Welcome to my gardening blog...
I obviously hope you enjoy browsing through the postings on here - do feel free to leave comments - it's always good to see who's visiting and to hear about other people's experiences - after all you never stop learning do you?
Happy gardening!
fly away home.... might be the last thing most of us gardeners would be saying - this little insect might be small, but does an amazing job in the garden in helping to keep pests at bay! I've discovered in my little bit of research on this
Seven-spot Ladybird / C
occinella 7-punctata that despite being commonly found in both the UK and Europe that one ladybird is known to eat as many as 5000 aphids in it's year long life!
I was doing a spot of gardening today whilst nursing a rather sore back - silly I know but try and keep me away when it's so pleasant outside - no rain and really mild... what more could you want in the middle of November other than no bad back of course!!
Anyway - I decided to cut back the dead stems of the large mass of Golden Rod /Solidago which is underplanted with a lovely collection of spring Primula and Iris (one of the surprises I discovered beneath the piles of brambles we cleared when we arrived). Taking time to look at the small detail at ground level when you start to clear away the dead plant matter, it's amazing what life goes on behind the scenes as it were - do take time to enjoy this side of your gardens too - all this small detail is what supports a successful garden - without all these little insects beavering away in the background many of our gardens would not look the way they do and a great many of the small mammals and birds that inhabit our gardens would cease to survive.... think of all those juicy green caterpillars which the little Blue Tit relies on to feed it's hungry broods in the Spring - this alone is just one example!
It's so easy to focus on the big blooms and all the lovely birds but this little chap gets a bit overlooked ... so thought he deserved a posting all of his own.....
Oh, I just wanted to mention - very exciting after all the chat about Goldcrests being stranded in Norway - I did actually spot the first one of the season searching for food in our large Box Shrub on the edge of the woodland... what are other people's experiences so far?
Enjoy your week...
I can't believe that I've just written that but it has just been SO wet this last 2 weeks - we've had the odd dry day here, but the garden and woodland are just a soggy mess and it's making it really difficult to do much outside which if I'm honest has really been getting to me... I'm one of these people who just likes to have things a bit more organised before the end of the year - that way if bad weather arrives in the New Year I can take that time to properly chill out and relax! Looks as if I'm going to just have to make the most of this situation and focus on the beautiful autumn colours we have - I most enjoyed these during the one sunny day that we had on Monday this week.
There's still an amazing amount of things in flower for this time of year and still the odd bee and butterfly around too... these were the last sightings of butterflies I had this week before the storms arrived in yesterday - a beautiful Speckled Wood, a Red Admiral and a picture of a picture of a Clouded Yellow (not easy to photo as they never seem to keep still for a minute!).
Plants out in our garden include
Borage, Verbena
Bonariensis,
Campanula not to forget copious amounts of Ivy which keeps flowering the longest and was recently mentioned in the
BBC's Autumnwatch as a real must for a wildlife garden!
The weather despite being very wet has been surprisingly mild to date with only a few frosts in October and since then it's been well above freezing... I'm sure cold crispy and sunny mornings have to arrive soon....
During the last weekend of October I finally got around to putting up the new bird table I got for Christmas last year - I must admit it has been fabulous during this wet weather in particular - it's on a metal pole which is great for keeping cats away, it has a wooden surround to the table and a fine mesh table which keeps the bird food from getting like a mush in this weather as the rain water drains away immediately... it's available from
C J Wildlife in case you're interested. As most fellow
bloggers have reported there has been a speedy arrival of many of the birds that have been missing from the garden during the summer months - I counted 5 thrushes alone one day
which was really exciting!
These were two of the first brave visitors to the new table - please forgive the rather dark pictures as it was infact raining!
It's worth taking a wander round your garden at this time of year to check out any gaps you have in planting or just looking to see what could best be added for the coming year... it's invaluable to provide plants which will give birds and other wildlife a good supply of food - Cotoneaster is a really good one for this time of year - some fabulous berries and then the blossom in the spring time is great for the bees! We've also had some late raspberries this year which I'm sure the birds have been tucking into as they have been slowly disappearing over the last while. The other very popular food source this year has been the dying heads of the sunflowers which I grew - the Greenfinches in particular have enjoyed these - the photo of this isn't great as it's taken from an upstairs window but at least gives you an idea....
