October Bits and Bobs

On this wet and blustery October morning I snapped a few photos of a beautiful rose that my daughter gave me for Mother's Day this year, and which, I'm ashamed to say, sat in its pot until late summer this year.

It is only just flowering now ( as I deprived it of a comfortable bed for so long ) but it was worth waiting for, especially as I hadn't expected it to flower this year, but the mild weather has obviously encouraged it to bloom.

It is a very delicate pale peachy pink, so pretty. It wasn't a named variety so I don't know what it's called as it was just labelled a pink floribunda. It is delicately scented too, and I've planted by the entrance to the drive so in a few years time I hope it will make a good show as you come in.

The pale pink tiny flowered fushia is still going strong

and even this self-seeded marigold is thriving in a crack by the house!

In the back garden the fuschia on the patio is also still blooming away, as are all the summer geraniums, some of which are from last summer which continued flowering on and off over last years mild but wet winter.

And spurred on by mamamercantiles recent post on getting the garden set for winter, I went out yesterday, bought some pretty tulips ( a lovely plummy one, Purple Dream, and a smaller variety Little Beauty, a lovely cerise with purple centre with an RHS award of garden merit), a bag of bulb compost and two new pots (just seen above either side of back door )and actually went straight out into the garden and planted them up!  Usually I have two out of the three elements needed and the bulbs never get planted as I have either pots or compost but not both, and as there is little free space in the borders, and I never seem to be organised enough to plant under trees or in the lawn as an alternative, they sadly and wastefully just get forgotten. 

Any suggestions as to what I could plant in the top of the pots or should I leave well alone? I thought of poking some classic forget-me-nots around them in the Spring, but maybe I should put some cyclamen in for now? Or winter pansies? What do you think? All suggestions gratefully received!  

I tend to do better with pansies than with cyclamen, which I have tried many times to introduce to the garden when  I see them in the garden centres, but they just seem to disappear after a while, never to return! Pansies and violas seem to thrive though.

I also spent an hour or two in the sunshine sweeping the patio, clearing up the clumps of moss fallen from the roof ( courtesy of the birds), and the many autumn leaves, as well clearing up and re-organising pots and planters, so it now looks a lot tidier

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Out and about with a friend yesterday morning, which included the trip to the garden centre for the Tulip bulbs, we pottered in a charity shop and I spotted this lovely Alfred Meakin plate in the "Linden" design, for £2. I find it very hard to spot any pretty china these days so was chuffed to find it, as I am very keen on some of the Alfred Meakin designs of the 1950's and 60's and have a few other plates which I'll share in another post.

Last week I found this useful display shelf in a country furniture shop, not to my taste decor wise as it had been painted in a pale yellow combed effect with patchy peach highlights, and is made in cheap particle board, but the shape is good and it is sturdy. It will be perfect on my stall table for displaying smaller items.

 

I'm not completely happy with the result yet as the Annie Sloan Duck Egg Blue paint that I used came out darker than I expected, especially after putting on the clear wax. It looks light enough in this photo, but it is actually darker and more green in real life, and I wish I'd left the side edges duck egg instead of off-white, so I shall paint over the side trim and see if I like it any better then. If not the whole lot will get re-painted in my favourite Annie Sloan Paris Grey!

I know its still a way off, thankfully, but I'm having to get on with xmassy makings, and have made a 2014 version of the hessian tree hangers I made in previous years as they always seem to be popular.

 and some country style checked stars.

Hope you are not being too battered by the winds today!

P.S. Here's a quick but poor photo of my Blueberry Cowl finished a week or so ago - the colour is lovely and heathery with tiny flecks of turquoise. 

Am pleased with how this one has turned out, and it may, just may, be going to Bella if she can bring herself to wear "something crocheted"!!!

The pattern can be found by clicking on the link on my Ravelry page here

Lavender

As I sit in the garden in the cool shade of the house, a gentle and aromatic wind blows softly around me. 

The air is scented with fragrant lavender from the nearby shrub which has been buzzing with bees for the last few weeks, causing the heavily bloom-laden plant to appear constantly waving in the breeze even when the air is still. 

The tall, fragrant wands of deep lilac bob gently as I watch the bees bounce from one stem to another, some working their way around the plant in an orderly manner, in a clock-wise direction, others flitting up and down the plant in a more random fashion. 

