I first contributed to Helen's end of month view two years ago so I now have the same view of the garden for the last three years. It's like visiting a town you've not been to in years; most of it is unchanged and familiar, a few bits have changed completely. In the garden a large magnolia, clump…
End of month view
End of month view – October 2017
This time last year the Acer on the left was still covered with leaves. Two years ago it was bare. It also had a backdrop of a magnolia which is now gone. Not much else is different. The real bareness of winter hasn't hit yet and there are still bits and pieces of flower to…
End of month view – September 2017
Even though there is plenty still happening in the garden, it is the end of the growing season and seems like the right time to take stock of the successes and failures of the past year. Autumn is the ideal time for making changes; getting rid of the under-performers, planting something better, moving things around.…
End of month view 1-9-2017
I was going to skip this month, but the meme has a new host and I received a reminder, so here I am, a day late. A few days ago we were looking at a large Magnolia that has been near the centre of our garden for about twenty years and had reached perhaps 22…
End of month view – July 2017
Every month, for a day or two leading up to making this regular posting, I muse on what I am going to say. Mostly I am thinking about the garden overall, rather than about specific plants, but overall is the sum total of what key plants are doing, so there's overlap. This month I had…
End of month view – June 2017
Two things struck me when I compared this picture with the same view a year ago. The first was that the flowers are a couple of weeks ahead of last year. The second was how little the view had changed. I found myself searching for the small differences between the two images. For some reason…
End of month view – May 2017
Come in, please, I'd be delighted to show you round my garden. Can I suggest you put on over-trousers, there are places where the path gets narrow and it was drizzling earlier, everything's a bit wet. Let's start round here, I'm afraid I didn't get to my poppy in time to stake it. Seemed to…
End of month view – April 2017
These are butternut squash seedlings on my window ledge. It's raining outside, which is a very good thing; steady, hour after hour. What happened to April showers? April has seen masses of stuff coming into leaf and flowering like mad. It has also seen weeks of dry weather and the threat of frost on half…
End of month view, March 2017
There's quite a bit flowering now, bulbs and bushes. I'm not sure how but we still have three magnolias, used to have five. The one behind the polytunnel is Vulcan and it's slowly falling over. It might be possible to push it back up and prop it, I hope so. The plum tree on its…
End of month view – February 2017
I do like a different viewpoint. You get very familiar with your own garden and it can get difficult "to see oursels as ithers see us". I know the top viewpoint very well, but the bottom one I find much more engaging as it's unfamiliar. I find myself looking closely at it, noticing patterns and…
garden ruminations 