By request I've attempted to photograph our hedgehog nest in the flower bed which has proved very difficult and not easy to see from the photo - but here it is... best to click on it to blow up the size a bit!
Finally are a couple of pictures of the back garden during a dry moment - looking over towards the woodland... Here's wishing you a lovely weekend ahead.
What an amazing fortnight we've had here in Brittany with temperatures topping 21 degrees this week and so many flowers still around too. It's been an opportunity too good to throw away for getting all those hedge cutting and pruning jobs underway before the wet and stormy weather arrives on Sunday...
It's a very satisfying feeling at the end of an exhausting week with all my clients' gardens with their grass cut and many of the seasonal jobs well underway too... and after completing our own grass late afternoon and finally coming in just as it was starting to get dark for a very welcome mug of tea and a Mars Bar :-)
After a good soak in the bath this evening, I must admit I felt a bit like a child wandering out into our garden clad in pyjamas and fleece top, in search of our resident Hedgehog and any other wildlife that happened to be lurking... well it didn't take long before I could hear that typical snorting and sniffling noise that the hedgehog makes before I found him or her foraging for a welcome snack! Earlier this week I found it's hiding place amongst my hardy geraniums - a well woven nest about the size of a rugby ball made of thin layers of vegetation and dry leaves normally - the dying leaves of Crocosmia are also a favorite - as they arch over they provide a natural canopy of protection over the winter months... so do take care when clearing beds for the winter, not disturb a very welcome garden resident! There really is something magical seeing this little creature wandering in the garden and the woodland... something that always causes me to smile at the end of an exhausting day - it makes all the hard work worth it really!
Over the past week I've loved seeing the quantity of butterflies in our garden and in the surrounding fields and species that I've not spotted before either, which is always great to see. The late flowering Asters seem to be a real favorite with them, as well as flowering Ivy, Sedums and the Sunflowers which are just going over now... quite amazing for this time of year when so much normally would be frosted.
Butterflies: photo 1 - Brown Argus, photos 2 & 3 Common Blue, photos 4, 5 & 6 is a Small Copper.
Last weekend we had the second of our two annual plant swaps in a nearby village - organised for the Sunday morning of the weekend when the clocks change - that way they can never be forgotten.... this one is always the easiest to get to what with gaining an hour! No money ever changes hands - just the chance to meet up with like minded people and take plants that you have excess of in your own garden and you end up coming away with a whole array of things you've not got - just great!
On a seasonal note - I'd be interested to hear of other people's experiences but we have had the most amazing crops of fruit and nuts this year - I've never seen so many walnuts on our one tree, the acorn numbers have been more than ever as well as the brambles, apples and I could go on...
Hope you all have an enjoyable rest of the weekend....
On a trip to Cornwall earlier in the year I found myself indulging in some new hand cream and a citronella cream which vouched for warding off all those horrible biting insects us gardeners get plagued with... I seem to be a sitting target! Well from personal experience I can honestly say it is BRILLIANT (and smells nice... no more horrible chemical sprays!).
The products were SO good, I just had to do a posting to let the rest of you know - I couldn't recommend this stuff more and with Christmas coming up would make a wonderful pressie for someone. The company,
B natural skincare is a small family run business, based in Cornwall - all their products are hand made and 100% natural as their name suggests.
They sell a whole range of creams -
take a look at their website by clicking on the company name above - the ones I have myself are from the Beeswax range - I love the hand and foot cream - great for dry hands after gardening and not greasy like some products can be.
Chris Pearce, the owner could not have been more helpful, and if you contact them direct are happy to mail the products to France - obviously postage is a little more but the items I ordered arrived quickly and beautifully packaged and came in plastic jars as opposed to the glass ones which made them much lighter to send .... go on why don't you treat yourself or someone else!
If you do try some.... why not post your comments on here.... ENJOY!
Whilst I was away a couple of weeks ago we were lucky enough to have some fabulous weather which enabled us to both enjoy the beach and swim even in mid-September but also enjoy 3 gardens in the area.
One we'd been to a few years back is the
Parc de Trevarez which is just south of Chateauneuf de Faou or about half an hour due north of Concarneau - since our last visit we noticed a number of changes in the garden in particular - I think the photos speak for themselves....
The Park itself covers some 85 hectares so there are plenty of km of pathways through the more formal gardens nearer to the Chateau itself and over fields and through woodland areas for the more energetic!
