WHAT JOBS ARE WE DOING IN THE GARDEN TODAY - 2017

A lot of the GC Gang know of my garden from my previous posts of it, luciusmaximus. It's an over planted chaotic style Cottage Garden with, in the borders, several layers of different bulbs over planted with several hundred mostly hardy perennials and shrubs, and narrow paths so that you get brushed with foliage. It's not to every one's taste but it brings a smile to my face when I'm walking around it.






My wildlife pond at the bottom of the garden


The bench by the Wildlife pond where I sit with a mug of tea and the Cats.

The gate that leads you into the Wildlife pond area.




The trellis entrance to the garden with has around 30 Clematis planted on either side.



Somewhere else to sit with a mug of Tea......or sleep after a hard day patrolling the garden.


And as the GC Gang knows I squeezed this in last year.

 

Thanks, Anthony, much appreciated. I think the biggest recent compliment was by one of the Landscapers who came to build the base for the Observatory. I made her a mug of tea and she asked if she could wander around the garden. A few minutes later she called out for her partner to "come and look". We went down to the bottom of the garden and she was sitting on the bench by the wildlife pond with her mug of tea. She just grinned and said she could stay there all day!! Now that, coming from a professional landscaper, was a nice compliment

 

I'm sure your observatory has grown .

 

I've put compost into about 200 pots to get them ready for Mrs Shiney. That'll be a regular job for a few weeks The most tedious time doing it is when the 560 runner bean seeds need planting in them.

I've cleared most of the branches that came down in the wind and the bonfire heap is now 7ft high again. So it shall be lighting up time soon.

I was going to start on the mowing but am having trouble with the mower. I didn't bother to try and start it because the rear roller won't roll backwards. I can spin it forwards with no trouble but it just locks tight when I try to spin it backwards. Need to get the mower man in.

 

Thanks, Linz..........there's always a mug of tea or coffee ready when visitors arrive!!

 

Don't be, luciusmaximus,, it's not a garden built to make people envious but one to make you smile and feel at peace. There are several places where you can sit out of sight of the House and feel nice and alone.

My wildlife pond is down at the bottom of my garden, which slopes around 3' from the top to the bottom and is unnoticeable. I never have trouble with discolouring or blanket weed as when I dug out the pond I incorporated an integral Bog Garden. That meant, on putting the liner in, building a dry brick wall about 4' from the bank along the length of the pond. I then filled in the gap between the dry brick wall and the bank with ordinary garden soil and then filled the pond with water. The Bog Garden was then fed with water through the gaps in the dry brick wall. I got that tip from one of the late great Geoff Hamilton's program, and it worked perfectly. I also followed his advise about over planting the margins of the pond so that both the Bog Garden and the marginal plants take out nutrients in the water and denying Blanket Weed and algae from being able to grow giving me crystal clear water. I went down to the pond this evening, with a mug of tea!, along with the Cats and sat on the bench that's there. I had the feeling that I was being watched and searching around found 6 Frogs sitting on the pebbled slope quite happily staring at me and making croaking sounds like two stroke motors

I have a Pentax K5 and a collection of 22 old Pentax lenses, most of which were bought secondhand and are better "glass", in my opinion, than some of the modern lenses. I confess I have been pointing and using a Pentax model of some sort since the late 60's and do enjoy wildlife and macro photography.
To be honest, lucius, I've seen better and sharper pics taken by people with just point and shoot cameras because they were thinking about what they were doing and understood their camera. We have some very fine photographers on GC such as Strongy and Sheal who have the "eye".

It was built only last year with the base being built by a local Landscaper in September 2015 when I knew I was going to have an Observatory......and started off like this..

and finished like this....

The grey "pole" to the right is the conduit for the 3 power cables.

I have to shamefully admit that I have 5 telescopes ranging from Newtonians, my first being a old second hand one that I bought on e-Bay and completely refurbished


A 9.25 inch Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope

A Maksutov Cassegrain 180mm telescope


And a 10 inch Newtonian


And the last which sits in the Observatory is a 12" Schmidt Cassegr
ain telescope.


I know, I know, you can only use one telescope at a time

 

Thanks, redstar. I built the snug two seat Arbour with no real plan as to what it would look like. I was given two long logs to make a seat out of but found them to be too uncomfortable on my rear end.. So I went into the garage which was full of scrap wood and built what you see It faces West so I can watch the Sun go down with the Cats and a glass of the red stuff.
The creamy white climbing rose is "Alchemist" and the pink rose is "Compassion" which was a recommendation of Woo's. There's also 3 Honeysuckles on either side, with two Clematis either side

 

Well, you know what they say about Mushrooms, Shiney!!