Tuesday 17th May

Another busy work day followed by a sit in the garden with the cat! The birds quietly ignored us and got on with that important business of attacking the bird feeders. There were a fair number of midges about and a mix of bees, hover flies and flies. My robin was introducing his family to me.

I had a brief spell removing snails and slugs from their more obvious positions - pointless really given their large numbers. I’m not sure how much good nematode treatment is for snails but I’m planning another treatment for the Magic Garden together with a nematode treatment for ants. The latter worked well with the ant hill under the olive tree and I’m optimistic that I can get on top of the ants in the hotbin and in amongst the patio slab stones. I inspected the gooseberry again and I am happy that there does not seem to be any more rot occurring. The currants are looking as if I should get a good crop and my wee blueberries are also looking as if I should have several meals from them.

Busy Monday

It was tipping down with rain this morning and so when I came home from a busy day at work and it was sunny I was straight out into the Magic Garden with my camera and with an accompanying cat. It was still a bit damp but the garden had a lovely fresh smell. I only had a few minutes but it was enough.

Sunday 15th May

Today felt like a bit of a bonus as I had rather expected it to rain. It wasn’t sunny but I was able to get on and do a lot of the wee jobs that just take a few minutes but stack up a little. I planted a Heuchera Tokyo and added a Bacopa Barostps Golden Leaves into the edging mix together with the dainty little red leaved clover. I sowed as an experiment some parsnip (Gladiator) seeds into a container - the depth should be good but I’ve never tried to do this before so am not sure there will be enough space for the plants to develop. I’ve sown a few more between the cauliflowers that are doing quite well currently.

I added more copper tape around the troughs to try and deter the slug / snail population from chewing my vegetable collection. I fear my wee carrots might getting cropped before they truly get going. I added feed from the hotbin to waterings of all the soft fruit bushes and apple trees.

Ben has spent a lot of the day in the Magic Garden with me again today and spent quite sometime attacking his catnip and looking as if he was watching mice. I know from the tracker camera that there are plenty around so maybe he’s waiting for them to have nibbled on the catnip too for extra flavour!

Saturday in the Sun

I’ve spent much of the day outside enjoying sunshine & a mild day. Ben also elected to be outside for most of the day and even went further away than the Magic Garden to enjoy the sun in the Community centre’s grass while I sat on the bower seat and enjoyed its view

I took a lot of weed & sludge out of the pond and left the bucket on its side to allow any wildlife to escape. I had turned the compost in the hotbin too so a bit of a messy day. I have a problem with ants in the compost bin so will have to find a nematode solution.

I cleared away geranium and creeping buttercup from under the gooseberry bush. I have checked carefully and not found any more disease. The goosegog crop is going to be rather small this year but better than none. The other fruit crops are coming on well so will fill some of the gap.

Friday 13th May

Another late return from work and the wind is ripping the garden to pieces again - its difficult to convey the motion in a photograph!

The carrots are just coming through while everything seems to be growing so fast that I see changes everyday.

The golden globe cuttings have rooted and are growing and the rudbeckia are growing fast. Another set of plants arrived today - little lavenders. They aren’t in the best condition but hopefully a little water will revive them

Throwback Thursday

I ended up not getting time in the garden today because I had to go and sort things out at work. I took a couple of photographs of the goldfinches while they demolished more of the nigella seeds but the other two are photographs from the same day 2 years ago

Windy Wednesday

Home from work to a sunny but very windy evening in the Magic Garden. I was not surprised to find the tomato ‘house’ has been blown to shreds. I think the tomato plants will recover but they are now inside the summerhouse until its a bit warmer outside on a regular basis. On the good side the potatoes are beginning to come through with Casablanca just sprouting ahead of the others. On the other side of the Magic Garden as far away as I can get them, the raspberry I brought from the allotment is in flower, belying its ‘autumn’ status. Raspberries and potatoes are the opposite of companion planting.

