I've spent a fortune in the garden centre!

The great thing about this garden is that we are spending a lot less on it than we did on our last garden - however I did go mad last week! I've always wanted some citrus fruits and an olive tree, and they are all very expensive. I also ordered an arch to go over our bench out in the front garden, and that arrived last week. Keith erected the whole thing himself, with me checking with the spirit level then basically just looking and doing it by eye, as it's practically imposible to get the posts in perfectly straight, especially when you have stony soil! He also gave most of it a darker stain as it was supposed to be dark brown (to match the bench and shutters etc), only it wasn't anything like the colour of the online picture. Never mind, hopefully in a few years it will be covered with climbers and not very noticeable.

The next photos are once it was in its permanent position with the wooden legs inside the metal booties (or whatever they are called) which are hammered into the ground. I chose a light blue clematis for one side (couldn't find a dark blue, annoyingly) and a bignone (Campsis radicans) for the other side. That is an orange, trumpet like vine which is quite vigorous, so I might be having to keep it well pruned! We also planted a buddleia between the last bambooey thing and the hedge. This will be my third attempt at growing buddleia. So far out of two shrubs I have had one white butterfly on one and a moth on the other, and not that many flowers either. So much for calling them butterfly bushes! But I will not be put off..... 😀

The really good news is that the soil was much better here than where I made my herb bed. I think because that was beside a wall next to the house, where the ground had been levelled with machinery, it's possible that clay subsoil got dumped there. A shame for the herbs, but they are all growing well now and every one got a good inch or two of gravel underneath them for drainage.

Part of the view from the bench:

I hadn't noticed that you can see the old windmill from the bench - this is a zoomed in pic from my phone so not very good quality (all the pics are phone ones) - originally in the 19th century there were three windmills on that bit of hill but this is the only one that remains. We can't go in it as there is an old millkeepers house next to it which presumably belongs to someone as it isn't derelict.

Here is my new olive tree - it has been pruned in a pompom fashion (that's what it said on the label). I guess it is the beginning of cloud pruning, although I don't want to keep it so clipped as that, but as I'm planting it in the back garden I do want the size constrained a bit, so think this is a good shape.

Do you like my rusty ornaments? I wish I had bought a couple more now! I got them from a Xmas market we went to soon after moving here.

I bought a Meyer lemon which you can see in the background, that tiny tree cost about 40 euros. However I was so chuffed to find out that I could buy a "Lime Leaf plant"! This is the kind of lime that we use in Thai cooking, mostly for the leaves. I haven't ever used the lime fruit before but they are supposed to add an interesting flavour to Asian dishes, so can't wait to get some fruit on it. The lime tree is much bigger than the lemon and cost a whopping 80 euros!!! The olive was 80 euros too, but I was expecting to pay more, to be honest. Add in the shrubs and climbers that I bought, plus some lavenders and an oregano, and you will understand the title of this post!

The tulips are flowering now and I'm really pleased that the colour goes so well with the pansies.

I have been learning decoupage from the many tutorials online. It's not easy doing it with napkin paper as it's so thin (you only use the ply with the printing on it), but doing this kind of decoupage where you cut out the paper in shapes is a lot easier than trying to put whole napkins on the bottom of a tray, which I have also done. That one is not photo worthy 😀, well it's not finished yet anyway. But you have to practice to gain experience.

This one below was originally a green and white striped planter, but I don't like green in my house unless it's a plant!

I meant to take photos of the cherry and plum trees which are covered in blossom but that will have to wait until the next post, as I want to get this published. We are going out tomorrow to the coast, to an area we went to with the birding group last year. First an area of old salt pans which had waders, then a disused quarry that had resident Blue Rock Thrushes, then up the hill to a big area of garrigue. I hope there will be some interesting wild flowers blooming. 

President Macron is due to discuss the virus/lockdown with his cronies tomorrow, and we fear another lockdown on the cards, as the Kent variant is on the spread. Paris and north east France are already in lockdown. Anyhow, I am very pleased for you lot in the UK now you have semi freedom after your awful three month long lockdown. I have felt for you, what a bloody nightmare that must have been.

Take care xx

Bulbs and plant pot decorating

I have momentarily got my blogging mojo back so I am making the most of it! 😀

Back in October I planted up tons of bulbs; tulips and daffodils in big pots and crocus, tiny narcissus and grape hyacinths in smaller tubs. I planted pansies in the big pots to give a bit of interest over winter, which despite it being quite a lot colder this winter than last, have had flowers all through. We had one mild week recently causing the bulbs to shoot up and I discovered some crocus starting to flower, and the pansies have put on lots more flowers. A sunny day the other day actually made me grab my camera to take some pics of the crocus as they only open up when it is sunny.

I've also been doing some crafty stuff - decorating terracotta plant pots and saucers for houseplant use. These plain pots are much cheaper than buying decorated cache pots and so long as you have the colour paint you want (or can mix it), you get the colours of your choice too! It hasn't really been going out or walking weather much so it's good to have something to do, especially as I enjoy it. I've just ordered some crafting supplies to try my hand at decoupage as well. 

