Back on track!

I feel I've let Pablo down by not keeping his garden blog updated.
I hope to rectify this in the coming weeks - in both words and images - to show some of the changes and hopefully improvements made in the garden during this year.

Meanwhile, here are a few glimpses to whet the appetite.

tulip fever

clematis  montana

The montana was spectacular this year.
Sadly I didn't capture the best of it on film and now most has been ruthlessly cut back.

However here's a view of the small pink version on the side of the summer house.





Autumn must be nearer than we think for bulb catalogues have begun to be pushed through the letterbox and at the
allotment the seed catalogues for next year's bounty have
been given out. I plan to switch allotments later in the year which will entail moving my shed but it will be worth it as the neighbouring ash tree has taken moisture out of the soil
(at least that's my excuse for  poor crops!)

forget-me-nots and border tulips

Where does the time go....

Unbelievably, it's six months since I last visited Pablo's Garden blog!
Problems with my laptop - (it decided to delete all my files and photos) - and some while thereafter before it was replaced, resulted in my losing momentum for documenting the garden.

I did continue to photograph developments in the garden - including taking out the apricot that thought it was a medlar, together with a viburnum that had outgrown it's allotted space, thus freeing up areas for replanting - and have been busy deciding what to plant in the newly-available spaces.

Various garden visits and a trip to Harrogate and  Gardeners' World Live last weekend produced a variety of new plants, some of which are already in situ, but there is still work to be done.

The weeks and months fly by and unbelievably it is almost one whole year since we opened Pablo's Garden under the NGS! Although successful - about 150 visited and we made £650 for charity - I felt it was better to have a break and replant and establish some areas of the garden before opening again.

Who knows what next year will bring?

More later - hopefully with photographs.

Keep Gardening.

Looking through the window

Usually one of the first signs of spring

Early in the year, a neighbour's glorious tree always managed to lift the spirits of all who viewed it.
I often inveigled my immediate neighbour with a request to 'prune' those branches that trespassed onto his garden, with the proviso that he hand the offending twigs to me, which he duly did. They then took pride of place on the hall table, helping to dispel the winter blues. How could anyone feel miserable having witnessed this living miracle?

For me, this Van Gogh-like tree was a sign of hope, accompanied by the delicate snowdrops that shyly made their quiet debut,  only to take centre stage as the spring progressed.

How tragic, therefore, after returning home one afternoon and gazing out of the french windows to discover that the tree had been pruned back beyond all recognition. What the poor tree had done to warrant this act of vandalism is  beyond my understanding. I feel so sorry for myself, the neighbourhood and, of course, the tree itself.

The view from the french windows now

On a positive note, however, at least part of the tree still exists and so I'm trying to comfort myself  with the thought that, Nature being as powerful as she is, perhaps there'll come a time  when I'll be able to gaze out of the window and Vincent's vision will once again delight the eye and lift the spirits.


I live in hope.                                            

Cheerful primroses

The past only comes back

when the present runs so smoothly that it is like the sliding surface of a deep river.
Then one sees through the surface to the depths.
In those moments I find one of my greatest satisfactions,
not that I am thinking of the past;
but that it is then that I am living most fully in the present.
                                                                                                      Virginia Woolf  'Sketch of the Past'

All the best for 2015 from Pablo's Garden

Lest

Lest we forget the past