Sunday, August 30, 2015

A high summer peek at the garden

Most gardens have several faces that are determined either by natural cycles or through their purpose and the resources allocated. Ours is no different. We have beautiful places that are pleasing to the eye and other senses where you can sit and idle the time away. We have both tidy and not so tidy working areas which are in a constant state of flux, piled high with wood to chop or stone to cut and use. We have unfinished areas that are at the end of a list that grew and grew over the past 9 years and that will one day on completion, serve as the full stop to the overall preparation and build elements or at least signal a semi colon.

Here are a few photographs of the pleasing elements of our garden (in our eyes at least). As the late summer colours overtake the fresh shades of the spring greens, the changing summer light advances bringing with it rich hues and tones to the nearby landscapes and, the midday skies take on an increasingly erratic carpet of blue, grey and white.












17 comments:

  1. Lovely to see so many people enjoying your garden. A perfect backdrop for entertaining.

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    1. Thanks Andrea - yes it is a great space for a gathering.

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  2. Perfection, as always... and so many more posts to catch up on! Beautiful...

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  3. Such an inspiration!

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    1. Thanks, I look forward to seeing how your new venture develops Coco.

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  4. Gorgeous! And beautifully written too. Hope to one day visit in person!!

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    1. Thanks Mary - open invitation - drop by when you are near (only 5km from Nueva and Ribadesella)

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  5. It all looks so beautiful and ordered , I would love to think that our garden will look as good one day but we seem to be constantly rearranging things.

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    1. Thank you Anne - I know from previous gardens that we'll probably never stop either, there's always something new in mind!

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  6. Your garden looks so perfect. Sigh. Is your lawn always so green? I understand you get a fair bit of rain there. I struggle so much with dry weather in summer and by this time of year my garden looks a mess, although it and the surrounding countryside is greening up nicely now after a blessed week of rain. However that means the weeds will grow even worse! Can't win. :-)

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    1. Thank you Mandy - far from perfect (selective photography) but never-the-less it has it's good bits. The grass has just greened again after weeks of very dry weather but we probably do have a higher rainfall and humidity than your area.

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  7. Anonymous10:34 pm

    Hi, your garden is certainly very inspiring. I picked up some tips from some your previous posts about tomatoes, and now we don't know what to do with such enormous crop! Freezer full of passata... No complains though. I'd like to know about your lawn: did you re-cover with new turf? We have a lower part of garden with dreadful grazing land, and I'd love some soft green grass. I know we'd need sprinklers as it' very dry in South Galicia but the area is quite large, so I wonder what we should do...

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    1. Thank you for your kind words. When we first bought the plot it was a neglected orchard and full of meadow grass and flowers (and weeds). Since then we have mown and mown and keep it short apart from one or two wilder areas we let go to seed. Our grass is still full of wild flowers and weeds but if kept short is acceptable - we will never have the perfect lawn. Our near neighbours lifted their meadow and re-turfed and seeded, they now have much poorer grass. Being surrounded by meadows and fields, the commercial grass cannot contend with the natural seeds that take hold, consequently their 'lawn' is very poor and patchy. Ours remains a natural balance - not perfect but it does the job and recovers well when coming out of a drought.

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    2. Interesting to hear that about your lawn, Ian. I agree with you there about native species of grass (and the weeds) doing better than bought grass seed. Where we resowed over the septic tank works we bought grass seed supposedly suitable for dry soil in full sun and it is fine and spindly and rather pathetic. Over this area a lot of 'paddock' grass self seeded from some of the imported soil and that has taken really well and has stayed green even during the dry periods. Of course the newly sown (last Sept) grass had to be watered all summer but even so, it is still rather pathetic. I am glad to see both white and red clover and some of my usual lawn weeds colonising this area, as we never wanted something looking like a bowling green next to our awful weedy lawn! But in spring the grass grows really lush and you can hardly see a weed but they come into their own when the grass dies down. I like having Queen Anne's Lace flowering in the lawn and we leave patches unmown so it can look pretty. I can see better now on my Mac screen that your grass is not as perfect as it looked on my Kindle but it still looks good. :-)

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    3. Anonymous12:39 pm

      Thank you, Ian. This is very encouraging and quite a relief. We do mow a lot except perhaps these last six weeks - nothing grows. Fingers crossed, we'll have better grass in the near future!

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    4. We/I really like the meadow grass we have, as it gets longer wild flowers and bulbs come through. We leave the borders in Spring and let the flowers blossom and the grasses go to seed before strimming and using in the compost. Good for the insects and much needed organic matter.

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