We have booked to go on four day trips with Birding Languedoc but they are not until April and May - preferable really due to hopefully warmer weather 😀, but the earlier dates are places we have been to already. Due to Covid restrictions we can only have a group of six maximum (at the moment), so with the organiser, the pro birder and us two, there will only be two other people allowed. In a way that's great as we can spend even more time grilling Karline, the pro, about her bird knowledge! I just hope we don't have to go back to full lockdown......

Right, on to the pots!

I inherited these terracotta pots (and many others) with the house. I also inherited a pot full of bulbs which turned out to be Tete a Tete narcissus and grape hyacinths so I have mixed them up with the crocus. I think there may have been some other things but they were jam packed and they probably didn't all flower. There's something in the middle of the pot above which I'm not sure what it is - time will tell!

Some of the daffies are up already with visible buds, but for the moment I'm happy just with the colourful pansies. I was given a couple of free punnets of 10 plants when I bought two punnets - the lady running the place said as we were regulars it was a gift. We'd only been there twice before!

The solar lamps are still lighting up this area at nighttime, though the light is weaker than it is during summer. The little pot is the one that had the Tete a Tetes in it, and is pretty. It's been painted to look like rust round the edges.

Onto my plant pots indoors. I've done some stencilling on some but many of the stencils I bought have very small holes which are difficult to get paint into without it bleeding underneath - like this tiny text. I don't care though as who is going to inspect it up close apart from me? 😁

These next pots are in our bedroom.

I decorated the photo frame as well - that's me about 20 years ago!

The painting on the wall Keith bought me about 20 years ago and it reminds me very much of Les Baux de Provence. I just love the colours which go with the duck egg of the bedroom. I lime waxed the frame. Keith made the mirror frame many moons ago and the Camargue horses photo came from Mum's neigbour who used to sell her photos. The white furniture here and in the photo below were inherited with the house. The Mother in Law's Tongue plant was long and straggly and I bought it home from Mum's house - since then it suddenly had four new shoots which surprisingly have a different pattern on the leaves, which are also much shorter and wider than the old ones - its the old part of the plant hanging off to the right that you can see. I repotted it but it already needs repotting again!

We have always had wooden furniture and wood effect wardrobes before but thought it might make a nice change to have the white. We used to have hot autumnal colours in our bedroom; these are now in the spare bedroom downstairs. There's a second corner wardrobe as well as matching bedside tables - we did quite well buying this house. 👍😀

A view of the bedroom. One day I'm going to strip the wallpaper but repaint with duck egg blue in a more bluey tone (I already have the paint!). The colours are a bit odd in the photo as the throw and cushion on the chair look dark but they are much lighter in reality, and the duvet set, which I thought was duck egg in the photo online, is actually grey 😒, though in reality it does go better with the duck egg than it looks in the photo! By the way the reason the bed looks lumpy is that we finally decided to have separate single duvets - the best decision we ever took as there's no more tugging the duvet or cold drafts down the back of your neck! I also have a much thicker duvet in mine than Keith does (as well as an electric blanket, haha!).

These pots are in the office. I did the black image on tin can last winter - it's a very cheap way to make plant pot containers for small plants, or as pen containers for a desk, etc. The image on the left is my first attempt at using waterslide decals and the moth was just printed out and glued on. I've done several pots (and lampshade bases) with the sisal string. I didn't even have to buy it, it was knocking around the house already!

Who can name the moth? (Caroline 😀)

This blue one is in the living room where I have a lot of blue accent colours. It's Keith's favourite of the pots that I have decorated, and I'm very pleased as we discovered the copper acrylic paint in amongst all our tons of painting paraphenalia, no idea when he or I bought it but it covers really well straight onto terracotta!

Where am I getting my ideas from? Pinterest! It's an absolutely brilliant online resource for all things crafty, plus any number of other subjects. I have gained inspiration for room decorating and ideas for making some decorative objects for the garden. The only downside is that we no longer have loads of bits of scrap wood after our barn fire at the last place, so I need Keith to buy me some wood for ideas that I have for the garden.... this kind of decoration requires less hard work than looking after plants! Though I will of course have a few more shrubs and plants in the garden in due course.

Here's a link to my Pinterest account if you are interested in following me there. I have quite a few pins.... 😁

Finally a view of my crafting space in the garage. It's chilly in there so I wear an old jacket, which is already covered in paint. 😂😁 I have a gardening/potting up space up the other end of the garage.

You can see how long our garage is, which has been handy for all our 'stuff', despite having lost about 60% of our 'stuff' in the barn fire. Where does it all come from?!!!

Hope you are all surviving lockdown/curfew/whatever restrictions you may have in your country. I know it's tougher in the winter but spring is very much on the way. Take care xx

New Herb Bed

One of the things I enjoyed the most this last winter was not having to work in the garden! No brambles or elm suckers to cut back, trees needing branches cutting off, fruit trees needing pruning, not to mention the stream at the old place that would get covered in vegetation (mostly brambles) which needed hacking back every year. Oh the joy of the low maintenance garden here! 