I had a lovely wander round inspecting the progress of the garden and noting where I need to rescue plants from more robust neighbours.. I have some delicate looking alliums coming out. The white version of the centaurea montana is out and is much more delicate than the common blue version.

Happy Tuesday

Today has been very windy but sunny & mild. Once I got home, I found my heuchera had arrived from Plantagogo - the most beautiful looking plants. I then spent a happy couple of hours planting the majority of them out. Ben clearly thought I was being boring as he decided to have an upright snooze.

Heucherella ‘Onxy’

Heucherella ‘Tapestry’

Heuchera ‘Cafe Ole’

Plum pudding

I also put in couple along the north path together with a celocephalus

Most of the plants were destined for the back border where the catnips are getting established. I’m really pleased with how this is progressing.

Heuchera ‘Paris’ PBR

Heuchera ‘Paris’ is I think a new favourite & there were two in this set.

Heuchera citronella

Heuchera ‘Tinamisu’

Sunny Sunday

Its been a beautiful sunny day. Inevitably I only had this morning to play in the garden. I love how green & lush its looking & how quickly the spaces are filling up.

I am pleased how the formality of the thyme zone is broken by a stray aquilegia and by how the plants in the area round it are coming together . I think I will have to replace the lavender which is a bit woody though. I added a new little Helichrysum petiolare yesterday which has a delicate leaf and pleasing silver.

Saturday 7th May

I went up to a little nursery near Morpeth, Stanton Hall, this morning and had a happy time buying plants for specific uses and indulging in a bit of instant gardening with a box of stocks and nicotiana. I was lucky to have an afternoon then of sun allowing me to plant out most of today’s acquisitions.

I found a lovely Trifolium repens purpurea which I hope will be happy along the edge of the Magic Garden plot.

It was a beautiful afternoon in the sun which Ben seemed to enjoy to its full

I bought three new catnips. The littlest is Nepta x Faasseni “kitten around” which I’ve put in with a new Persicaria microcephaly “Red Dragon”. In the back corner I put in another Nepta alba and a Nepta mussini adding barriers in to try and discourage Ben from rolling on them until they’ve got established.

I also got round to planting out cut & come again salad - a mixture of oak leaved lettuce and losso rollo.

Friday

It was raining when I came back from work today but I still popped out for a few minutes. I love the way every time I walk round the garden there is something new to see and always something needing doing. Its garden waste bin day tomorrow so I’ve pulled the bin full of gooseberry clippings and dead wood round the front of the house. I’m pleased to see that the remains of the bush is still looking healthy and there is a tiny crop of gooseberries.

Ben has helped me train the sweetpeas upwards

My windowsills are full of seedlings & I am hoping that I can get some of them moved onto their homes. The view from the top back bedroom is showing the garden looking so green. Its interesting to look from above and realise how much space there still is.

Thursday 5th May

I had to go into work this morning so I didn’t get much done in the garden. I did pot up two of the cherry tomato plants and put them into the wee plastic growhouse and I sowed beetroot, nasturtiums and calendulas in the fabric troughs. There are non-salad seedlings amongst the lettuces I sowed in one of the troughs but at least the lettuces are coming on well.

Ben spent most of the day outside again and followed my progress round the garden before snoozing on the hedgehog house

I have taken out some of the kale that’s gone to seed but I am enjoying the visitors to their flowers too much to totally remove them. The centaurea montana is coming out now providing fodder for the bees.

Wednesday 4th May

It had rained on & off during the day & the garden was looking better for a drink. I was pleased to see that the posh ‘thrift’ in full flower in the rock garden. There is lots of bloom just coming out now and small changes each day to enjoy.

Another work day so not home until late. One of the benefits though of the time of year is that it was still light enough to sit in a damp garden with Ben. It was very soothing to just sit & watch the garden.

