The Garden

-
My poor garden gets very little time in this blog (reflecting I suppose the amount of time it has spent on it: not enough.) Normally in summer I am out there planning what to do next, shifting things and trying to outwit the slugs and snails, but this season I am stuck in the house, decorating. This is because we have decided to move to be nearer the children's school, which is 20 miles away. In theory, we then won't be using as much petrol taxi-ing them backwards and forwards; they will be nearer to their friends: they are neither of them alas country children so it seems fairly pointless having all this when it's not used. The ultimate plan is to move back out to the country in a few years when they've finished school: to a nice small cottage with a hefty acreage. One day I'll plant my orchard.....

But back to the decorating. As a dedicated watcher of Location, Location, Location etc I know everything should be pale, but I am so, so, so bored of neutrality. The next house is going to be COLOURFUL. I have a copy of the Farrow and Ball colour card, and it is my colour porn. I look at it, and lust after the deep reds; the stoney greens and the dusky yellows.

Having said that, last summer my daughter and I painted her room: it is a rosebay willow herb pink. Plenty of colour there, and that's how it's going to stay.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the garden. It may look fine, but I must tell you that I have been very careful to cut out the grotty bits I have not got to yet. The veronica I moved from the highly unsuitable south facing border it has been for years to a much shadier spot and it is now romping away to such an extent it's verging on becoming a pest.
The dog is one of my larger garden pests. Though she is lying there innocently in the photograph, she has worn a fine path through the vegetable garden over the winter, and has only been stopped by an elegantly constructed row of canes. I now know why my rare white rosemary died. I stupidly planted it in a sandy corner which also makes an excellent bone-burying spot.

The terrace and paths look a lot better now that we have restored the gravel areas, alas sadly trodden in over the years. My husband and my sister, who was

staying with us at the time were firm in their contention that 3 tonnes would do it. I did the last gravel top up, and it took 4 tonnes. We were all wrong. It took 6, which is a lot when you have to barrow it all from the yard as it is impossible to swing it into the garden without taking the trees out.

Comments

Unknown said…
The refreshed gravel paths look lovely. Gravel is nice when in good condition, but is a nuisance to keep looking that way.

I agree with you about the neutral colours they are forever pushing on house-selling programmes. I see their point, but colour is good too. My landlord had my entire flat redecorated in (cheap) cream, and while it does make the rooms light, and provides a harmless background for all the books and ornaments, I'd like a faded terracotta in the living room, and a soft green in the bedroom. Oh well.
19 May 2008 at 11:24
Jane Badger said…
My flat in my final year was a sort of unpleasant dung (it was known as The Brown Room for very good reasons). My landlord would only let me repaint it as long as it was brown, as he didn't want to change the name of the room..... so I sympathise!
20 May 2008 at 15:22
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rollkur and the blue tongue

-
I've been meaning to write about this all week, but reading the exclusive in Horse and Hound about the controversy tipped me over the edge. For my non-horsy readers, rollkur is a training/warming up technique used by some dressage riders. It basically involves riding the horse with its jaw pulled in virtually to its chest, in order to increase suppleness. Patrik Kittel , a Swedish competitor in Odense was videoed riding his horse in this way. If you watch the video , you'll see the horse's tongue hanging out - blue. It takes a while before the rider notices this. When he does, he stops, puts the horse's tongue back in, and carries on. There are two things which bother me about this. Firstly, I am fully aware large sections of the dressage world, and some of its brighest stars, consider rollkur perfectly ok, but the FEI guidelines state this practice should only be for short periods, allowing the horse to rest. Patrick Kittel apparently rode the horse for two hou
Read more

Archibald, don't eat the bedclothes

-
Image
My friend Louise sent me this picture today. It's from a children's book with the rather wince-making title For The Wee Ones. I thought, when I read that (because I read the message before I looked at the picture) that the picture was going to be a typical winsome production from the school of artists who think (or who are paid to think) that the child is a thing sent from God and a blissful thing. They had obviously never met a child, and certainly not mine. I should have known Louise better. The artist responsible for Archibald, don't eat the bedclothes slipped this one past the editors. Just look at the poor, broken Mother Rabbit. She knows she has not the faintest chance of being listened to, and poor thing, she is stooped in the way of a mother to whom this is just the lastest in a long line of horror; with nothing good to come. And Archibald is obviously the spawn of the Devil. Just look at those eyes. He'll have the bed after he's finished the bedclothes
Read more

Dick Sparrow - 40 Horse Hitch, and Neil Dimmock's 46 Percherons

-
Image
Here's a clip of Dick Sparrow driving 40 horses. It's an amazing sight, particularly when the shot changes to show the team from the rear and you get the great incongruity of modern American corporate architecture as a background to the wagon and horses. I love the anticipation in the video: the sense of something amazing being just round the corner is palpable. Thanks to Christina Wilsdon for telling me about this world record 46 Percheron hitch (alas just stills) but you get the idea.
Read more