Lavender is one of my all time favourite plants, and today Bella and I had a wonderful treat with a trip to a Lavender nursery in the beautiful Kentish countryside not too far from us.

Downderry nursery is a small family run company even though it is home to the world's only Scientific National Plant Collection of Lavender, and is one of the premier lavender nurserys in the country.

Downderry nursery is a regular exhibitor at both RHS Chelsea Flower Show, where it won Gold this year once again, and RHS Hampton Court Palace Show.

It is situated down a quiet country lane in a beautiful, old walled garden which, as soon as you enter, is filled with the aromatic scent of lavender. Bella kept saying the air smelt like pizzas, and I guess maybe all the different lavender scents intermingled with the rosemarys.......but smelt like lavender to me! Just as you go in you can see the still at work, producing the pure lavender oil which they also sell (and which of course I had to buy!).

The lavender plants are planted in formal and semi-formal arranged beds so you can walk round the walled garden and see many of the different varieties they grow. The lavender fields are only open to view on certain weekends, so sadly, apart from a glimpse, we didn't get to see the beautiful, straight rows of purple lavender, but what we did see and smell were well worth the trip anyway.

this row of white lavenders above were a variety called Edelweiss, which sadly they had sold out of so I'll have to wait for next years plants.

There were lavenders in all shades of purples, mauves and lilacs, and soft pinks, creams and whites. There were tall lavenders with long wands of flowers, which were mainly the tall, traditional and highly scented plants - the lavender x intermedia (Lavandin)......these are very hardy.

There were the very hardy lavendula angustifolia's - small, tradtional and tough little lavenders, the True Lavenders, with a lovely sweet scent.

Some of my favourites were the frost hardy lavenders which include many of the beautiful lavenders with "ears" on top - some pale pink, all shades of lilac and purple, and even some sweet ones with white or pale green ears - in their brochure they have a couple that I'd love to get, Tiara and Van Gogh, both with little greenish yellow ears on top of deep purple flowers - stunning!

We thought there were more plants to see through the doorway in the wall - but when we got closer we realised it was a mirror! So clever!

We bought three of these "eared" varieties -

 L. With Love, a sweet little cerise coloured lavender with pink ears; 

L. Whero Iti - a reddish mauveish one with mauve ears; 

and L. stoechas subsp. stoechas, the dark purplish French Lavender.

Whero Iti above (I think!)

I also bought a lovely purple L. angustifolia Hidcote

After wandering around and soaking up the scents and visual delights of the lavenders in the walled garden setting, we chose our plants and treated ourselves to a lavender ice-cream - well, it was very hot and we just had to try it! It was perfect, lightly scented but not overpowering, and very refreshing - not at all sickly, which is what I had half expected.

a bee on one of the new lavenders......they don't care its still in a pot!

Back home, I took a few photos of the lavenders in the garden - mostly angustifolias I think - the large well-established plant on the patio (see photos at beginning of post); a smaller one planted last Spring by the pond (below); and a couple planted near the small gravel terrace of the "Mediterranean" garden (ha! I wish!) which has a yucca and which, one day, I'm hoping to have full of fragrant herbs and flowers that remind me of the many holidays I've enjoyed in France, Greece, Italy over the years.

Also blooming prettily at the moment is this pale pink hollyhock - the bees love this almost as much as the lavender!

And this fuschia (can't remember which one) is full of blooms this year - last year it was very late flowering, well into August, and not many blooms

I searched for and found an old favourite book on Lavender to browse though when we got home.....it's a lovely book with the history of lavender, lovely things to make for the home with lavender, culinary uses with recipes, aromatherapy uses, household uses and, of course, lots of wonderful photos.

So back to the usual menu of the day - you've had the flowers, so here's the sewing!

This cushion I finished last week, but still have to put in my shop. Made from a mix of recycled curtain lining fabric and fresh fabrics, with old work shirt buttons, it is hand quilted. The back is a cheerful summery deck chair stripe in ice cream colours!

And I've just started piecing these blue and red vintage feedsack and 30s/40s cottons, which I'll combine with a crisp, white vintage linen - more next week on this I hope.

And still on the lavender blue theme, I took this posy of blue hydrangeas for my Mum when we visited for the day yesterday.

Hope you're all enjoying the summer temperatures wherever you are - many thanks as always for taking the time to visit me and to leave a comment, I love to read them all and am trying to keep up with your blogs even if I don't always comment.