Daisy paradise

Daisies have taken over my lawn! I don't mind, I love daisies. 

Gorgeous day, after the Royal Wedding party with our neighbours last night. I made a potato salad, which included some of the flat leaf parsley that I've grown from seed!

I have mowed the lawns, planted out some of the parsley, sown some carrots, and planted some more beetroot (the stuff I planted a month or so ago has all been eaten by a slug). I've planted up some wild rocket and finished off putting in the runner and climbing beans. 

The potatoes are showing now, so I've earthed them up. 

The broad bean flowers look amazing!

My compost has an ants nest in it, and there were sign of a mouse or rat having been in there... I watched Gardeners World last night which had a great article on composting, Monty Don tells me I should be regularly turning or moving the compost about, this disturbs the ant and rodents & should mean they don't want to settle in. There's a great article about it too here. So I'll poke my fork in there every 5 weeks or so, should do the trick. 

Very productive day

Beautiful day today. I planted some salad seeds:

And some coriander & two types of basil:

I moved the sweet peas & fixed them to canes:

I planted some mesembryanthemums:

And some calendula:

I also planted the runner & climbing beans that had sprouted, and tidied up the other sweet peas:

I even planted some verbena and cosmos seeds. 

Wild garlic

Yesterday I went to a fantastic lunch and walk in Whitebrook near Monmouth. We found some wild garlic in the woods there: 

I've just whizzed it together with a bit of basil, pine nuts, olive oil and parmesan, and made some fantastic wild garlic pesto with it, it's an amazing taste!

Woolly things

I went on a lovely walk yesterday, saw some little lambs. I remember at the RHS show that a guy was selling compost which contained sheep wool, so I though I'd try it by gathering some wool & putting it in the compost. It's not really enough to make a big difference, but it's fun new thing to add to the compost bin! 

I also went to the garden centre today & bought some canes and a watering can. I also bought this big terracotta pot to grow my herbs in, I've added all the herbs I bought at the RHS show, and some of the parsley I grew from seed. 

Blogging in 1981

I bought a book in a charity shop in Burnham on Sea today. It is by Joan Wolfenden, and called The Glory of the Garden. It is very pretty, she wrote a diary of her garden in 1981, every 2 days writing about the flowers and her experiences, and illustrated it with flowers from the garden. 

It reminds me a bit of my blog.

Peonies & peas

Another gorgeous day, with a bit of light rain, so the plants are happy. 

Today I was given some what we think are peony seeds from Val's garden in Abercarn. 

I planted them just to the left of the magnolia tree, and also planted a hyacinth plant that I had in the house. 

The peas that I planted straight in the ground are popping their heads up: 

And I've secured all the broad beans onto canes. 

Formal Gardens at Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Dublin

Last week I went to Dublin to visit my friend Helen. We went to see the Formal Gardens at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, and here are some pictures I took. Lovely tulips, and perfect trees and scrubs in perfect lines, the complete opposite to Grainy's Garden! 

Peas and beans

Not exactly sure what this is, but we think a type of gorse. Anyway, it's got some lovely yellow and orange flowers at the moment: 

Yesterday I planted some peas, runner and climbing beans: 

 And I repotted the marjoram. The radishes are popping up in the garden: 

Potatoes planted

I got up and planted the potatoes today. Most of them in the bed I'd dug, in 2 rows, and I planted salad and radish seeds over the top of the two mounds, suggested by Monty Don on Gardeners World, he says by the time the salad has grown & you've harvested it, it'll nearly be time to dig up the potatoes! 

I also planted a few potatoes in a bag, to see how that will work.

A few of the sweet pea plants look a big sad, perhaps too little water, perhaps a bit of nibbling by some slugs... I've covered a few of them over with plastic bottles with the lids taken off to give them air, to protect them, see if that helps. And I gave them lots of water.

I'm going away til Thursday, so it'll be interesting to see if any of the things I've planted will have started to come up when I'm back.

A trip to the RHS Show, Cardiff, and a visitor to the garden

What a glorious day for a flower show! Today I visited the RHS Flower Show in Cardiff. It was great. Here are some photos of my favourites: 

Amazing droopy dreadlocks cacti: 

Crazy tropical pink plant with little purple flowers (Tillandsia cyania): 

Bougainvillia (I remember seeing loads of these all over Italy, they're so pretty!): 

A bonsai tree that was planted in 1910! 

Oh and a magnolia tree up our street, that has the most gorgeous purple flowers: 

I came home with some herbs (Vietnamese coriander, sage, rosemary, oregano, thyme and, violas): 

And this amazing answer to a watering can - just pop them on an old drinks bottle! 

Whilst I was mowing the front lawn we had a visitor to the garden. Misty, the neighbour's cat. 

Hello Misty! 

It was getting dark as I finished potting the herbs! 

Pink and red

Fantastic colours spotted in the front garden today. A clover growing in the grass:

And some beautiful red blossoms on the spiky plant by out window (not sure what sort of plant it is):

The garden is looking lovely!

Wow, stuff is really happening in the garden! This plant (not really sure what it is) has amazing red leaves now:

The Japanese maple's blossoms have now started to turn to leaves: 

I found this beautiful purple delicate flower when I was mowing the lawn. It's an erisimum, given to me by my Dad & planted last year.

The magnolia flowers are dropping off and leaving strange alien shapes: 

Here's the garden! 

Oh and the tomato plants are looking healthy! 

Herbs

The marjoram & the parsley are sprouting!