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Bosworth Life

  • Home
  • About
    • About me
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    • Post-Comment-Love
    • The Garden Year
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  • Living
    • Moving House
    • Crafts & Homemade
    • Food & drink
    • My garden
    • The Loo Series
  • Loving
    • Our new house
    • Pouch Love
    • Love this
    • Ideal Home Show
    • The Stitch Festival
    • Knitting & Stitching Show
    • Grand Designs Live
    • Chelsea Flower Show
    • Gardeners' World Live
  • Exploring
    • East Stoke's lanes
    • Nottinghamshire
    • London
    • Greenwich Park
    • Independent gardens
    • National Trust
    • NGS Open Gardens
    • RHS Gardens
    • Other UK places
    • Europe and beyond
Bosworth Life
 Gardeners' World Live 2025: Win a pair of tickets for Sunday 15 June, plus discount code
Living
Gardeners' World Live 2025: Win a pair of tickets for Sunday 15 June, plus discount code
Living
Living
A plot among the chickens
Loving
A plot among the chickens
Loving
Loving
Walking East Stoke's lanes: April 2025
Living
Walking East Stoke's lanes: April 2025
Living
Living
Plants galore, and more at the Newark Garden Show
Living
Plants galore, and more at the Newark Garden Show
Living
Living
The fourth (and last) of our black and white pictures
Living
The fourth (and last) of our black and white pictures
Living
Living
Strike a pose. Vogue
Loving
Strike a pose. Vogue
Loving
Loving
My garden in April
Living
My garden in April
Living
Living
The Garden Year: May 2025
The Garden Year
The Garden Year: May 2025
The Garden Year
The Garden Year
This April...
Living
This April...
Living
Living
My favourite garden and awarded the Best Show Garden, the Eco Oasis Garden
Loving
My favourite garden and awarded the Best Show Garden, the Eco Oasis Garden
Loving
Loving
The third of our black and white pictures
Living
The third of our black and white pictures
Living
Living
Making my mystery block of the month: March
Loving
Making my mystery block of the month: March
Loving
Loving
Four pink hearts and a hug
Loving
Four pink hearts and a hug
Loving
Loving
The second of our black and white pictures
Living
The second of our black and white pictures
Living
Living
The Biba lifestyle brand
Exploring
The Biba lifestyle brand
Exploring
Exploring
The first of our black and white pictures
Living
The first of our black and white pictures
Living
Living
The Kitchen Garden at THE PIG
Loving
The Kitchen Garden at THE PIG
Loving
Loving
Blossom and magnolias in the gardens at Gravetye Manor
Loving
Blossom and magnolias in the gardens at Gravetye Manor
Loving
Loving
The Biba Story: The outfits
Exploring
The Biba Story: The outfits
Exploring
Exploring
Walking East Stoke's lanes: March 2025
Exploring
Walking East Stoke's lanes: March 2025
Exploring
Exploring
My lime blue diamonds hand sewn quilt
Loving
My lime blue diamonds hand sewn quilt
Loving
Loving

My Jewel-like Dogwoods

March 12, 2015

Good news. Gardener's World is back on the TV Friday nights, and while I don't often get to watch it then I record it so I don't miss Monty's wisdom.  And Monty said it was ok to cut my Dogwoods, so I have. I know that Dogwoods should be cut each year but I'm never sure exactly when to do it.  Cutting the stems back encourages new growth and means you get the fantastic colours again next winter.

And this winter, my baby Dogwoods have done well and produced some jewel-like colours, just look: 

Rather than compost my colourful stems, I decided to trim the side branches and leave them in the greenhouse to dry a little before bringing them into the house and displaying them somewhere. I've got a huge vase - I'm talking over half a metre high - that I plan to use, but I'm not sure where I'll put them yet.  They still have to dry off a bit first I think, as I only cut them yesterday afternoon and it was lovely to spend an hour or so out in the garden.

It does make the Dogwood areas a little bare now, so I hope they hurry up and grow again. I was about to stop gardening for the afternoon when I had a brainwave. I remembered I had more flower seeds than I expected (well, actually I had more of almost every seed type!) so I could use some of those here and in some other parts of the garden.

I sowed three packets, which didn't need to be planted inside and then potted on.  So soon I hope I'll have drifts of Calendulas and Prairie Sun and Cappuccino Rudbeckias. The cappuccino ones should be "an excellent mahogany" colour and the others will be a lovely golden-yellow with an acid-green eye according to the seed packets. And if the seeds of those are anything to go by, they're going to be bright!

The thing I struggle with when planting seeds direct is remembering where I've sown them. And when they start to grow knowing that they're not weeds. Ahem. So I hit on another master plan (two in one day) and decided to use old plant labels to mark the areas. The result does look a bit odd, as I covered the seeds with some compost and completely surrounded it with the plant labels to try and discourage any local cats. Hopefully it'll work.

I've also been making progress on clearing our log pile from when we had our three sycamore trees pollarded before Christmas too. On Saturday five trugs-worth went out into our green waste bin, and yesterday I took another couple out. It seems to be a never ending pile though, but at least it's off of the stone circle now. MOH is keen to burn some of the larger branches, but I think we're back to the man and fire thing! And we'll see...

In Living Tags Garden
← Sun on Saturday: Petticoat Lane and Brick LaneA seed sort-through →
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Hello there, I’m Stephanie and welcome to my blog, Bosworth Life.

I share posts related to homes, gardens, the things I love and where we explore. 

I’m also excited to share our new Nottinghamshire home with you, and the projects we undertake to make our new build barn truly ours. 

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Enter to win a pair of standard adult tickets to Gardeners’ World Live on Sunday 15 June, 9am entry. Or use my discount code to save 15% on tickets (excluding Saturday).

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The Garden Year linky opens on the 1st of each month between April and November, and is open for the whole month for you to share any garden related post. I look forward to reading about your garden projects, plans and visits.

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