Today in the garden

Today, for the first time since records began, it stopped raining. 

With the new garden room installed, there was landscaping to be done..
Dig for victory girls! 

Tulip bulbs to be planted.

Borders to be tidied. 

Wheelbarrows to be pushed

Fires to be put out...?

The New Garden Room

It's finally arrived. The new and wonderful 'Garden Room' complete with wood burner was erected this week - just in time for the Winter Fayre tomorrow. .   

Another rainy Friday

We aren't defeated by the rain. Oh no. The show must go on, and so it did. Well, a few of us stayed  in the dry but these intrepid workers had deadlines to meet and so they battled on through the wind and rain. (l know it doesn't look like it's raining in these photos but trust me it was.)

The final posts went in for the foundations for the soon-t0-be erected gargantuan shed/classroom.

 and look at the wonderful NEW potting shed. 

and meanwhile indoors, seeds were being removed from dried flowerheads collected earlier in the year and left to dry out in paper bags. These were put in envelopes ready to be sold. 

The envelopes were even home made.

Fingers crossed it's better next week. I don't think we can take much more rain. I'm sure I heard the other day it's the wettest November since records began. For some reason, records apparently only began in 1955. Goodness knows why no one bothered to record it before then. 

Fantastic Mr Fox

Just in from my father. Apparently, a very tame fox probably a dog fox spent the entire day yesterday hanging out in my parents garden in Hampshire. Dad managed to capture the fox on his mobile. The fox was apparently unperturbed by Dad being feet away from him and was happy to oblige with a smile when the camera phone was produced. Unfortunately when the phone rang, the fox refused to take the call. 

Ode to the West Wind

(mahonia x media 'charity')

As we are being blown to pieces in Brighton today, here are some photos l took yesterday in my garden before it was all taken in the wind.  Poetry by dear old (well quite dead actually) Percy Shelley.

O Wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,

Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead

Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

(Blueberry Bluecrop)

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,

Pestilence-stricken multitudes; O, thou,

Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed. 

(Cornus Alba)

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,

Each like a corpse within its grave, until

Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow.

(Fatsia Japonica)

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill

(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)

With living hues and odours plain and hill:

(Choisya Ternata)

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;

Destroyer and preserver; hear, O hear!

(pyracantha 'orange glow')

A fat Fatsia

Something to cheer you up on a rainy day..

From Nanette

Sunny November

That's right it is a sunny November, if you live in Australia. If you live in Brighton, then it's not so there's no point getting all moribund about these things. Today is Friday, and should be the gardening group but it rained and rained and rained and rained and rained and even the ladies weren't brave enough to venture out until the rain had subsided. 

So while it's still raining, here's a brief intermission provided by someone who was loving everybody being stuck indoors this morning.

It can only be the one and only...

Aniseed of course. 

'Now who's lap shall l sit in next?"

"ah here's one!"

and here's another....   Hang on wasn't that Cotinus in the plant ident last week as well?

"Ladies what do they know... i'm off to sleep to dream about mice and power tools. "

Remember remember Friday 6th November

I have been so busy that l haven't even put up the photos for last week in the garden. Conveniently l can write this and then change the date and pretend that l wrote this last Friday. Isn't technology brilliant?..

now lets see if l can remember what we did last week...

Introducing Liz's fabulous compost bins...   

and the tulip bulbs went in with the Cornflowers. How amazing is this going to look in the spring?.

and it was a hive of activity in the greenhouse

and here's one for a caption competition

Note no chickens were electrocuted in the taking of this photo neither were any cheap jokes made about battery hens. 

Friday stuck indoors...

Today there was no gardening group. It's half term but some were helping move the potting shed. I wanted to be there but alas, I had to go to work. I did notice on my walk from Farringdon station the most beautiful ash trees. One of them had lost most of its leaves and was completely covered in bright red berries. It was a wonderfully striking image to keep me going through the day as l worked in a window-less basement. 

And the animals came one by one

Once upon a time in a garden far far away

there was a path that needed to be built in a day.

The ladies they worked hard to prepare the land,

they mixed the ballast, the concrete and sand.

they stopped for lunch with the job  only half done

Planning to return to work in the afternoon sun. 

but when they got back to get the job done

someone else had had all the fun... 

ANISEED the gardening cat had rallied up a team

and while their backs were turned they'd finished the path it would seem!!!!!

THAT PESKY CAT!!!

Rain rain go away

It doesn't rain in Brighton...   certainly not on Fridays

so it stopped (because it's Friday of course.)

It doesn't rain in Brighton, not on Fridays.

Heaven by way of Preston Park

Today was glorious Friday, that is if you're lucky enough to be out gardening and in Bridgette's gardening group. "Why was today so glorious?" I hear you cry...   Well because we were in Lindy's heavenly garden.

and boy did we work like angels



except when we took advantage of her delicious food



yum