Wednesday 12 June 2013

A Break From Gardening


Finally, after nearly a whole week of sunshine, there’s been a bit of rain.  The suspense while waiting for dark clouds to roll in is quite unnerving. Cloudy days are what we expect, at least one can follow the usual routine of sighing and complaining about the English weather. I like to know where I am.


To tell the truth, I am also rather bored with this endless gardening; There’s still quite a lot to do before the Open Gardens weekend. On top of it I made a mistake with the date: it’s a week earlier than I had assumed. Even so, I am remarkably calm about the whole thing, not at all in my usual frazzled frame of mind on these occasions. Perhaps there’s something wrong with me.

Anyway, here are a couple of pictures of the front of the house, along the drive and in the courtyard. The sun was still shining when I took them.




This is part of the fernery, to one side of the house, under some mighty old beech, horse chestnut and sycamore trees. I love shady gardening, although it can be rather difficult to establish anything lush. It’s always best to stick with indigenous plants, exotics just won’t flourish. I tried some expensive Australian tree ferns, they were dead within a couple of years, victims of our frosty winters.



This is a quick snap of some villagers on the bowling green, which is only a few steps outside the field gate. I love leaning over the fence and watching them, although I’ve not felt tempted to join them. There is something quintessentially English about these folk and their pursuit. The green is velvet smooth, a chap well into his 80s takes meticulous care of it and only the softest shoes are permitted to tread this hallowed ground.


Spending most of my days out of doors has meant I’ve hardly touched my computer. I’ve missed blogging - well, a little - but doing mentally undemanding, physical work has given me plenty of time to think. Perhaps I will come up with rather more interesting posts again soon.

45 comments:

  1. What a delightful 'normal boring' day :-)



    Aloha

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  2. Friko, you are the first and - so far - only person I know who has something as beautiful as a fernery! What a fantastic word, I love it!

    Yes to the quintessential Englishness of a bowling green. Whenever I am in England, I stop for a while and watch whoever is there.

    The Open Gardens weekend is just as typical for English village life, isn't it!

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  3. heel veel plezier op de open tuinendag dat word een feest dat zal je zien.

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  4. Well, the English always do it up right with gardens. Maybe one of these days I will do a garden tour in Britain. Our weather has been very wet interspersed with a day or two of high heat and humidity. We have been spared the tornadoes, although we spent part of one night in the basement under a warning. Love the photos of your yard and espcially the one with the castle peeking in the distance.

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  5. smiles...all your plant life is amazing...its good to get a break though...i need to go find my bacchi ball set...get the boys our playing this afternoon...agree with tabor, love that castle peeking out...

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  6. It all looks perfectly lovely already . Surely there can't be anything still to do ?
    Now's the time to stretch out on the sofa with a new book and relax for a day or two .

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  7. I love the organized randomness of your garden. Closely pruned formal gardens never do excite me. Beautiful, as always.

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  8. Thank you for that lovely virtual tour of your garden. Your hard work has certainly paid off.

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  9. "remarkable calm" sounds like 'wisdom' to me, Friko! Gorgeous pictures and the 'peeping' castle is just exquisite! (I'll be thinking of you on Saturday!)

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  10. I look forward to hearing how it all goes, Friko. Your pictures show some beautiful gardens, and I too enjoy taking a mental break down and then.

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  11. "I am remarkably calm about the whole thing, not at all in my usual frazzled frame of mind on these occasions. Perhaps there’s something wrong with me." On the contrary it sounds like something is right with you.

    The place looks wonderful.

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  12. Your garden looks lovely. We've also been working away in the garden, but we don't have the lush vegetation that you have. Our kitchen garden is going gang-busters. We harvested four zucchini yesterday. I have no idea what to do with zucchini other than makezucchini bread.

