A moveable House for Eeyore

I want to encourage children and mums and dads and grandparents, so that they can all have fun on an outing together in the garden. Simon and I are big fans of all Winnie the Pooh stories, so we thought we would make a Winnie the Pooh trail. We kept a lots of cuttings from the willows and cornus in late winter, ready to make Eeyore's new house.

Yesterday, Simon masterminded seven fence old posts to make the A frame and then I had the easy task of tacking on green and yellow stems. It doesnot look that dense a covering in the photos but then I didnot want it to be dark inside, just enough of a structure to make children want to explore.

Winnie came to see Eeyore in the evening and I think they were both very happy. They hatched a plan to invite all the 'other friends' to visit on Sunday and have a lovely picnic and games together.

English Bluebells

Late evening sunlight, shafting through a blue bell wood, must be one of the loveliest sights in England. A dreamy place to be especially at the end of a busy day. But made even more so by the route to and fro. For the meadows were full of ladysmock and two pure white swans performed a special flypast for us before swooping and curling down to the river.

spring flowers for pots and baskets

This is a wonderful time of year for spring colour in containers. Pots of cerise Parrot tulips, baskets of vivid blue muscari, and lots of different pots of daisies and violas are all looking wonderful in the spring sunshine. Evening light is particularly magical.

The Green Green Box of Home

The box is fast putting on new growth and looks so so green. In fact,unbelievably green. At the same time the hornbeam towers and hedge are just coming into leaf. The whole effect is an explosion of green. Spring green!

box blighty

Fifteen years ago we planted the box parterres in our formal garden. Over the last three years, sad signs of box blight have appeared in the upper portion and various attempts to conceal and replant have gradually failed. So last weekend we decided to remove about fifty plants and try and make good a repair at the beginning of one of the 'S' designs.

It was a huge task, but by the end of Sunday the job was complete with new membrane down, all concealed with gravel.

cottage garden shade

The Easter Weekend gave us chance to renew an area in our cottage garden which had become overgrown by a rampant evergreen honeysuckle climbing up a wooden arbour and from there into a laburnum. Indeed, it threatened the laburnum itself as well as all the other plants on an arbour, and all those trying to survive beneath the laburnum. An unusual arrow leaved ivy seemed to be the main survivor as ground cover along with some sweet cicely, aconites and sweet woodruff.

We cut down all twenty five feet of the rampaging evergreen honeysuckle and took it out by its roots. Then we reduced two other honeysuckles growing on the arbour to just a metre hoping they would regrow and, in time, once more provide a fragrant entrance to the cottage garden.We also thinned part of the laburnum and removed most of the ivy. The ground below was very very dry so we added two big loads of juicy, wormy, home made compost and now its ready for planting.

Various hellebores, aquilega, foxgloves, lily of the valley, geraniums and ferns will all be happy here, so I plan to split many of these plants from other areas of the garden or retrieve seedlings. Its always fun having a new area to plant up and over the next two weeks I should have filled the gaps although I might leave one or two just in case there are any special delights to buy at Malvern Show!