky

Today there is a gorgeous blue sky, and our lilac is in full bloom, it smells wonderful and looks so pretty against the blue!

Here is a lily, not sure which type, I think we forgot to keep a note when we planted them!

Some more of our lovely daffodils and narcisuss we have had this year.  They were planted a bit late so are still flowering!

And here are Thomas and Annie, our 2 Diamond Doves.  They love to sit in pots and dishes!

Dusting off the blog for 2011!

Well it has been a while since I posted on this blog, coming up for a year in fact!  But I have dusted it off and cleared out the cobwebs and am going to be posting some pics again!  I took several in the garden yesterday and here are a few.

There is a lot of colour in the garden at the moment and it is one of  my favourite times of the year as it all looks so fresh and green still and not dried up by the hot summer (if we get one!)

Bluebells, Cornflowers and Aliums

Oh dear, I am a bit behind with updating this blog - I don't know where the time goes!  Anyway, here are a few photos of some gorgeous  bluebells, cornflowers and aliums, and a photo I took yesterday of a mum starling feeding her baby - I took it through the window as it was raining which is why it looks slightly murky!!

Forget-me-Nots

I think these little flowers are so lovely in Spring - I just love the blue and we have a lot of them growing in the garden that seed themselves every year so they move around and pop up all over the place!

One of our dogs is a collie with long white hairs, and just about every time I take a close up photo of a flower you can bet there is a hair on it - just like in the second photo!

I also like this photo of the raindrops on a leaf and managed to get an insect in the photo too!