Yellow Book

I was very pleased to see that we will be listed in the ngs yellow book this year, and are now featured on their website. Unfortunately as they have a link to this site it's about time we pulled our collective fingers out and did a few updates. As Elaine will have her hands full getting the garden ready I will most probably get the job of doing the updates, so don't be surprised if a few of the more technical aspects of gardening are glossed over. Still it's better than digging!

I have made a start on the back garden.

I have at last made a start on the back garden. These are all my bargain shrubs underplanted with daffodils. I will probably plant some geraniums for ground cover over the summer, and hopefully some asters for the autumn. There is little point having too much of the herbaceous stuff as the children will just kick their footballs into the beds. This will be a spring and autumn garden.

A very long hot summer.

One day I hope to make this into the next part of the woodland bed. Its covered with nettles, although a load of foxgloves did self seed here earlier in the spring. I've been cutting the grass in the shape of the border, hopefully I might get some time in the winter to dig it out.

These beds are still going strong, I wish in a way we could have a hard frost and I could have a good clear out. This year I actually left the big clean up untill March/April, a bit too late really, but it didn't take long as most of it had rotted and it was just a couple of days going around picking up dead stuff.

This Ricinus is an absolute stunning plant, highly poisionous if the seeds are eaten although they were high enough that the children couldn't reach them.

Again this has grown beyond our wildest expectations this year, obviously the manure and years of sheeps droppings has worked to feed the garden well, hopefully it will continue for a while longer.

Last burst before Autumn

The growth in the garden has been astronomical this year, I can't believe we've only been here just over 2 1/2 years. I have manured the ground quite well in the spring but there seems to be some other force at hand.

Again the bamboo by the bog pond has grown from a couple of canes to a huge clump, its also doubled in height.

The growth is amazing, this garden looks like its been here for years.

This border is only 1 year old, hopefully the climbing roses will catch up with all the other growth.

My favorite area of the garden, I love daliha's they are such a vibrant plant, the colour scheme seems to jump out and shock you. One day I hope to have a summerhouse behind these plants with red climbing roses on as well and a vine so to extend the planting upwards.

One Day to Go

One day to go and this is how the garden is looking. We seemed to have a peak about 2 weeks ago and since then a few plants seem to have gone over and got a bit straggly (excuse me if this is not the correct hortcultural term but this is Dave posting and I'm definitely NOT a gardener). But now after a lot of deadheading and even more weeding the garden is looking it's best again.

Having said that, some areas seem to growing a bit too well and we are torn between leaving this area intact or cutting back a bit to allow access to the sunken area.

One of the hard working staff (head gardener actually) making a few last minute adjustments

The newly cleaned out mill wheel should hopefully prove of interest to gardeners and no gardeners alike.

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In the wheel

Next week we are opening the garden for the first time, to a local gardening club as well as the public, so I thought it was about time I did some work rather than leaving it all up to Elaine. As the millwheel hasn't been cleared out since just after we got here the weeds, elder in particular, were starting to obscure the wheel. I had to climb right down in to the millrace to clear it out and found a part of the mill, some sort of governing rod, in the process.