Nevertheless Nellie doesn't like it so we have come upstairs to write this instead and she is asleep under the spare room bed - a favourite place for her when I am up here. Archie, who had a long walk on Martin Down with me this evening, is lying on his side nearby dreaming of rabbits.....
During this time at home I have hatched a scheme for a very unprepossessing part of the garden. It was once intended to become a shed most probably but before our time. We have been looking at it for four years and had assorted ideas - cover it with decking and have a covered seating area? Dig it up and make a pond here? Dig it up and grass it? Put a shed on it? But finally I suggested a large raised flower bed and so, with Iain's agreement, that is what it will be - with oak 'sleepers' to edge it and then I can fill it with spring bulbs and summer flowers and herbs and with luck the poppies that are to the left and now died back can spread into it too.
So Iain has been tasked to put his back into removing the concrete. Whoever put it in did a very good job......
There will be a pond but it will go where the sinks are in the picture below and to create it I'm going to buy a trough...When we were in Derbyshire in May we visited Eyam. Never been before, shamefully. But we remedied it this time and apart from being inspired and touched by the humble heroism of Eyam villagers back in the time of the plague in the 1600s, I was also inspired by the water system...and the way they had used one of the stone troughs to create a pond. I think I'll be extrememly lucky to find a stone trough like the one I saw there for the kind for a price I can afford but I can, instead, use a metal farm trough perhaps......Something to research. I do like to have projects :)
While Iain sweated over the concrete I did some sewing! I used to do quite a bit of sewing. I used to spin wool too on my own spinning wheel. Bet you didn't know that (!!) I have made curtains, cushions and patchwork quilts on my maternal grandmother's 1938 Singer complete with an electric foot control that my grandfather fixed up for her much later on in the 1950s. She bought the machine when she was expecting my mother so that she could make all the clothes for any children she would have (she had four in the end - my mother being the eldest and the only girl) and my grandfather and then she used it to do all the sewing for the lodging house she ran for young working men as well while granddad worked in the power station. As well as caring for four young children, she did all the cooking, cleaning, sewing and washing for her family and the lodgers. She was a high energy lady. The Singer is in the roof at the moment waiting for me to re-organise the spare room eventually.
This quilt started me off. In 1997 we went to Northern Ireland for a holiday. We stayed with some friends we had made who lived in a beautiful Georgian house in Belfast. It was in a brief 'ceasefire' period and everyone we met was thrilled to see English faces on holiday - well the four guys in a car coming towards us round a bend who all put up their hands in mock gun gesture when they saw our British number plate car perhaps didn't make us feel so welcome, but it was still very beautiful and very, very quiet...The Mourne mountains were gorgeous and in Newcastle we found a little shop owned by a lady who made patchwork quilts....she made this one. I chose the fabrics and the different designs - all of which are part of patchwork history. Over the years the seams have become worn or small holes have formed and as I do not have any spare fabric from the lady (tried to contact her a few years later but she had closed) I have used patches I had in bags of fabric I have around. That's the essence of patchwork I guess.
Aren't these pots cute? Having bought some of these as Christmas presents for my mother and another person last year I decided to get a couple for our garden recently. They came from a potter called Jonathan Garratt (www.jonathangarratt.com) at Hare Lane Pottery, two miles along from Cranborne and he is well worth a visit. I think he may even send pots out by mail. In mine I have planted sempervivums which I am just learning about. They are wonderfully simple and very tough little plants - they are 'always alive' alpine succulents. These will spread all over the top through the chippings.
This is another pot from him. I bought an identical one for my mother for her birthday recently with these little plants in hers like mine. Again, in time, the plants will cover the surface.
Being at home so much I'm getting more time to look at things and I think the acer is looking really elegant now. It is probably my greatest plant success and more by trial and error than anything else. Most of them don't like too much exposure to wind or sun! It was pretty small when I bought it ten years ago. Finding the right place for it to thrive in our last garden took a few near misses and I was constantly asking Iain to heave it about (without breaking any of the branches - poor man) and then the same here for the first year or two, but it is definitely happy now in this spot even though it is actually very sunny (hence the fig I have planted in a pot behind!) but is out of the stronger winds. It goes to show that plants can decide to thrive regardless and it is just as well it is happy here as I can't see us moving it in this huge pot now! Grown men have visited and cast envious glances at this acer :) I had no idea they inspired such passion in people. I just think it is beautiful and particularly love the way the leaves cascade. In the autumnn the leaves become a stunning flame red. Even without leaves in winter the branches are interesting
Our first garden was a south facing 10 ft by 10ft blank off the side of a one up and one down corner 'house' we bought in 1991 (and gathered lots of negative equity on...). It had a 'lawn' and narrow, sad borders which Mutley and Rosie peed on. Needless to say the lawn (and borders) had to go. We paved it and I planted some climbers including some beautiful roses and honeysuckle (to disguise the tiny shed). Then lots of herbs in pots either side of the door and a spreading shrub at the bottom of the small twirly washing line. We left there in 1994 some three years later (taking the pots - and the negative equity debt with us which we eventually managed to pay off some years later) but I still occasionally go back in the summer to drive around the cul-de-sac and glance across at the garden. The last time was a couple of years ago and it was still a riot of colour - like a Mediterranean enclave - but with lovely English roses bursting out of the trellis above the fence line. No idea who lives there now but it is nice to see the planting I did is still appreciated. One day I'll maybe be brave enough to knock on the door!
I'm not a 'gardener' as I don't know enough, nor have I been tested by horribly awkward sites. I am someone who 'gardens' and have nurtured and created garden 'spaces' in the five different houses we have called home in our time together (we did rent in Milton Abbas for a bit - to pay off the negative equity before we could start again..)and made quite a lot of mistakes both in terms of planting decisions and in terms of layout! The mistakes go on...the fruit trees we have planted here two years ago - two apple and one plum - are going to go we think. Two are no really in the wrong place and they are too dwarf and too quick to fruit. Despite taking off masses of the young fruit earlier in the summer branches are breaking or are bending too low. The chickens do their aerobics everyday with the brambly apple tree by pecking the fruit off.....So I need to re-think that.
There is always something to plan for or do in any garden that's for sure.
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