Tbeanz Garden Visitors
Photography by T J Smith
Garden updates
March to the middle of April was yet another cancelled holiday so even more time spent working on the garden. Definitely seeing a huge improvement and my husband started on his main project making the lawn again. Everything had to be cleared including the old playhouse which was a huge favourite back in the day of my girls and their friends (I always had lots of children in the house when the girls were younger with lots of play days. The house had become a prop for two fir tree branches that were growing across the roof, which you can see in the pictures below.
First he had to 'trim' the mock orange, now this has a special place in my heart but it had spread over the whole lawn area and only the upper branches had any growth on them, so it had to be drastic action! Below are pictures of it in the summer in full bloom.
So after the fence was put up the drastic trimming was done!
I really hoped it would survive.
Then it was time for the fir tree branches to go.
And finally, at the start of April time to remove the playhouse and prepare the whole area to be sown with grass seed.
Update April
21st April
Grass seed was sown
28th April
I see the first signs of life in the mock orange - will see if we get more leaves! I believe we also have some grass beginning to grow!
I am starting to see something in my wildflower meadow area too!
Watching the grass grow became a real thing HAHA
Confirmed grass 6th May 2021 - you had to look really close
By the 10th May 2021 - we could see very clearly the patches that were growing
The picture on the right taken on the 12th May for a
close-up look at the grass.
And on the 16th May on the left although we still have patches that are behind most of the grass is growing. We will need to fill in some sections due to the bad weather meaning the seed was washed out by the trees dripping down on it.
And did it grow!!!
The stepping stones arrived after we seeded and before there was enough growth so had to wait a while to put them in. We started by laying them out where we thought they should go.
And finally, they were laid!
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The lawn area is nearly complete now - we have a few spots to reseed due to the washing out of seed when we planted, a few pots to move over and it is done. We are really pleased after all the hard work my husband did on it and it has become a joy to sit out when the sun is shining and the birds are in the trees above us.
Even the Mock Orange is happy and sprouting leaves all over the place!
My Wildflower Patch
Inspired by the many wildflowers I had seen last summer and wanting something in our unplanted garden, I went and bought some boxes of Fowers for birds and 'bee bombs' easy sow seeds. We cleared the area (it had been where we were storing the spare soil from the patio area and borders). We added branches of the old oak that had been cut down last year for a 'wildlife-friendly feature' (I had been quite attached to the tree having watched the woodpeckers in it for months, but it was dead and close to the road so it had to come down), we 'rescued' some smaller branches not quite sure what we would do with them.
Now I should explain here - I am not a gardener and haven't met a plant I couldn't kill! So had to be something really easy to grow, that would be good for my garden visitors and need little or no upkeep.
We added stones to separate it from the grass area and then I shook on the seed all over the place!
Here are the pictures of the progress so far
I still have no idea what plants are growing here or if I will get the wildflower patch I hope for, I will try and identify them once I see some flowers and post an update :-)
Plants in our garden
Having uncovered our garden from 10 years or more of neglect we did find a few things growing - one miniature rose, holly bushes and an ash tree that had germinated in an old forgotten pot, these were given some care last year and continue to flourish. I bought a hanging basket, a fully planted pot with a few things in it and I actually planted a pot of my own last year from odd plants I bought which seems to have survived the winter (I was very proud of myself). I bought a couple more plants last year (mainly miniature roses and my daughter bought a couple and potted them up and most of them seem to have survived (hubby did have to do some rescuing when some of the roses suffered too much water but one of them also survived). When clearing the back path to where the new gate was going he also found a little oak tree which he potted up to keep it safe.
This is the miniature rose we re-discovered in our garden that had survived 10 years or more of the jungle and still flowered last year (on the left).
This year it is looking even better with lots of flowers and more buds coming
This Delphinium was bought last year and unfortunately, the flowers didn't last very long as they suffered in some wind we had which broke the stems. (left)
This year it has been repotted and is growing really well and producing a couple of flowers and lots of buds I am hopeful they will survive the current weather! (right)
This pot was one I made up last year from randomly bought plants - pinks, fuchsia and a miniature rose
As you can see it is coming along again this year lots of growth on the rose and the pinks are coming into flower, the fuchsia remains small but setting flowers now.
More pictures of our plants from last year as soon as I find them, as it was before I had my camera.
Here are some more pictures of plants and hanging baskets some new some from last year that I just replaced a couple of plants in.
This rose was bought last year and was just the one colour (dark pink) this year it seems to be producing 2 colours of flower!
In the front pot, I had to replace all the plants as the others had died, the back pot is a new one this year that I potted up
This is our cheap and cheerful basket bought from the Co-op for just £6 including the basket, it is amazing and producing a lot of flowers
I replaced the dead geranium in this pot with a fuchsia and put in a bit of lobelia most of the plants in there survived.
This one was not so cheap, I really liked the style of the basket I bought from B&Q as I had bought 6 Fuschia plants, and needed somewhere to put some of them, I added some lobelia and now have to wait to see how well it grows on.
I took a trip to B&Q in April and came back with some plants to replace the ones that didn't make it through the winter, and some new additions, including some azalea which I fell in love with and they now have their own spot in the garden.
I tried for weeks to get a few more but they were out of stock which made me very sad as I had planned for more in the garden. Then I found a nursery that were specialists, so we took a drive and this is what we came back with
We have just bought new pots to match the ones we already have but due to the weather have been unable to re-pot the new additions yet. You can also see in this picture my new birdbath and the start of my new bird table using the old umbrella base we found in the garden, it needs to be cut down a bit and an actual table to be added, the base will be painted, but it is pretty solid which is amazing after all these years in the garden!