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  13. You are the only person I know who has a fernery. When I say "know" I mean in the virtual sense since we have not met in person! I am sure it was very good for you to be outdoors all this time. And I am impressed at your calmness at the idea that the open gardens is a week earlier than you thought. Yikes!! it makes me feel a bit tense, and I'm not even involved in an open gardens weekend!

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  14. What a beautiful garden you have! I'm in awe! I agree that it's nice sometimes to set aside the mental effort of blogging for some physical tasks. A great change of pace and in your case, with fantastic results!

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  15. It looks as though your hard work has been well rewarded.
    Lovely photographs...I did enjoy the bowls group too.

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  16. Personally I think all your posts are interesting! This one is-- I love seeing your space. My back is shady so hostas are about it. I know if I had more time to tend I could probably do more but this will do for now.

    I love the bowling on the green idea! You're right -- they are the quintessential English folk! Good luck with open garden!

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  17. Your fernery is delightful, Friko. I have two voluntary ferns, where the downspouts send water to the northeast and northwest corners of the house. The one in the northeast burns out in the summer, because it has no protection, but the other one is among trees and gets lots of shade.
    Your garden looks wonderful and I can certainly understand why people would want a tour.
    I haven't done any gardening this year, but I've been feeling better and am actually doing a little bit of cooking. I think about the area where I once had a successful vegetable garden, in the southwest corner of the yard, but it's part of Lindy's territory and she would eat any vegetables as soon as she figures out what they are.
    If your garden continues to bloom as well as it is doing in these photos, it will be a favourite on the Open Gardens weekend.
    K

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  18. I love what you call the fernery. Such lovely gardens. Be sure to show us pictures of the weekend.
    Balisha

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  19. Your garden looks great and just like I expected it would after you described all the work you and Gardener put into it. It is something that you can be very proud of. It is one that I always longed for but never had.

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  20. The fern bed is wonderful. I have ferns in some of my shaded beds, but never thought to combine different ferns in a single bed. I like your flowering shrubs as well.

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  21. Enjoy the sunshine, dear :)


    ALOHA from Honolulu
    Comfort Spiral
    ~ > < } } ( ° > <3
    > < } } ( ° >

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  22. Your surroundings are amazing..so green and lush. Sigh! I miss that!
    Enjoy these lazy days! We don't have enough of them.
    Thinking time is oh so important
    Hugs
    SueAnn

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  23. Your garden is a joy and a delight. Thank you. We too have had some rain (at last) this week, and I am enjoying the respite from the never-ending weeding and planting.

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  24. Hallo Friko,
    kommt bei mir drauf an, ob mich Regen stört oder ob ich ihm sogar mag. Momentan ist das Wetter bei uns im Rheinland drückend. Der Wetterbericht hat Regen vorhergesagt, den ich bestimmt mag (wenn der Wetterbericht Recht hat). Die Gartenanlage (open gardens) sieht prächtig aus.

    Gruß Dieter

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  25. I have never heard of a "fernery", but yours is beautiful!

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  26. glad you are doing so well

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  27. Hi Friko .. lovely to see the photos - your garden looks quite wonderful .. and I'm so pleased you're having a gardening break .. lovely being outside and all that fresh air .. and some sun - we haven't had much down here .. hope it's being saved for Eastbourne tennis next week!

    Cheers and enjoy being out and about .. and have fun with that mulling .. Hilary

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  28. Your fernery is divine, as is the rest of your garden, but, like others, "fernery" has captured my imagination. We have many, many ferns here, mostly because it is one of the very few things the resident deer don't eat, partly because of the shady area.

    Open Days! Aha. You are on the tour. Thanks for clarifying that. Tons of work, I know, but how wonderful it will be to see your garden through others' eyes come the big day. At least, it was that for me some ten years ago when our house was on a local garden walk.

    Off I go, to pull my own weeds.

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  29. We have had so much rain I feel like a frog in a bog. David repaired a door outside that had disintegrated under an inch of moss. Next comes the shed roof which has a moss cover as thick as an English lawn.

