July Ort Report

I'm a couple of days late, but am doing much better than for the last full moon! This month I have collected ORTs from Peacock Firescreen (mostly greens and peaches), Bird in Hand (dusky pinks) and Pooh Birth Sampler (golden yellows):



I perched my ORT jar rather precariously on the edge of a plant pot for a bit of seasonal colour - I really love these white petunias, which we have scattered around the garden in pots, adding a splash of brightness.

As it is the start of July I really should set myself some goals, but first I'll review my June goals:

1) stitch on my WIPs yes, I mostly stitched on Peacock Firescreen, Bird in Hand and Pooh Birth Sampler
2) resist more new starts, apart from... managed this one
3) something from the lovely things Karin sent me! but not this one...

In July I would like to:
1) work on at least 2 WIPs
2) finish the xs on Pooh Birth Sampler
3) make some lace
4) do another type of crafting - either quilting or knitting
5) START SOMETHING WITH THE LOVELY STASH KARIN SENT ME. Can you see I MEAN it this month???

I've enjoyed the lovely warm weekend with a spot of gardening, eating the first potatoes from our garden, plus herbs, raspberries and strawberries, and stitching on Pooh Birth Sampler. Unusually for me I also did some housework... I'm sure that phase will pass ;)

My rose garden (before I did the dead heading though!!):




The first few potatoes - Anya and a red one I forget the name of:


Happy stitching everyone x

Roses

A while ago I shared a photo of my newly planted rose garden. It's now getting well established and the roses are starting to bloom, so I thought I'd share some more photos.


This is the lastest photo of the garden as a whole. Last weekend we put in the path of stepping stones - which were kindly given to us by our lovely neighbours, Ruby and Nav (they'd pulled up their path a long time ago and the slabs were behind their shed). We also planted 2 more roses and spread some bark chippings to keep the soil moist and weeds at bay - it also looks MUCH nicer than the bare soil. But we're going to need to buy some more to finish the job!!


Ed bought me this rose as part of my birthday present 18 months ago. I nearly killed it last summer, as the pot it was in was too small, but luckily I managed to rescue it (but we didn't have any flowers last year). It's a David Austen rose called 'Winchester Cathedral'. I just adore white roses.


This is 'sexy rexy', which was covered in lovely flowers last year (it moved house with us), this is the first flower so far this year. It was a freebie from a gardening magazine. I love the vibrant pink...


I bought this white rose about 2 months ago, but I've forgotten the name. Wonderland? Celebration? I love the way the flowers have that creamy centre. At the moment it's a much smaller plant than the others, but I'm sure it will grow in time.


Finally, this is 2 winter pansys I bought last autumn to give a little colour. They've spread like wildfire and are covered in flowers (still). Although well past they're 'best' (technically) and very leggy, they are so colourful they're staying put until they stop flowering. I've not even spent hours deadheading them - I've only had chance to do it once!! Not bad for about 50p each!!

Gardening Frenzy

If you've been wondering why I've not posted for a while, it's because I've been busy gardening! (and at work too, but I try and not worry about the mayhem there..). We've had almost 2 weeks without rain (until Saturday, when I got soaked on a trip to the local shop to but potatoes), and a good week of solid sunshine - chances are that's this summer over with now...

This is the front of our house on the day we bought it - as you can see, the front garden was a mass of ivy and overgrown plants, and we spent most of last autumn clearing the ground and digging it over... and then most of the early spring digging it over - we found enough rocks to build a rockery!! The front garden is going to be my rose garden (I've wanted one for years, and Ed keept buying me roses, which we planted in pots, ready for when we could plant our rose garden - some of them have been in pots for over 4 years!)

Over May bank holiday, Ed and I spent hours in the garden - we finally planted some of the roses in my rose garden, clearing all but 2 of the pots (one is still to be planted, but I'm not sure where, and the second is very happy in a beautiful pot, and therefore it's staying put!)

We also went to a garden centre and came home with lots of baby veggie plants, and then planted out our veggie patch - this year (our first in this house) we are *trying* to grow artichokes (because I can't get enough of them), courgettes (2/5 have already been munched by slugs and snails though), onions and leeks. Growing onions from sets and the rest from baby plants may seem like cheating to purists, and is way more expensive than growing from seed, but I have a bad track record with seeds... We also got some raspberry canes, which are planted in a sunny corner of the garden, and I got a standard rose called "ruby wedding" - but only because it was a nice rose, we aren't even married :)

We spent Monday In Newark with a friend and I stayed overnight in the flat in Nottingham, having decided to take Tuesday off work for a much needed hair cut and root-dying visit to Sheffield (I tried to find a great local hairdresser, but I still prefer the one in Shffield, so after 2.5 years of hunting I just went back - as have friends who live in Manchester and London - he's that good!). I stopped by at a nice garden centre on the way to Sheffield and bought another 4 rose bushes - as the front garden is much bigger then we initially thought, we need LOTS more roses (oh, the hardship)! Luckily I parked in a multi-storey car park in Sheffield, and all 4 roses survived the trip. My hair looked great too...

Last weekend I spent Saturday at Sheffield Lace Makers (I didn't make much lace though - a peril of being on the committee). On Sunday we went out in the garden again, this time we built a raised bed using log rolls. It's got 2 tiers to it, and we have planted it up with herbs, adding a row of strawberry plants at the front. Luckily most if these plants were in pots, transported from our old house, so the planting at least was fairly cheap. The plants seem much happier with space for their roots to spread. The basil plant, which was from Morrisons and slowly dying of neglect in the kitchen, didn't make it though.

This weekend we were slightly hampered by the fact Eddy nearly cut the tip of his thumb off on Monday - it's best not to ask, but the phone call I got on Monday initially reported a major catastrophe, a kind-of man-flu version of finger slicing - but luckily he didn't even need stitches! Anyway, he couldn't do much in case he got the wound dirty, but I needed to plant the last (latest?) 5 roses... which we did, and they look great. There's still lots of room for more roses, but I think we need to spend a little less money on the garden for a few weeks, maybe we need to start de-turfing the area for the border in the back. We have a fair few plants in pots that will fill it cheaply....

The good news on the stitching front was that, as we spent less time in the garden, I actually got some stitching time in this weekend, and have made great progress with Assisi Knot Garden - but I'll share a photo of that later.