Spring Update

I cannot believe how long it has been since my last entry and I simply do not know where the time has gone. Although now when I stop and think about the last six months I have been very busy so will recap some of what has been happening up until now.

At the end of August T and I celebrate our Wedding Anniversary so last year we spent a long weekend on Lindisfarne (Holy Island, off the Northumberland coast).  We have stayed on the island many times before as it is so peaceful there especially when the causeway is flooded.  The Gertrude Jekyll garden was, as ever, beautiful 

and we walked the Pilgrims Way across the causeway 

  (the village of Lindisfarne is on the right in the distance) and

 in bare feet naturally!

In September, I managed to visit some gardens on my own namely The Beacon (Stocksfield) and Birkheads Secret Garden (Sunniside, Gateshead). 

The Beacon, Stocksfield

Also in the same month we had a family trip to the gardens of Blagdon Hall (Northumberland).

At the beginning of October on another family trip we visited a garden which had been on my bucket list for many years - The Garden of Cosmic Speculation in Dumfriesshire. We went on a drizzly Saturday and despite the appalling weather, the garden was spectacular.

At the end of December, we had another family trip to Gibside Pleasure Gardens (Gateshead) for their  Winter themed illuminated trail through the grounds. The lighting and music made for a very atmospheric evening.

Since the beginning of the new year I have been hard at work in the garden (weather permitting). I am still in the process of cladding the inside of what used to be the “guinea pig shed”.

I have also been tweaking the Italian garden with additions of Chamaecyparis lawsoniana Ellwoods Pillar (for structure), also in the Italian garden, I tasked myself with the job of filling in gaps left by perennials which have died.

 

To celebrate Valentine’s Day T and I visited Durham Botanic Gardens, it was blissfully quiet, with very few visitors and as ever the café provided a delicious lunch.

 

I have also had a change of opinion regarding the colour of manmade structures in the garden.  I have now decided that the trellis and obelisks currently painted black are too gloomy so am now in the process of changing them all to white. 

 

Over on the front lawn I felt the blue border was too “one season” (June) so have dug up the two clumps of Zantedeschia aethiopica and replaced them with box balls (£12 each from a local home & ware store). The box balls carry on a theme throughout the garden - of structural conifers and clipped box.  Incidentally, here in the garden I have no issues with box blight, presumably the exposed positon has something to do with that.

I shall now endeavour to record and photograph at more regular intervals.

Happy Gardening