    As for shade gardening, I am trying Ligularia this year. Likes wet and shade. As it was developed by the RHS it should be available in your area(I think).

    Dianne

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  30. All your hard work has paid off and your garden looks wonderful. I do hope the weather is kind to you and the sun shines on the day itself.

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  31. It finally got too hot here to do much out in the yard. summer is well upon us.

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  32. Your lush ferns are making me swoon! I think you're not frazzled because the garden already looks in tip top shape. You'd get palpitations looking at mine. I won't post photos until August - if ever.

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  33. Someday I will have a fernery...thank you for sharing your beautiful world.

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  34. Oh your garden I virtually sit there over a cup of tea with you and natter about your plantings. I love the word "fernery".

    And the bowling green!! Can't believe the grass like a velvet carpet.

    XO
    WWW

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  35. Dear Friko, for the past three weeks and more I've been away from reading and commenting on blogs. You, too, it would seem have been away. But, unlike myself, you have been busy helped nature display all its loveliness and lushness. I have mostly just been lazing away the time, reading and resting. I did post again on Wednesday but now I'm taking a hiatus from posting for about six weeks. But I will be trying to keep up with reading blogs as I miss the sense of life being lived beyond the walls of this Missouri home. Blogging expands and extends my life.

    Next year, I hope to begin planting a perennial garden. I gardened avidly in Minnesota but haven't done that here in Missouri and I find myself missing the feel of loam and the planning of what plants to work with, based on color. Height. Blooming time of the plants. And whether they are indigenous. So lots to do this winter in planning for my new enterprise/adventure. Just viewing the photographs in this posting of yours and in the previous one gives me lots of ideas. Thank you. Peace.

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  36. So pleased you got to the computer at least long enough to send photos of your garden. And to think, looking at all this, how proud we were to finally get a few tomatoes planted!

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  37. All of that green is so beautiful to me as I sit in this land of drought where we rejoiced over five minutes of rain today. Yes, for five minuets we actually had a downfall. Then it was over.

    The photo of the bowling green is priceless. I have never seen such a thing. How wonderful.

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  38. Oh what i'd give to wander your gardens in real time. I am in awe of anyone who can landscape like that. My gardens are jumbles of color and size. I plant mostly what I am given by others or what I dig up wild at the roadside. Can't wait to read how the big weekend goes.

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  39. I thought I had seen the Ligularia in one of your photos of your garden. I planted 'Little Rocket', which is smaller than Rocket and suitable for a small garden in the city...but it has same needs re water. The area where I planted it is next to my rain garden, shady but not "dry" except at certain times of the year when we water all the beds. A gardener's lot is never an entirely happy one. Dianne

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  40. Friko wrote: at least one can follow the usual routine of sighing and complaining about the English weather. I like to know where I am.

    That part of the post I find deliciously funny. Your garden is beautiful, but even endless beauty can become boring after a while. Time away from the computer is usually a good thing. A teen group was meeting in a public place I was visiting & 2 young teens were saying that they bring their laptops to the dinner table. Ackkkk.~Mary

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  41. good luck with the open gardens weekend. the photos are gorgeous.
    very good to see you again:) breaks from blogging are worthwhile, i have found.

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  42. "Friko's World" has been included in the A Sunday Drive for this week. Be assured that I hope this helps to point even more new visitors in your direction.

    http://asthecrackerheadcrumbles.blogspot.com/2013/06/a-sunday-drive_16.html

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  43. Your details on ferns and frosty winters are interesting, though I know little about gardening. You know, some people can be only wingside spectators, loving, willing, yet unable to deal with plants. In my house pot flowers do not survive.
    You are lucky to have that lot of time outside, thinking and working. What can be better? A week ago I'd have loved to switch places with you. Thank goodness, my academic year is over. Have an enjoyable summer, dear Friko!
    As for "where are good old rains", they are all in my place - to keep balance on the planet. I loved that remark about "sighing ..." =)

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