A quiet blow for my leaves

Brrrr... It's a tad on the cold side right now isn't it? I know I was tempting fate by anticipating wind this weekend, but I didn't necessarily need, or want, the cold weather to accompany it. But at least it was dry. And the skies were blue. But still it was cold.  My two concrete hares in the garden looked as if they were quite enjoying their blanket of leaves, but we were keen to get the leaves off of the slate.

There was also a pile of leaves gathering along the fence, and while the euphorbias (and weeds) are valiantly doing there best to grow through the leaves, I'm not sure they're doing the patio much good.  That really eaten and and almost lacy set of leaves belong to a weed, with no doubt a huge tap root. I'm not sure what's eating it, but it's having a pretty good go isn't it?

But first, leaf duties

Wellies on, gloves on, blower at the ready and I was set. I was expecting my new Stihl BGA 56 Blower to be quiet, but I wasn't expecting quite so much power from this lightweight and relatively small garden tool.

My plan was to blow the leaves into orderly piles, and that generally worked, but the grass also got a bit of a blow and it gave the impression that it was clinging on for dear life.  All the grass stayed in place, of course, but it was noticeably moved. 

Once the leaves were in piles, they were quickly bagged and set aside to do their thing, and provide fantastic leaf mould in a year or two.  Where this blower will come in handy will be retrieving leaves from our flower beds, as you can see from the photo below I've been giving the leaves fair warning!

It was still chilly though out there - the joys of having a north facing garden - even though we were wrapped up and with glimpses of sun there were only short bursts of work. We've still leaves to collect - mostly in the flowerbeds now.  If the snow takes hold as the forecasters would have us believe, they might have another week's grace.

But parts of the garden are looking much less leaf covered, and smarter for it too. We know there's little chance of us capturing every single leaf in the garden, so it'll be a bit of an ongoing project. But one that's a whole lot more fun - and productive - than doing it by hand!

* This is a collaborative post, but all views and opinions are my own.

The Max Gate garden

Max Gate is the Victorian house that Thomas Hardy designed himself, and it's a great looking house. It's in Dorchester and was on our To Visit List during our stay near Swanage last Spring. It was a damp and grey day on our visit and so our visit started in the house, but there were many glimpses on the garden as we made our way around.

It was the type of garden that was like our own domestic gardens. It was probably a bit larger than most domestic gardens, but what I mean is that it wasn't one of those grand and well manicured gardens. That's not to say it wasn't charming, it was, but it was quite normal, if you know what I mean.

Almost as soon as we entered the garden we were at the potting shed, which you'll know is regularly my highlight of any garden. This one was small and it seems that Hardy wasn't such a fan as me, as it seems that a shed only appeared on the records in 1928, which is the year of his death.  I can't imagine that his dying wish was to build a potting shed, so I suspect someone took charge when they could.

Perhaps it was Bertie Norman Stephens, the gardener from 1926. This blackboard in the shed sheds (no pun intended) more light on the gardener and his tasks.

What was great though was you could actually get in the shed and have a nose around among the seedlings.

And it was the first time I've seen peas hanging up like this, and it gave me an idea - as well as reminding me that guttering is great for peas.

You might be wondering how I knew these were peas, well the photo below gives that away.

Look closely and the guttering is pretty special too. It's not the plastic sort I have, and totally in keeping with a make do and mend approach to life.  There was also produce available for donations, just look at that rhubarb.

From many parts of the garden you got a great view of the house. It's the kind of house that really appeals to me, one with nooks and crannies and plenty of architectural detail, and not box-shaped at all.  I'm sure the number of roofs and varying heights makes it a nightmare to maintain, but it's a good looking house.

Hardy planted the trees to shelter the garden and gradually created a beautiful garden, with a croquet lawn and the Nut Walk and often he would walk along here every day.

The woodland area was great to see as our garden has many trees, and its these gardens which give me ideas of plants to introduce in our garden, especially those that will add some colour interest. The bluebells were about to burst into flower, and the raindrops on the leaves just emphasised their lushness.

It was here that I spotted a row of forsythia cuttings in a row and gave me the idea to do something similar.  I don't think my cuttings have made it, but I'm definitely going to try this again.  

I'll leave you with another shot of the house, it really is a good looking house isn't it? - and the recommendation to pop along and see the house and the garden for yourself if you're close by.

Post Comment Love 23 - 25 February

Hello there and welcome to another #PoCoLo - if you were here last week then it was great to see you, if you're new here this week then you're very welcome.  Both Morgan and I continue to enjoy the posts you link up with us each week.

Usually, as you know, we'll host a Blogger Showcase - and we'll continue to do that - but this week that's taking a break. It's kind of an unplanned break, and down to my admin error as I somehow made February an even shorter month than it already is. 

Rather than shuffle our planned showcase list, which goes into the middle of May, we thought we'd take the opportunity to put a shout out to our regular linkers to remind you that we'd love to feature you too. 

So if you haven't yet taken part in our Blogger Showcase, and want to share more about you and your blog, and get some valuable backlinks to your blog then do answer our questions and drop us an email. Once we've received your answers we'll be in touch to sort out a date.

Given my trouble with dates this month, it seems only fitting that my photo this week is the month card from my February stationery box, and some of the squares from a charm pack I couldn't help but buy.

I've no idea what I'll do with them, but I'm sure something will crop up.  I also bought a larger sized pack, again just because they looked so pretty!

An InLinkz Link-up