A short tour of the garden

I finished work at 3pm today, there comes a point where I just run out of steam.  As an antidote to sitting in the house since 9am, Django and I went and did a few laps of the garden, enjoying the warm breeze before the rain starts.

There are a few things in the garden at the moment that make me smile...

I bought a buffalo tomato plant, put it in a pot at which point it decided to feign dying.   Instead of throwing it out, I decided to bung it in the border to see what happened, and it liked it!  Although it wasn't a good choice of spot because it probably doesn't get enough sun.  Still I was pleased to see that one of the tomatoes is going red, hurrah!  Mind you, we have pretty much decided that we are going to use the green tomatoes for our quince chutney...

Mr H.s mum gave us a quince tree many years ago, which we planted at the site of the plum tree which we cut down (the only one who ever ate them was Revel, Django's father).  The quince tree is now a great producer, first we made jam but I am now converted to making chutney.  Don't even suggest quince jelly: anything that involves an upside down chair and a piece of muslin is definitely off my list.  With the rain over the last couple of weeks this year's fruit has suddenly grown. It will need picking soon, which means that either Mr H. or I, or both of us, will soon have blisters on our fingers from cutting up the rock-hard fruit.

This spring we cut down the huge chilean potato plant (more like tree) which was covering the gazebo and looked lovely, but decided to die on us.  I replaced it with a blue bell early flowering clematis on one side, a pink jasmine on the other.  They suffered somewhat in the dry weather (and we forgot to water them) but since they've had some rain they are shooting up again.  Hopefully next spring we'll be able to enjoy them in their youthful glory.

Meanwhile on the pergola the wisteria is spreading nicely; now we just need to persuade the new growth to cling on to the frame - every time there is a reasonable breeze the young shoots let go and just fly around in the wind!

In the bottom left corner of the above picture you can just see some cyclamen. I love cyclamen, their delicate tenderness which somehow manages to survive all kinds of unintentional abuse.  All the examples in our garden have either been on the site since before we got here, or have been dug up accidentally somewhere in the garden and been chucked into their current position. They just shake themselves off and surprise us later with their pretty pink flowers where I'm not expecting them.

 

OK, this one didn't make me smile, but I'm not that bothered either. About a month ago Mr H. told me that the mistletoe on our little apple tree at the bottom of the garden seemed to be dying, and it was shedding onto the ground.  The only reason we haven't cut down the apple tree, is the mistletoe; at least that is my reason.  Every year it has a huge mass of it, bunches of which get distributed to friends in the office at Christmas and hung in the hall at home for unsuspecting visitors. The apples have always been small and we have never eaten them.  Now the mistletoe is definitely dead or dying, and so is the apple tree by the look of its leaves.  So now we have no reason whatsoever to keep it, something to put on the Christmas holiday joblist for Mr H. 

I hope you have enjoyed the short tour!