Hawthorn & Horse Chestnuts

I wasn’t feeling great this afternoon - it was a bit chilly for being out in the Magic Garden so I took myself off for a walk. By the main road there is a an old hedgerow that was an avenue of horse chestnuts with other species in between. Storm Alwen and other causes have thinned this out but where it remains the horse chestnuts are resplendent in fresh green foliage and to my joy the most amazing flowers. I don’’t think I had ever appreciated before what lovely blooms precede the eventual conkers.

There were two small brooms in flower & a tiny gorse bush too. Further on I found some early 0x-eye daisies in a sheltered spot.

Ben’s quite content to sit in his trough

The hawthorns are also in bloom - ‘May’ blossom. Hawthorn in Scottish Gaelic is known as ‘sigtheach’ & is said to mark the entrance of the otherworld. Its bad luck to cut hawthorn at any time other than when its in bloom.

May Bank Holiday

There had been a little rain over night & everything is looking lush & green. I think all the apple trees are now in blossom. I still watered the sweetpeas around the garden & tried to convince them to grow upwards.

This week’s supermarket buy was some lovely yellow bidens. I have planted them mainly in a trough. The other things I planted out today was the first batch of sunflowers. I‘ve put these in a trough which should ensure they get more or less full sunshine in the event we get some.

Today is a Bank Holiday so I was off work and spent some of it working in the Magic Garden with assistance from Ben-cat. His favourite places are on the hedgehog house & the bottom rung of the fabric troughs

Another task I started was putting copper tape around the troughs and the cold frame. I have a lot of snails & slugs in the garden and find this is as good as anything else I have used while being non-toxic to the wildlife around. The hedgehogs last year were eating the slugs but I haven’t seen much evidence of a significant effect on their population.

Working Sunday

I have been at work today & came home to a cool grey evening so Ben & I enjoyed few minutes together on the arbour seat. I satisfied my creative juices with a little macro photography before retreating into the warmth.. Ben posed for me then checked out the catmint before coming back in too.

Saturday 30th April

I have to own to being very tired & seem to have spent a lot of time in the Magic Garden this afternoon with not that much to show for it. I have put together a plastic house for the tomatoes that I will be slightly surprised if it survives more than a day or two. My three tomato plants are too wee to put outside yet and we are apparently in for a cold May so it may be sometime before I do put them out.

I was delighted to see a peacock butterfly emerging from the ivy that I had rescued & re-pinned to the fence between the neighbours and me. These flamboyant butterflies may be officially common but I rarely see them in the Magic Garden.

I sowed carrots into a trough today and have covered them with a plastic lid.

I shredded a pile of cardboard & stirred it into the mix in the hotline together with some more vegetative matter. I drained some fluid off it and added it to the watering can so I could feed the apples. I was pleased to see a bee go from apple tree to apple tree - hopefully this will help the apple crop along.

The Magic Garden is looking lush and green now with bits of colour scattered through. Ben has various places where he sits but always where he can see out.

Friday 29th April

I had a good day at work but was glad to be home promptly to find a garden full of sunshine and birdsong. Ben had been out for the afternoon and we sat for a while before he got bored and went to check out the indoors and some of his catnip.

The sun has brought on more blossom and more flowers are out across the garden. In the troughs the osteospermums were fully open . In the ground behind them in my ‘winter interest’ area the dogwoods are in flower - their main purpose in the garden is the colour of their stems but these wee flowers are delicately pretty and the bees seem to quite like them

Thursday 28th April

I spent a couple of hours in the Magic Garden this afternoon catching up with little jobs. I had already planted out ‘blue’ (violet) and today I planted out white ‘bacopa’. These are really correctly known as Cheanortoma cordatum. Although they have similar flowers the true bacopa has different leaves and are an aquatic species.

I did sit for a few minutes admiring the fence from the arbour seat. I then filled in the various places with the composted bark mulch. Its a lovely stuff to run your hands through!. The last job was to tidy away every bit of dead wood and leaves from under the gooseberry.

I also planted out into one of the troughs at the back of the garden some Marguerite daisies, Argyranthemum frutescens. I love these perennial daisies & think they will look nice with last year’s osteospermums.