Six on Saturday. 28.01.2023.

Posted on January 28, 2023 by Pauline

We have just had another week of heavy frosts each night, but now the weather is warming up slightly and by next week we might be up to double figures! It has been cold out tidying the woodland but a lot of work has been done, fingers and toes eventually making me go back inside and make myself a warm drink or two. This week I have been weeding and am well over half way, hopefully more will be done this weekend. Just the leaf mould to be put down as a mulch and then bark chippings to be bought and spread, this will be done by Joseph (my roofer, who now does the odd job for me now and again) while I can then get on with tidying the rockery. My six for this week are as follows………

No 1

Galanthus Angelique on the rockery.

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Six on Saturday. 21.01.2023

Posted on January 21, 2023 by Pauline

Well, that was a cold week and Wednesday such a strange day, I think we had every bit of weather just in one day. I woke up to snow, then we had a bit of sunshine, rain which then turned to sleet, then more snow, followed by more sunshine, which was when I got some gardening done, then some hailstones so I gave up and came in! Lots of snowdrops are flowering now, but severe frost every night has them lying on the ground each morning and some days, because the temperature hardly rises,  it takes a long time before they perk up again. I still have some of the original snow left, in areas where the sun never shines at this time of year. In the meantime, here are my six for this week.

No 1.

Iris reticulata Pauline is always my first reticulata iris to flower. She is spreading nicely and now forming a nice spash of purple on the scree. She didn’t like the cold or the snow!

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Six on Saturday. 14.01.2023.

Posted on January 14, 2023 by Pauline

What a lovely day yesterday was, after a week of almost non stop rain. I made a  start on tackling all the leaves that are down in the woodland, clearing away the worst from round all my special snowdrops so that they can be seen to their best advantage. The blackbirds and robins soon came to join me as they could then find all the little wriggling things that were now exposed. Lots of bulbs are now almost flowering, soon the woodland will be looking very pretty once more, in the meantime, here are my 6 for this week.

No 1.

The first of my drumstick primulas is rashly starting to flower just as the weather is going to turn colder once more.

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Six on Saturday. 07.01.2023

Posted on January 7, 2023 by Pauline

We have had a mixed week of weather, lots of rain but I have been able to get out into the garden on a couple of days to continue the big tidy up. I am way behind where I usually am at this time of year as I haven’t a gardener at the moment and am having to do everything myself. The gardener that I thought I had found a few weeks ago, sent me an email a couple of weeks before Christmas telling me that “due to unforseen circumstances, he couldn’t work for me any more” and this was before I had mentioned the chopping down of all my Cornus, I never got a chance to talk that through with him! Since then I have been struggling with raking all the leaves and cutting back where necessary. In the meantime flowers are still popping open so these are my six for this week……

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Six on Saturday plus a few more. 31. 12. 2022

Posted on December 31, 2022 by Pauline

This post will be done in bits and pieces between my son and DIL going  back home from here after Christmas and me coming back from a couple of days with the rest of my family in Bristol. I’m finding that plants flowering now are much better than previously, I’m thinking because of the heat and sun in the summer, they had a really good baking which they obviously liked, but also while wandering round I’ve noticed that all my hardy fuchsias are looking very sorry for themselves, presumably because of our freezing temperatures for 2 weeks recently, but they will sprout from the ground again, I’m sure.

No 1

Iris unguicularis under the dining room window. This plant faces south and benefits from the warmth of the wall behind it. This is its best year for flowering, I’m assuming because it got baked last summer in the heat, I’ve never before had so many flowers out all at once.

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Six on Saturday. 17.12.2022

Posted on December 17, 2022 by Pauline

After a week of very heavy frosts, with Thursday night getting down to -9C, there are not many flowers left in the garden, and those that are still there, are not worth photographing! So this weeks six are a couple of frosty shots and the rest are indoor flowers, either in the kitchen or the conservatory. I’ll start with my frosty shots from a very cold Friday morning.

No 1

Purple Berberis looking decidedly frosty.

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Six on Saturday. 10.12.2022

Posted on December 10, 2022 by Pauline

It’s snowing! I didn’t think I would have anything to show you this week, but at 8am this morning Nature thought differently so out I went to take a few photographs, by the time I came in I was looking a bit like a snowman myself! For us here in Devon, to have snow in December is very unusual, if it does happen it is usually just Dartmoor that catches it, not this time though, I wonder how long it will last.

In the meantime, lets show you what I saw early this morning……..

No 1

The view from my gateway looking across the fields.

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Six on Saturday. 3.12.22.

Posted on December 3, 2022 by Pauline

We have had a sudden change in the weather this week, much more how it should be now that it is winter. We have changed from warm and wet to frost and fog, the last two days have started out really foggy. Thursday the fog didn’t lift all day, the sun only finally breaking through just in time to set, so annoying when travelling through the next village and town and they had wall to wall sunshine all day! The frost has been quite hard so hopefully all the nasties are getting dealt with at last.

My six for this week are…….

No 1

Cotoneaster horizontalis has now joined in with the autumn tints, although these are now winter tints! All the berries have gone and soon all thse leaves will have vanished too.

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Six on Saturday. 26. 11. 2022

Posted on November 26, 2022 by Pauline

A lovely sunny day yesterday meant I could take some photos for SOS without it pouring down! After a week of almost non stop rain, the leaves have been blown into submission and the grass has amazingly been cut, for a short time the garden is looking almost tidy, until the next strong wind, probably today. Some autumn colour still remains so I’ll start with that.

No 1

First of all a general view across the back garden where Acer Osakazuki is still grabbing attention in the far corner even though she has lost most of her leaves by now.

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Six on Saturday. 19. 11. 2022

Posted on November 19, 2022 by Pauline

Another warm week has gone by with showers and sunshine, its been more like September than November and the grass has kept growing and the leaves keep falling. I am spending most of my time raking leaves to rot down in a corner of the woodland and make wonderful leaf mould. I look at my huge trees and see that there are still so many leaves to come down, I will be at it for a good few more weeks. In the meantime, lets see what is standing out in the garden at the moment.

No 1

I’ll start with a tree that I have by the front drive, which I think is a cross between and English oak and an American beech, each year we get lovely orange leaves before they fall.

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