Mushrooms

Growing in the garden - Eat or don't eat anyone??

Splashing

It turned beautiful this afternoon, very warm and sunny - after icy rain yesterday... No3 couldn't resist taking her shoes off, and splashing. This all in the current favourite fairy dress. The blossom is from the peach tree which is now creating our own natural confetti. Beautiful!

Peach blossom time

Yahhay it's spring - the peach blossom is out, I took these a day back, but the tree is laden with blossom and humming bugs.... t2 made a special survey which involved dangerous boy's activities - trying to convince him he IS NOT spider man in any incarnation is difficult, but he did get it in the end. We got new sand for the sandbox, some garden toys out of the basement... and had a conversation about growing potatoes (no idea why potatoes since we rarely eat them anyway!) The blossoms are slightly deformed, -2 degrees, unexpectedly a couple of nights back has taken it's toll. I guess it makes little difference, all these blossoms will fade and leaves grow, which will be shriveled in the sun and with the help of peach leaf curl virus. Only 2 summers in the past 4 I've had a good yield, regardless of spraying with copper.... this year I am inclined to do nothing, there was massive defoliation after the 2nd spray last year.... and the tree looked scruffy all summer, though still gave some good shade.

Spring

For the last week I've been watching various blossoms burst open. Excited I was! Sadly today spring seems to have vanished and winter returned.... blah! The peach tree has fat buds and the Chinese Quince beautiful waxy red flowers, pity the crummy, dreich weather today kept me inside.... tomorrow I hope.

Quince Bombs

Our quince tree is laden with heavy fruit. Most of it seems to be bug infested - bug infested quinces drop from the tree, heavy falling quinces HURT. Apparently I need to wait until they are 'yellow green' before I pick them. Maybe the bugs will save me of that job. Maybe a small person will get injured. Decision time.

Incy Wincy.... Monster Spider

For various reasons we’ve only sprayed our trees once this year – I have seen a large number of spiders, and they are HUGE – this monster has a body over an inch long – then the legs – it’s yellow and black striped and has a cousin living amongst the hydrangeas. This one made a web high – it was difficult to photograph, but inspired the whole birthday cake theme.

Acanthus Mollis

Way back in May it looked like this the bracts are beautifully papery - I love this plant..... even the fading spines that I leave there all winter till they look plain scruffy....

Scarce Swallowtail in our garden

I planted a patch of Verbena bonariensi and Nicotiana sylvestris they attract winged things like a magnet, usually bees, boring cabbage whites and some red butterfly that are ten a penny here. We were in the garden after lunch, I noticed what I thought was a piece of paper then realised it was a huge white butterfly, (I later identified it as a Scarce Swallowtail) - I managed to catch it and put it in our special bug jar (one with a mesh top) whilst I ran and got my camera. We admired it and then took some pictures, and released it - sent it home to his mom for his lunch... according to T1.... I think we were lucky to have been visited as they are quite rare!

Jasmine

Our Jasmine is in full bloom, it took 3 days for the whole wall to become a fragrant mass of tiny white gems against the waxy green leaves. I was watering the garden and in heaven this evening. I generally don't tolerate strong smells, bleach, perfume, aftershave, air-freshener or Asiatic lilies, but jasmine - I adore. The whole house is swimming in sweetness.

Acanthus Mollis

I love Acanthus Mollis - really it's a giving plant, beautiful huge fleshy leaves, the dramatic spines of white and purple, and the stunning spikes fading in the winter. They are coming up a storm, these were all from one root cutting, a piece about 15cm long, 4 years ago - I have several clumps now. They didn't do well in my Glasgow garden, they love it here. I wonder how the ones I left behind are.....

Sunny Sunday

Above is a ornamental cherry and below what translates to 'Chinese quince'.

T2 Woke me up this morning with questions about the exact location of his new 'blanket' we then had long discussion about the difference between blankets, duvets and quilts. He insisted that I was making him a blanket quilt - this WILL be sorted - after all, he's the son of a quilter.....
No I spying happening today though I did manage some pinning when they were all in bed.
No 3 and I had a day kicking around the house, running a couple of chores, eating fish stew, the weather was sunny, we called friends, watered the flowers and when it got too chilly we lay inside on a carpet watching the clouds through the glass roof of the conservatory.

Quince blossom

'Mummy, we are so lucky, we have THREE trees with flowers', 'The peaches will be ready after our birthdays?', 'Why do the plums get bugs in them?', 'What are quinssess?', 'Why do we die when we get old?', 'Was Pasa old or sick when he died?' - all before breakfast from T2 this morning. The quince tree is in bloom - pictures taken yesterday. It's been lashing it down with rain, since it's a holiday here!

Wordless Wednesday

My peach tree hums

With all the bees and winged things - it's positively alive with buzzing.... and my toe HURTS like crazy...... I just wish half of the flowers would grow into peaches...

Wordless Wednesday

Blossom

The first of many blossom pictures to come, blossom season is upon us - yeah! - it's been raining on and off all day and I was able to take this when out with a friend, watching 4 of our joint 6 kids playing outside in between the showers - fun as they are all within a year of each other so play together nicely, plus T1 has a thing for her older boy - pizza and home made hummus for dinner and long farewells, the next time I think we'll see them is in their new home in Northern Cyprus.

BQL Calender Challenge - March

The March challenge is started - photo printed, strips pieced and chopped, just to sort out the arrangement of the colours within the checkerboard - the photo was taken by my neighbour last March when she took pictures of baby and me in the garden. Somehow this March is almost a season behind. I did spend time pruning the hydrangeas that run the length of the house today - baby thought it was fun to be inside looking out - watching.

Hey trees!

Pear tree thru the leaves to the sky.

This guy is hanging onto the leaves for dear life - they are still semi red/green inside. Last year this tree dropped all the leaves seemingly overnight.

Berbaris - isn't this a great colour.

The grasses are turning but the rest isn't.

The garden can't decide if it's winter or not - last year the leaves got blown from the trees in some very strong winds in the middle of November - well before now - this year they are still turning colour. Weird, hey trees, it's winter. These were taken on Wednesday - over the last 24 hours the high has been 14, the low 5, so I guess it's not wintery enough?

Incoming mail

So these 3 came on Friday - Karen's Penguin for the Antarctic trade - the snowflake is really thick metal - it reminds me of the French ski school badges we got as kids....

Again from Karen - the Asian Elephant - beautifully done.

Lastly A2M G54 - from Geraldine - last night it dropped to 1.5 degrees - I can dream of sunshine - now I just need to figure out where to put our lemon and orange trees, or to leave them out for the winter with some horticultural fleece on them.

We do get snow here - honest! and the wind that blows some days is bitter - straight from Russia (thank you Russians!)

The front garden is north facing and very exposed - but we did leave a lemon tree out over winter in the past - it survived. Dilemmas..... it would be great if this was all I had to worry about!

hydranger

Back in June the hydrangeas that run the length of the house were crisp clean colours - it's coming to the end of the season and they are merging into a muddiness of reddish greens. Though some stay white. There are a couple of plants that are massive - more than 1.8m - I took a flower off the bottom of one of these to get past, it's over 12 inches across (30cm) the littles had fun with it as it was 'bigger than their heads' quite true. I'll leave these on all winter, when they get scruffy I'll trim them off but wait till the early spring to do the formal pruning, my way, not the Turkish way. I'll get to see spiders' webs draped with diamonds of dew in the coming months.