Another lovely week, with the exception of Wednesday when the fog remained stubbornly over the north coast of Cornwall, has meant lots of time in the garden. A quick visit to the local garden centre to buy some compost and a flexible bucket with the thought of buying some wallflowers and possibly a plant or two resulted in two new ferns and two new glazed pots to put them in! I don’t really need to buy ferns as I have plenty growing in the garden, but I fancied a couple of different ones for the courtyard. My fuchsias in pots haven’t done so well there, despite not having rust this year.
There’s still plenty of colour in the garden so let’s have a wander around the different beds/borders this week.
(1) Looking back towards the ‘Zen’ patio and the conservatory.
(2) The opposite direction with the Bee and Butterfly bed in the foreground and the Kilmarnock Willow tree beyond.
(3) The bee and butterfly bed is still flowering well. And lots of large white butterflies dance together in the air along with the white Cosmos swaying in the wind.
(4) The Kilmarnock Willow tree now forms part of the new semi-shaded border I created at this time last year. Cyclamen are beginning to appear under the tree and it is where a lot of spring crocuses are planted. The tree has recently had a trim, which means actually getting underneath that umbrella canopy and cutting out all the dead branches.
(5) At the back of this bed are the two painted raised beds, one of which is used for growing herbs. Both beds need a revamp and the removal of nasturtiums and forget-me-not seedlings. I have never been happy with the other raised bed, my attempt at growing veggies was a disaster, I then made it a white bed, with white and blue flowers, then a place for more perennials and a couple of roses and lots of spring bulbs. But I’m not satisfied and I think after the bulbs flower next spring I will remove everything and start again. Maybe a second herb bed. Meantime I am using the compost from my Dalek¹ compost bin to top up the beds as I weed them.
(6) The woodland border is looking very green now. Any other colour in this bed happens in spring with bulbs and ground covering plants. I have added other plants for summer flowering but they are finished now.
¹ The bin was here when I moved in and I have hated it since day one.
- Doesn’t produce huge amounts of compost
- Difficult to turn.
- Difficult to empty.
- Bottom hatch door can break off.
- Doesn’t allow oxygen in
When you try to get a spade in to get the compost out at the bottom, all the stuff that isn’t ready falls down into the space! I ended up tipping the whole lot out and moving the good usable stuff into a plastic bucket – hence the reason for having to buy another one! I will put the topmost stuff back in, but I am no longer going to use it for anything else.
As always, if you want a peek over other people’s garden walls then please pop over to our host, the lovely Jon, AKA ‘The Propagator’ where you find links to many more wonderful garden enthusiasts from all over the world.
See here for the participant’s guide.
Cornwall in Colours 
I enjoy hearing the names that everyone gives their borders, patios and areas in the garden (such as your Zen patio). I’ve thought and I’ve thought and I simply can’t come up with names for my borders & areas! This is now going to annoy me, and I know that all week I’ll be trying to think as names as good as Zen or ‘Bee & Butterfly’ bed, both of which are looking fabulous.
The town of Kilmarnock is not far from here, and many local people seem to feel obliged to have a Kilmarnock Willow in their garden, but they all prune them to look like an almost flat umbrella – none of the trees have been left to grow to their full potential as yours has. Lovely.
The willow should be allowed to grow to the ground, but I do trim it to allow light in. At the moment it does need it’s skirt lifting a bit more, but my waste bin is full. Again.
You have such a beautiful garden 🙂
Thank you 😊
I’ve not heard of a Kilmarnock willow before. It looks great after its trim. It was nice to have the ‘garden tour’ this week.
Your garden is looking fab Jude. I’m attempting bokashi and lasagna composting at the moment — thank goodness for dead space away from the house 😬
Not heard of those techniques! I shall look them up! All I know about lasagna is food and bulb layering 😂 I have a lot of ‘dead’ space i.e. the car park but since it has the septic tank and soakaway beneath it I hesitate to put much on that area that I can’t easily move.
I suspect that “lasagna” composting might just be one of many names for the same thing. Bokashi involves fermenting waste then burying it in the ground to finish composting. The advantage is that you can add meat and dairy waste (not that we have much of that) as well as fruit and veg. But basically our old composting system wasn’t working and we needed something new!
I shy away from adding anything like that so as not to attract foxes or rats!
Rats are the problem here, so our traditional compost was totally meat, etc free. With bokashi, you ferment the stuff in a bin first, then bury that for a couple of extra weeks to get rid of the acidity, then (apparently) it’s fully composted. It’s a bit more faffing around, and I may tire of it before too long, but we’ll see.
That does sound like a lot of faffing about. I think I’ll stick with the green waste collection and my incinerator.
😀
If it helps me get decent compost into my horrible clay soil, I’m willing to faff! Or at least give it a go.
Good luck 🤞
Thanks
I enjoyed the tour of your garden this week, and admiring the different borders you have. It all looks lovely. It was interesting to read about the Kilmarnock Willow, as I have not heard about it before. It looks to be a lovely tree!
i reached my limit with the nasturtiums the other day. they look great for a while then they just take over. i noted with some resignation that there are many many seeds, so i can expect a return visit next year.
Yes they do tend to swamp a bed. I ought to be pulling them out now before they set any more seeds! But they are such bright and cheerful flowers at this time of the year.
Bees moved into my compost bins like this . . . .so I have decided to keep refilling them just for the insects! I leave the doors at the bottom off and every now and again I take stuff out of one – well every other year or so!!!
I get ants in mine. I don’t leave the door off as I worry rats will nest inside.
Yes I wondered if our rat would, but doesn’t seem to like it thank goodness. Not checked for ants in them this year, last year I forgot to empty the told growbags and I had ants nests everywhere!!!
What a beautiful sanctuary you have. So much joy in a garden.
I have a balcony and most plants are done flowering and I’m thinking what to put in next as the cat has taken over some of the vacant spots, she likes the higher elevation of the window box.
Always a joy visiting, Jude – I am so delighted and so envious of all this beauty. But you put much thought and much work into it. Bokashi is popular over here, but only with the total enthusiasts – it seems much work. What a haven you have ♥
You have a beautiful garden. Ours is a work in progress. I swear we can’t visit a garden centre for just one thing lol.
No. It is hard to visit a garden centre or nursery and leave with the one thing you went in for! The reason I try to avoid visiting unless I really have to!