It’s over, move on. January is the strangest month. It starts in holiday mode. There is absolutely no expectation to do anything remotely productive, unless it is for personal gain, like indulging in a hobby. And as the middle month of summer, it is – most of the time – too hot to want to do anything anyway. I can’t cope in the heat, especially … Continue reading It’s over, move on.
Making a Shrubbery In the garden shrubs are generally considered the understated backdrop of the landscape – mini trees that provide the green and occasionally have flowers or fragrance but for the most part aren’t even noticed. In the kitchen shrubs are something else. They are so amazing that once you make one you wonder why you’ve never done it before. I am about to … Continue reading Making a Shrubbery
Happy Anniversary On this day, 18th January, back in 2018 we were embarking on a great change. We sold our house in the swamp and moved to the seaside. To be completely honest it was moving from one challenging landscape to another, but what is life without a little challenge. The last place was at that point where it was done. The interior was how … Continue reading Happy Anniversary
Too Hot If you can’t handle the heat, get out of the garden. We are in the midst of a heatwave. It might not be the burning inferno that some folk experience in summer in other places, but it is hot for me. In the last week the hottest the thermometer in the garden registered was 38°C yesterday at 6:27pm! Surely the evenings are supposed … Continue reading Too Hot
New Year is a state of mind. It is all very well to treat the new year as a fresh start when you are in between seasons like all the wonderful gardeners in the Northern Hemisphere. The previous season behind them, with lessons learnt from the successes and failures and all the hope and expectation of a new season just around the corner. While the … Continue reading New Year is a state of mind.
The answer to this is ‘Yes it could’. There is plenty of room for improvement. We barely set things right after the last storm and here we are again with an even bigger one, that was even more destructive as there was wind in its midst. I am grateful to say we survived the storm unscathed. For the most part the winds were blocked by … Continue reading Could this summer get any better?
Firstly… we’re ok. There has been an extraordinary amount of rain in our neck of the woods this week. So much so the word unprecedented has been bandied about quite freely. But it isn’t everyday you see people wading through the airport up to their knees or water cascading over motorway barriers like a infinity pool or sloshing about inside buses. Sadly this has been … Continue reading It’s been unprecedented
This is not how I meant to start the year. I have dropped the ball and started to fall by the wayside. But I had a very good excuse. I somewhat foolishly decided it would be a good idea to open up my garden to the general public so they could see what I had done. I had no real plan – a sort of … Continue reading Epic visit
I am determined not to moan about the weather this year, but to be honest it leaves me no choice. We got home on the 4th of Jan, and it has done nothing but rain or be gloomy and bleak. To be fair yesterday was nice and today was nice-ish, but the weather is closing in as cyclone Hale is heading our way. Hopefully it … Continue reading Caught between two storms
In the Northern Hemisphere, the opportunity for a fresh start seems to make more sense. It is the middle of winter, and everything is dormant or done and as the year gets going things wake up or are restarted. Here, down under, we are in the swing of things. My garden is full, as is my life. I couldn’t be busier, but we take a … Continue reading A new start?
