Someone else's views

I'm not sure who took these photo's but as they were nice ones I've decided to include them. Its nice seeing pictures that somebody else takes, I seem to take mine from the same places, so its like seeing the garden through somebody elses eyes.

A lovely June day

The Alliums have been growning really well, the hosta's don't seem to have had too much damage from slugs, although I must admit to putting a small amount of slug pellets down when they were just starting to come up (I do try and hide them from the birds etc).

The sunken bed gets rather overwhelmed at this time of year, the growth is so lush. The orange rose is recommended "Warm Welcome", it seems to flower for most of the season as long as you continue to deadhead.

Again the bog area seems to be in a world of its own, its beginning to look like something from the lost prehistoric world. The pond area hasn't been too wet this year so we have run a small trickle of water through a pump from the river, it seems to continue working even when we switch it off, so its been quite interesting to see water all summer..

At last the new bed by the gate, this area has been a compost heap, then a weed experimentation area and now finally a flower bed. Its quite shaded here so I've put in some Rhododendrons and ferns, hostas, hemoracallis. Also tulips and alliums and lilies.

Photos for the Paper

Charles Hawes a nationally known photographer who happens to live relatively near arrived today and took this flattering picture of herself, along with several others to appear in the Saturday Magazine. Suffice to say that her normal garden attire was not nearly smart enough for the occasion. Charles has an excellent garden of his own that is well worth a visit.

Through to the Last Six

We received a letter from the Daily Mail today confirming that we are through to the final six and promising tickets for Hampton Court. Also a photographer will be contacting us to arrange a visit - all very exciting

A summerhouse at last !

The primulas are getting more spectacular each year, the judges for the Daily Mail were amazed by them, these were the ones I grew from seed, some are from RHS Harlow Carr which is quite famous for theirs.

The bogpond area is very lush already this year, the blue siberican irises are stunning against the greens. The whole area here seems very calming and relaxing. I have placed some chairs on the patio area, but haven't had time to sit on them yet.

The summerhouse has risen!. For the last year I have just had a space marked out for it. It only took a couple of days to put up in the end, but because of Davids limited movement in his shoulders, it was quite difficult for him to reach the higher parts of the roof. The dome on the top is infact a urn lid that we got at the local scrap merchant, we might go back for the other to put on top of the avairy.

Daily Mail Judgement Day.

The Daily Mail judges, David Stevens and Hamish Webb, arrived today at 8:30 to decide whether or not we should progress to the next level. we had been too busy getting things ready to take any photos in the last few days, so here are some we took after they left.

The summerhouse finally has a roof, complete with a cast iron nipple that was originally the lid of an urn, sold at our local salvage yard for a fiver. This structure is far from finished as it is intended to be the summer residence for child number seven's chinchillas.

Some flowers in the red bed, don't know what they are but suffice to say the red is so bright it seems to have maxed out the colours on my (normally very good) camera

My sister has recently been attending a welding course in Ebbw Vale and this is one of her efforts. Since seeing her in her boiler suit and welding mask she has been rechristened Aunty Fred (as in Dibna).

The bog garden and some Candelabra Primulas which have the rare distinction of being a plant that even I know the name of. We originally had the stream fed by a small solar powered pump, but the Welsh weather simply wasn't up to it. Now the pump has been connected to the mains via a transformer which meant placing it further upstream, however we now only need to run the pump about once a fortnight for an hour and gravity does the rest.

One of the major changes of late was the ten tons of gravel I bought for Elaine's birthday present. She suggested it might be a bit better present if I helped spread it over the yard, but I got round this by paying child number six to do my share of the work

It is uncanny how fast these plants seem to grow in this area, look out for more updates later in the year

Dave