Great Dixter

Talking of Great Dixter yesterday had me trawling through photos today of this beautiful garden. The owner Christopher Lloyd has since passed away but the passion and vision he had for the garden still stands today. Now under the stewardship of Fergus Garrett and the Great Dixter Charitable Trust, Great Dixter is an historic house, a garden, a centre of education, and a place of pilgrimage for horticulturists from across the world.

And it is my absolute favourite garden!

l just LOVE all his crazy colour.....

l can do this!!!!

The man himself.

Mind you, my garden could look like this if l had 10 gardeners in it every day!!

Just stunning!

No white flowers in THIS garden!!

And there are those pots again!!! Just look at that house!!!

Such an inspiration! 

The Phone Chair!

This chair sits outside our back door. Amongst a  (growing!!) collection of pots and plants, it is the best place to get phone reception on our mobiles! Reception here has never been 'good' but ever since our big storm a few weeks ago it is now definitely classed as 'poor'!!

It's a lovely old garden chair. A throwaway from a friend of ours. Luckily Geoff noticed its possibilities and it deftly made its way onto the back of the ute and home to us! It was destined for the Veggie Garden from memory. It was quite heavy to carry and l think l just plonked it down for a rest and there it stayed. One phone call later its new role in life was discovered and it has stayed ever since!

And as for the plant collection? Well they are just amassing somehow! A great spot for baby plants as they miss the harsh afternoon Sun. A great place for newly bought plants as l can enjoy and easily water them from the back door and a great place for transitional plants.................a few days at the back door , then into the ground!

And am l in good company having masses of pots gathering at my back door??? l most certainly think so ! If it's good enough for Great Dixter , my absolute favourite English Garden , then it's most certainly good enough for me!

(although most definitely NOT on the same scale and quality!!!!) 

 

Winter is Coming!!!!

A couple of frosts this past week .To give us a taster of the Winter to come. Just enough to curl up the leaves on my Nasturtiums and Dahlias. There's a job for my weekend!

But not enough to kill the Canna Lilies! It will be interesting to see how much longer they last! One is even in the process of flowering. l hope it makes it before the next frost!

Such a favourite time of year at the moment for me and l wander around the garden every morning enjoying the mist, the fog, the frost, the colours..........Just not leeches and rain!

None of those this morning and the colour was stunning. White with a real pinky glow....

And this little Maple is beautiful!! An absolute blaze of orange!

These two seemed to be enjoying it too! On their way to a cold bracing morning swim in the pond. l have no idea how they swim in this weather. Even when the water is frozen, in they waddle.

Brrrrrrrrrrrr!!

 

Louise the Dramatic Sheep

Louise has always been a Drama Queen..............Always.........She collapses in hysterical heaps whenever she feels a rope (collar ) around her neck. Well, maybe not a HYSTERICAL heap as she doesn't actually DO anything . She just collapses...............Well today Louise took 'Hysterical Over Reactive Drama Queen Sheep Hysteria (of the most passive kind) to a WHOLE new level...........
Oh and here is a reminder. This picture goes way back to 2013.......

So this morning we trimmed her feet............in the paddock..............she wasn't happy as we usually do them in the yards where we can tie her to the rails. She huffed and puffed around (and it was cold!) so Geoff eventually hoisted her over on her back (in the shearing postion) as that makes our life a lot easier! So when we finished we gently let her down onto the ground and went to get her little bucket of nut treats (for being a good girl!!!) ...........and there she stayed...............

In the exact same position in which she fell...................

Head in the bucket so no one else could get THEIR heads in...................

l must say l laughed a lot!!!!

Daft silly sheep!!!

Marlee and Me!

A beautiful day today with glorious Autumn shine beating down. A perfect time to open up all the doors and windows to get some fresh air into the house.

l came across a picture I have had on my phone for a while (since the 21st of October 2017 to be precise!!!) l just love it. l think it might have been in a library book. Anyway, it inspired me to take a photo of the page and keep it until l could make some use of some of the ideas in it. And today l did!!

Not quite on the same stunning scale of course..............and don't laugh...they are not dug into the grass yet!!!

But by the end of the day they were! Still looking out of place, messy , muddy and new of course, but in time they will bed down and get the edges grassed over and hopefully mellow out into the surroundings. They are in fact a very dark grey although here in the picture they are covered in mud!

The idea was to draw that part of the garden into your eye which it never has done before. It's always been an area where no one walks or even goes to. Now my cute little (still unpainted by the way! ) picket fence gate is in place , the whole area still needed a bit of a spruce up so hopefully this might help it.

And a very special little visitor today who came especially to pat the sheep! She took it very seriously and totally won my heart in the process! The sheep were wonderful and Tyrone was so sweet and gentle with this tiny little girl and let her pat his ears and face without a care in the world.

Such a beautiful little girl.....Thank you coming Marlee....it was a pleasure to meet you!

Weeding and Dogwoods!

Toyed around this morning with the possibility of putting a gate out of the courtyard. It looks nice, we MIGHT do it..............but not right now!

More tedious jobs on the books today! The main one weeding this path! Groan!!!! For some reason this particular path grasses over much quicker than the rest. We think it's probably because we don't use it that often , But with so many frogs around, spraying isn't an option so it's just a matter of some good old fashioned hard yakka!

Yikes! Just as bad looking the other way!

But...in no time at all it's all beautiful again .................

Both ways!

Phew! Much better..... for now!!!

The Autumn days are getting noticeably shorter as Winter creeps up on us. The day seems to barely begin before it's time to stop and feed the animals all over again in the afternoon! Still enough time though to linger over these beautiful Icelandic Poppies ...............

And admire the dogwoods l put in less than a year ago. They have grown incredibly fast and have suddenly turned such stunning colours.

With the copse of Silver Birches behind them, one day they will look fabulous in the Winter with the white of the birch trunk and the red of the dogwood stems........

Sort of like this...........sort of!!!

That's the plan anyway!

A Special Visit

An amazing pink sky this morning. Everywhere was bathed in a rose coloured glow. It really was quite lovely! My little front forest garden was a mass of orange , red and pink!

Teemed up with the gold from the birches ( now rapidly disappearing as the winds batter us every night!)

It really has been a beautiful colourful Autumn..

With quite a few power cuts so far ......................!!! Good thing we have lots of these!

A special visit this week from some friends from afar! George and Mark from San Diego came for a visit to Candlestick Farm and George was soon amongst the sheep handing out sheep nuts like lolly rations! l think they loved him!

And some great photos taken by my dad (who came as official photographer!) which gives an ideal opportunity with these photos to introduce each sheep as they appear! This is LaLa.. the boss of our little flock. She is enormous and is quick with a stomp of the hoof if she ever comes across anybody she doesn't know!

Louise, the Matriarch. Our oldest girl and the sheep we have had the longest. She must be coming up to 10 years old l think.

Fingal. THE greediest sheep on the planet. She eats ANYTHING.....Along with LaLa she would be about 9 years old. She came with us from our old house and had her first lamb here on the farm as did LaLa.

Then we have Fingal's boy Larry.............He is two. And as you know he is a favourite of mine..!

And the two year girls.....Shy, timid little Patch.............

And the gorgeous bolshy LJ.............Louise's daughter but definitely with a large dose of her Auntie La La in her AND the next boss of the paddock as the generations change!

And  last but definitely not least.....little Insky......who tried so hard to look like a sheep in the possibility of some food being thrown his way!

Nice try Fluff Ball!!!!