However, now summer is here I do miss all my old flowers (except the work!), which of course attracted butterflies, bees etc. So I had a few plans for this garden which I decided that creating over a couple of years would be doable without being too much hard work all at once. For this year I wanted a herb bed, and close to the kitchen. Next year will be a ‘Nectar Bar’ in the front garden around our bench which has a fab view of the valley. I’d love to erect an arch over the bench for shade, and for climbing plants. That will be a bit more work but we’ll worry about that next year!

When I finally managed to buy pots of herbs after the main lockdown lifted, I marked out where I wanted the bed to be, and my lovely husband set to work deturfing. He knew he would be doing the hard work! Unfortunately, the soil turned out to be rock hard so he couldn’t use a spade for this, so had to attack it with a mattock. When the turf was finally off, we discovered the soil was so hard that you couldn’t even get a digging fork in. It had been dry for a few weeks so I suggested getting the hose on it, but to save us the job, luckily it rained, which softened the soil enough and K was able to dig it over and get a couple of sacks of bought compost dug in. However, the soil here is thick, sticky clay - yuck! So much for a fine tilth, that’s just impossible as the lumps of clayey soil on the surface dry out really hard. Even digging holes with a trowel to plant my herbs was tough...... and I did something I’ve never had to do ever before - I put gravel at the bottom of each planting hole! I know some aromatics would not be happy sitting in soggy clay soil over winter, and would need help with drainage.

Our covered terrace outside the kitchen

In the meantime, whilst this was all going on, I sowed some seed - flat and curly parsley, normal and lemon basil (not tried that one before), plus some coriander and dill to use until I get a chance to sow some direct in the soil. I also managed to find not only Thai basil seed, but actual plants in one of the garden centres! I absolutely love this herb and it makes a Thai style stir fry really amazing. Thai basil has an aniseed flavour, if you are not familiar with it, and is not the same as Holy basil, which I tried to grow once but failed. It didn’t seem to have a nice flavour anyway.

Thai Basil

Greek Basil - this has tiny leaves and a far superior flavour to regular basil

I mentioned on my last post that I had been doing a bit of crafting - amongst other things I have done some stencilling for the first time. I've made some of my plant pots a bit more interesting with stencils that I bought off Amazon. It wasn't easy to do as the chalk paint leaked a bit under the stencil in places so I had to scrape some off, particularly on the pots with fine writing. I don't care too much, nobody is going to be looking close up except me!

Of course I had to have a dragonfly! It says La Libellule on the other side,
which is the French for dragonfly.

.... and butterflies!

The bed is now finished and I’ll be planting out the parsley soon and I've just sown some coriander and dill seed direct - for the moment there is loads of space between the plants. The rosemary is so small, I have a laugh remembering my old one which was enormous and I’d prune about a wheelbarrow full off it every three or four years! 😄 

Finished, for now, herb bed.

On the far left are chives and garlic chives, which are in the shade in this image.

I must also mention that over the last month we have been eating our own cherries; we have two trees which are different varieties, and they’ve been pruned so that most of the fruit is pickable without even needing a stepladder. We’ve had kilos and I’ve made several desserts with cherries. Next year I’ll make cherry jam especially for Keith as it’s his favourite jam. One of the trees has deep red sweet cherries, and the other the fruit is orange before turning red and is slightly tarter (but still sweet). I’m dead chuffed that we have these trees, though in the last week they have suddenly become covered in rust so the leaves are turning a horrible orangey brown colour. K has sprayed with a fungicide so I hope it won’t get any worse. Just when I had been admiring how healthy our fruit trees look compared to our old place!! We also have three plum trees, but not a huge harvest this year - one tree has no fruit at all, one has quite a lot of very small plums and the third has a nice bunch of green plums on one branch, which I think is going to be a golden greengage (I found a label in the garage), and it is going be fun finding out what they all turn out to be soon.

We also have a few veggies in pots - three tomatoes, two aubergines and one Cayenne chilli plant! It's quite exciting again after a number of years of not growing veggies. We knew we wouldn't be going anywhere this year so not really a problem with the extra watering - I potted up tons of geraniums/verbenas in pots too, although dotted around the pool and the front of the house they look rather sparse! It's more than enough when it comes to watering every day when it is hot though. 

I should have taken a more recent pic with the aubergines and chilli and other tomatoes in it!

I have made a new ‘page’ for butterflies where I am listing both butterflies seen in our garden, and the ones I’ve seen on walks in the local area and various outings further afield. I’ve also updated the bird page with our new garden bird list - up to 30 so far, with several species I wasn’t expecting to see, such as Zitting Cisticola! The bird song here is quite different from at the last house!

I’m sure you are all enjoying being able to get out and about more now, so enjoy the summery weather when we have it. xx  

(As usual I am behind with blogging - these photos were taken through the month of June, so the herbs and tomatoes etc are far more advanced now.)