Last month there was plenty of blooms and gardening activity, this month less of that but more of moving pots about and some changes to our garden furniture too. But first, let me share the flowering succulent in all its glory…
It’s great isn’t it? But that’s not all - look at how blue the flowering globe thistles got. Hopefully there’ll be plenty more flowers on this one next year.
August was also the month I finally tackled the new pot and the new olive tree. It’s a big pot, and the olive tree isn’t so big - I mean, it will grow, slowly and will eventually adapt to its new home. It was very reasonably priced at £32 - we looked at many olive trees, and many had much higher price tags.
I was keen to get the pot feet stuck on the pot before we started to put anything inside it. These silicone pot feet are great, but even with fairly big pots they do move a bit, and I didn’t want that to happen with this one, so out came the glue. The other thing I was keen to do before we filled the pot was to check it’s position was right.
And check things like, could MOH cut and edge the grass without moving the pot; what did it look like from inside the house, and obviously from the patio, as well as other key points in the garden. We got there, slower than MOH would like, but this pot is going to be heavy when it’s full and we aren’t going to be moving it much!
I’ll share another post on planting up the olive tree - but we took a couple of days to fill the pot too, as I was keen to see if the levels changed as the compost settled in. It didn’t really, but we didn’t know that.
There’s been a few new additions to the garden this month, including these vintage metal storage boxes which we picked up from the Rutland Flower Show. Even MOH liked them, which is something - slowly I’m winning him over to the mix of new and vintage items! The plan is for these to provide functional but attractive storage in the greenhouse, yes the one I don’t yet have!
I also picked up these Victorian terracotta pots at the Rutland Flower Show. These are bigger than the small flower pot type ones I already have, but not as big as those I use elsewhere in the garden, so size-wise they’re a good addition to my stock. They don’t necessarily help solve my pot crisis, but as they say every little helps.
This month we also said goodbye to our much loved and much used in London but not here sun loungers. They’ve had a good life with us, and we’ve enjoyed having them in our lives but it was time to let them go via the local Facebook group to another family who will I’m sure enjoy them too.
We realised that we were unlikely to use them in this garden, and that they also took up more space than we wanted to allocate them in the garage. Their departure was helped by the fact I saw the garden furniture I swooned over at Grand Designs Live back in May in the sale, and reduced by a third. So that was promptly ordered, and has since arrived - and I suspect that may have contributed a little to the change in weather we’ve seen at the start of September, so sorry about that!
Elsewhere in the garden the little crab apple tree remains laden with apples - it looks so weighed down, that I imagine it will be pleased to shed its load when the apples are picked. I’m debating when the best time to pick them is, but I feel it could be imminent as I’ve seen a recipe for crab apple and chilli jelly which sounds right up my street.
The sweet pepper plant - another purchase from the Rutland Flower Show, a bargain at £5 - is producing more peppers and ripening those it already has. We’ve picked six now, and eaten most of them already. I’m hoping that there’ll still be time for the smaller ones to grow and ripen before the weather changes for good.
You’ll have seen in my This August update that our new kitchen sofa arrived, which meant it was time for the garden sofa which we’ve used in the conservatory in our old house and in the kitchen here, to move into the garden. And it’s been a very welcome addition, as it offers a much more relaxed seating option.
Though it did need more than just moving to the garden. MOH rightly pointed out that initially it looked as if we’d just dumped it there before moving it to the tip, which clearly isn’t the case. When the cushions are out, it’s fine, it looks like it belongs but without them, he did have a point.
So cue some softening with plants - the astrantia and santolini one end, and my Gertrude Jekyll rose the other. It works I think, and has helped ground the sofa and make it look as if it really belongs.
Moving those pots led onto moving more pots. We’ve not really been able to enjoy our plants so much this year as they suffered early on and were in the relative shelter of our heat pump trellis. That changed though with this group of cottage garden type plants moving to the end of the garden close to the crab apple tree.
And with this group of plants moving alongside the back wall. I wanted to try them out in parts of the garden where I think they will end up growing, admittedly not in this exact formation or as close together, but for now as groups of pots. I haven’t moved them yet, so so far the master plan in my head hasn’t failed me.
For this post though, I’ll leave you with two views from inside - both from the same window - of the Gertrude Jekyll rose, and the newly planted olive tree.
It really feels like things are starting to come together, and that we’re starting to claim and make the garden our own.