☀️🌴 Summer on the O2 community: Gardening 🌴☀️

[Cleoriff]

                                                                            GARDENING  

The best part of summer for me is my garden.

I can't travel abroad now, so I put a lot of effort in making my garden as nice as possible during the summer months.

Not a big garden , although luckily, it's at the end of a cul de sac, so the builders gave us more than usual space.

We have lived here since 1969 (I know!) and had a garden makeover in the 90's.

The lawn is oval and pretty much destroyed by the cats! Round the lawn I have a variety of bushes, shrubs and trees. Winter, spring and summer flowering.

We also have a water feature at the side of the garden. We planted a cordyline in the middle of it. It was 2 ft tall when we planted it…and as you see now, it's over 10 ft tall.

(I know the ivy needs a trim back...yet to find time to do that!

I made a decision early on that we would have a container garden on the patio area. I went rather OTT. I have a total of 24 pots.

3 at the front of the house, and the rest in the back garden..

Summer bedding was a problem this year due to garden centres being closed during the Covid19 crisis.

Luckily I found a guy online who had his own plant nursery and I chose what I wanted, they were delivered at the end of May. 

My son helped me plant them up

A few pictures here (Excuse the quality...I just point and shoot)

Looking from the conservatory to the right

At the back of this part is the bush that Ray razed to the ground when I asked him to trim back

These are the pots at the front of the house

 So that's a snapshot of my garden folks. Container gardens need a lot of watering, feeding and  'deadheading'

I do have rose bushes but that meant doing a 360 degree image and I had no time for it. 

So the garden has a water feature, seating areas, plenty of beautiful plants. When the sommer bedding dies off, each of those pots have winter bulbs. Snowdrops, tulips, daffodils etc etc. I usually buy some winter pansies and polyanthus

Each pot has a solar light in it and is lit up at night (Terrible photo...but there you go)

So this is my peaceful place.

Thanks for reading.

Does anyone else on the forum have a garden they love?

[Marjo]

Awesome summer topic @Cleoriff thanks for taking the time to put this together and take photos too. Lovely to see more of your garden and I LOVE the multitude of flower pots! So much colour. My favourite is the one that looks like magenta and yellow flowers in the same pot.  (sorry I don't know the plant names)

That tree that reminds me of a palm tree - already big - does it still keep growing and if so, what's the maximum height they usually reach?

[Cleoriff]

They are begonias (yellow) and surfinias (purple) @Marjo 

As for the cordyline on the water feature, I have no idea how big it will grow. There is one in Spain in tha garden for the apartment block and it must be 20 feet tall!

[gmarkj]

Lovely blooms there Den, looks like a fab place to sit and relax.
Our grass is rather neglected and patchy at the minute due to the building work that has been going on.
The wild flower bed is also looking rather forlorn as it's not been watered for a while...

[MI5]

Nice bush...........

[jonsie]

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@MI5 wrote:
Nice bush...........

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Needs a trim.....

[MI5]

Thought the same

[jonsie]

My garden consists of a bit of grass, some stone chippings and one tub!

[Cleoriff]

As you see, the bush which was razed to the ground has grown back bigger and better. (you can only part of it!!)

Problem was, I replaced it with 2 Florida Weigela, so that area of the garden is full to overflowing.

Ray doesn't get to go anywhere near it. I do my own pruning now....

PS I haven't posted a proper picture of that area.

As I said I didn't do a 360 degree photo.

(I might add it tomorrow)

[Cleoriff]

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@jonsie wrote:

My garden consists of a bit of grass, some stone chippings and one tub!

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That's a lovely pot @jonsie 

[Cleoriff]

For those of you who remember the 'bush incident' (I go to Spain and ask Ray to trim back my 18 yr old Jasmine Nudiflorum. Arrive home to find it razed down to a 3 inch stump and broken fence!!)

The nearest I came to hitting him round the head with a shovel!! Even my neighbour tried to stop him by saying I don't think Den meant you to do that.

Anyway he paid for a new fence, I bought two new plants. Florida Weigela and planted them in the gap.

2 years later I noticed the stump from the jasmine was producing shoots....It has now spread along the  fence for about 10 foot. So combine that with the two other bushes I planted to replace and we now have this

Sadly neither are in flower as one is spring flowering and the other flowers in the winter.

Just proves you can't keep a good bush down...