This week I have been in my garden playing with a new lens for my camera and just taking the time to breathe after Woollinn. The event took a lot out of all of the Woolinn team and I have retreated to my garden for some creative play. I’ve blogged before about allowing ourselves time to rest, play and recharge and I have to remind myself to stop and not charge from one project into another.
Life at the cottage for the last few months has been pretty busy and this week I was taking some of my own advice and taking things slowly. This week my Six on Saturday post takes a look at what is looking great in my garden right now along with some ISO setting play on my camera. I hope you enjoy the images and please do not use them without credit.
First up are my beautiful apples. I have two container apple trees a James Grieve and an Elstar which I bought from Mr. Middelton the same month we moved into the cottage and the harvests have always been bountiful. Unfortunately, this year with the freak weather, the apples weren’t in blossom at the same time so we only have apples on the James Grieve. It’s a shame because I have never seen more abundant blossoms on these trees but pollination was obviously an issue. I know that James Grieve is self-fertile to an extent but Elfstar is not. Next year I will need to protect the trees a little better during storms because moving these indoors (cold conservatory) obviously had an effect on the timing of leaf bud break.
Is there anything more beautiful in a cottage garden than Aquilegia, the way it’s bell-shaped heads swing in the breeze? Well, the downside is the amount deadheading you need to do as it self-seeds with abandon. I love how these flowers change with the intensity of sunlight and as these are well established in my borders providing a sea of beautiful soft pinks and purples. It’s soft, dreamy and I lose time watching it sway and dance in the sea breeze. I love it and apart from my new Yew hedge (which is growing at a rapid pace), these are my favourite thing about my front garden. It’s still a work in progress and I see most of February 2019 been taken up with hard landscaping and path laying.
The yellow flags have started to open up by my pond and I love playing with the ISO setting on these…read…prepare to see a lot of these on my Instagram over the next little while. I have far too many of these and I missed dividing them this spring with all the other work that needed to be done here. Next year I need to divide and find these rampart growers a new home with someone else as my pond is far too small for this invasive species. On overcast days these happy yellow flowers add a pop of colour to my very green back garden. Little is in flower once the apple and cherry blossoms fade and my garden changes from soft tones of white and pale pink to a strong and happy yellow.
Contributing to that happy yellow are the dreamy flower tendrils of the Laburnum. We pruned this tree last year as it was encroaching on our neighbours a little too much and this year the blossoms are bountiful. The breeze fills the air with the soft scent before the blossoms start to fall and carpet the ground beneath in a thick layer of yellow. I love watching the bees fly from flower to flower and I may have managed a few macro shots of their busy little bums which I will pop up on Instagram soon.
Technically a weed, I love these soft grass heads peeping over my euphorbia. I’m not a lover of euphorbia but they add structure and colour to the borders here. Although not my personal choice, I’m glad there were planted here before my time. I have moved them twice to their final resting place beside my hebe and they have never complained. I like how the grass heads pop up and soften the planting and the light catches them in a beautiful way, higlighting their soft fluffly heads, so I always leave a few to get this high. I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder because if my dad saw this he would pull them right out!
Finally, it is time to say goodbye to our wallflowers here at the cottage, they are just passing their best. I’ll let a few go to seed and collect them for next year to cover those hard to plant places. There is nothing like a group planting of wallflowers for colour and these are pretty special as they came from my mother in law’s garden along with yet to flower foxgloves. They are so easy to grow I just can’t envision a cottage garden without them. I just need to figure out what I am going to plant around them as I love their leaves for green structure in the front beds. Time will tell, as I’m now getting a lot more comfortable with ripping things out and developing a style I love.
So there you have it, a garden photowalk update using the Six on Saturday layout. Do make sure that you pop over to the main man‘s page to check out more wonderful gardening posts. Why not search the #sixonsaturday tag on twitter too to fill your feed with beautiful blooms.