One of the best bits for me are all the beautiful Japanese Acers and the beautiful wildflower area that they've planted up.
After wandering around and feeling thirsty we sat in the courtyard filled with a fountain and some beautiful planting enjoying a good cup of tea and homeade biscuits. They had a very good Spainish exhibition on at the time of our visit which unfortunately we didn't have much time to look at properly but they do seem to put on different exhibitions during the year so well worth checking out before visiting.
The area for anyone interested is in between Pont Aven and Concarneau on the south coast of Brittany - an area with a wealth of things to do, good beaches and lovely places to eat out... what more could you want!?
I thought I'd share this little video clip that I took of a Black-Headed Gull which kept us amused for ages on the the little beach near to where we spent a very relaxing week's holiday... He was especially funny whenever another gull approached when he would hunch himself forward as in the clip and squawk! We had this beach almost to ourselves - beautiful white sand and lovely swimming if not a bit on the cool side...
A particularly amusing shot of this little dog patiently waiting for his master who'd gone for a swim!
About a kilometer from our cottage La
Maison Rose is the Pointe de Trevignon (an easy cycle from the cottage too) from where you can sit and enjoy some of the best Crepes & Galettes - sitting outside and enjoying the sunset in the evenings - this is usually open right up till the end of September.
We've been here a few times and it's a great place particularly out of season - there's even central heating just in case it's cold!
Our cottage was a wonderfully peaceful haven - lots of space and a completely private back garden which is surrounded by oak trees and natural hedging with woodland beyond - perfect for sitting outside and enjoying breakfast in P-J's! Also great for the wildlife lover... we had deer in the garden, a buzzard landed during breakfast and we were also blessed with visits from the Green woodpeckers and Robins in particular.
Over this next week I shall be doing a series of postings of the pictures that I took whist visiting the various gardens in this area too... so watch this space...
Over this last year in particular I've been more and more aware of the increased amounts of wildlife that inhabit our 1.5acre plot here in Brittany - every day it feels like I discover something new and so as I've not had much time for updating my blog I've been saving up some of the photos to share with you from the past few weeks.
This young Green Woodpecker arrived on our lawn one day - a great surprise and appeared to find all sorts of insects as he pecked through the soil - unlike the spotted woodpeckers they have sticky tongues and which help them feed on insects such as ants.
The other visitors to our garden in greater and greater numbers are bees and we have quite a variety of them - this is particularly good in light of all the publicity of their failing numbers. There is a good choice of pollinating plants for them to choose from most of the year round including large bushes of flowering Ivy which is just starting to sprout now and which the bees love; this also provides fantastic black berries for the birds over the winter, some good shelter for both birds and other wildlife during adverse weather and good nesting sites in the spring.
Wandering round the garden one sunny afternoon doing some pruning I discovered again for the first time, this pair of mating Gold-Ringed Dragonflies... need I say anymore!
One exciting discovery was this Convolvulus Hawk Moth which I found in amongst our kitchen window box under the Geraniums! I've never seen one before so it was doubly exciting - apparently reading up on this it comes from Africa and is a summer visitor to Europe although rarely seen in the North!
For the first time in 3 years we've managed a really good crop of tomatoes without losing the whole lot to blight - we did have a bit but I took off ever leaf and diseased fruit and this seemed to do the trick! The crops of fruit in general have been wonderful this year - the plums and strawberries and blackcurrants were the best we've ever had. Currently the blackberries are wonderful and they seem to be enjoyed my many of the visiting wildlife.
To finish off with a shot of one of the sunflowers which I grew from seed and with the others are providing the garden with wonderful late summer colour and after the flowers are over are a real favorite with the Blue and Great Tits.
Hope you've enjoyed the snippets from some of my findings here... we were recently away in the south of Brittany where I took quite a few pictures of the wonderful beaches and a couple of nice gardens too, so will try and get myself organised to post these up during the week ahead...
fly away home.... might be the last thing most of us gardeners would be saying - this little insect might be small, but does an amazing job in the garden in helping to keep pests at bay! I've discovered in my little bit of research on this Seven-spot Ladybird / Coccinella 7-punctata that despite being commonly found in both the UK and Europe that one ladybird is known to eat as many as 5000 aphids in it's year long life! 
It's so easy to focus on the big blooms and all the lovely birds but this little chap gets a bit overlooked ... so thought he deserved a posting all of his own.....
