In a Vase on Monday - New Beginnings

Last week when we were on holiday on La Gomera...during part of the day when it was too hot to go out, to pass a little time I went to visit my friend's blog.  Cathy got me started posting and linking my little posies from the garden from June 2015 on her theme of In a Vase on Monday.  Even though I had been posting posies from the garden earlier, it was fun posting more or less weekly, and seeing what other gardeners were coming up with.

What a coincidence...Cathy used some of the variegated London's Pride which I had given her which she had admired in my Kenilworth garden when she visited.  Saxifrage umbrosa Variagata is a lovely low growing evergreen plant mainly used as a ground cover plant.  Its flowers are light and airy but come just once a year.  I had managed to take a few offshoots from my Kenilworth Garden, which are now coming on well in a pot.  I saw that it was mentioned on one of the recent coverages of The Chelsea Garden Show.  My plants originate from offsets from a friend's garden many years back.

Its New Beginnings here in Wells in my new Garden, and I shall find the right place for the Saxifrage.  It will take me a couple of years to get things going, during which time I shall have to tackle the issue of perennial weeks, and garden design and layouts etc.

However Cathy has inspired me to start posting again.  This is my 50th In a Vase on Monday....and to return the 'favour':  Persicaria Red Dragon, originally received as a rooted cutting from Cathy, makes an outstanding component.  I did leave the main plant in my garden, and this is from a cutting I prepared as soon as we started house hunting.  If you leave the stem in water it grows roots fairly quickly...and hey presto another plant to give away!  There are plants in several gardens in Kenilworth propagated from Cathy's Original.

It seems that I have lost the knack of taking a clear picture...but you get the idea here...new beginings for all three plants, all plants are from cuttings from the mother plants in my previous garden.  Lonicera nitida Baggesen's Gold also known as Golden Honeysuckle, Cathy's Persicaria Red Dragon, and a flower spike of Euphorbia x martinii Ascot Rainbow.  I have read that a common name for spurges is wolf's milk!  Again this is from a cutting of the mother plant originally bought from Avondale Nursery back in 2014.  I decided to cut off the one and only flower spike early on to help the plant bulk out and establish itself.

A close up of the flower structure shows up the colours which go so very well with the Percicaria.

Looking through an upstairs window, I saw this bullfinch snacking of the berries of the Amalanchier...hope they leave just some of the fruit to turn red!

Many thanks Cathy...for lifting my spirits, and getting me back on track with posting to In a Vase on Monday.  This week your contribution is as ever....interesting not only for the lovely flowers but also a few gardening pointers such as the time to sow cosmos to get flowers in June.

Starting on the Garden

I still have that sinking feeling regarding our new garden that I experienced when we first arrived.  I didn't take pictures of it when we first arrived...there were big patches of rampant periwinkle, and wild onion that had been allowed to self seed all over the place for several years, a large old buddleia bush which was the centre of pile of garden rubbish, a lot of bindweed, and large patches of mint around the edge etc etc.  The lawn is a weed patch which was further damaged through the various building works mainly the conservatory.  I'm not worried about that in the long term as I expect to get rid of the lawn by and by.  In the meantime I hope to repair the worst patches just to have a reasonable surface to look at, and avoid the sticky clayey surface when it has rained.

Beyond the  stone wall is a large evergreen Holm Oak which was starting to shed its leaves during the very dry weeks we had in late spring.  The garden shed base will be the next to go in not far from the house, and the washing line will be moved too.  Next I am waiting for some new fence posts to go in, and then I can make a start on setting out the back garden.

This is looking toward the corner where we dug out several years of compost.  It has already been spread around to help break up the heavy clay around the garden.  For now I have dug over the area and am using it as nursery bed, and planted out the acer tree I had growing in a large pot and many of the potted cutting and divisions.  The blue bench is placed to take advantage of the view.

The artichokes which I quite liked before they pushed out their flowering spikes will be going shortly. The really do attract many black flies and take up too much ground space.  I think they are quite old plants of an uncertain variety, some are so spiky, and may end up in a flower arrangement.  I do like the look of those bold steely leaves and maybe one would be nice so I may use one of the compact purple varieties.

I've started many gardens and in the end they were rather nice, so I need to remember that, rather than dwell on the present state of affairs.  Next week The English Garden Festival, just a walk away, hopefully will give me inspiration.  My membership of the Bishop's Garden gives me admission to this, and I have already invited a couple of my gardening neighbours to visit it with me, so I shall be there on at least two of the three days...hopefully when I get back my hero will have got some of the indoor DIY jobs done!

Seeing Swans and Cygnets

I've watched this pair of swans build their nest via the Bishop's Palace Webcam....I saw tourists photographing the famous family during the day, when I popped into the gardens....and when we went for a late evening amble around the City,mainly to admire the facade of Catherdral, bathed in evening sunlight, we were the only ones at the late evening outing before it was time for them to clamber back into their nest.

If you want to see really good pictures of birds...then I would recommend you visit my friend's blog.  After an OU course in photography, her pictures of birds have been giving me great pleasure

Durum Sourdough Rye again, also made into Lardy Cake

We needed another loaf today, and fancied one based on the rye mother.  I have made the Durum Rye before last year, just before we moved.

No Durum flour left but used strong bread flour, as suggested by Jane Mason...I scaled up the ingredient to give just over 1Kg dough, but reducing the malt syrup to just a teaspoon and butter to 10g.  I portioned 700g for a long banneton, and kept the remainder to play at making a lardy cake.

When Lizzie was here we bought a small piece of lardy cake, which we sliced up to share...it brought back memories.  I remember my son enjoying visiting the two village bakers after school during the hollow leg years, and delighting in getting his hands on these.  I have just tried to check them out..but the 'village' which we lived in has now been swallowed by Swindon, and there is a Baker's Court and A Baker's Arms Inn...but I find no mention of the Bakers which have long since closed.  Even my little grand daughter has made Lardy Cake for her daddy.  I am ashamed to say that this is the first time I have baked lardy cake.  I had thought them previously too fatty!

Of course the base dough is not the one given in Clive Mellum's book, but as it was the dough of the day, I followed the recipe for the ingredients and the method which I read about for the first time this morning.

With 30 lard for what we will divide into 6 portions...5 grams is less fat than I would spread if I put butter on a slice of bread!  When I started to mix the filling, it was easier to just get in with my warm hand and blend the 100g raisins, with 60 soft brown sugar, 30g lard, and 25g of my finely chopped home made mixed peel, which I keep in the freezer, and 2g of mixed spice.  I shaped this into a block and made the laminations.  The dough went into a paper lined tin which I had spread with a fine layer of lard and an extra fine sprinkle of brown sugar.  When it came out of the oven, I left it a few minutes, until the juices had been reabsorbed into the dough, then turned it out to continue to cool on a rack.

New Plants

One of my greatest sources of pleasure is gardening and plants....The garden is dry, the lawn worn almost to terre battue, or an unbaked clay slab on account of having piles of rubble piled on it during the excavations and preparation for our conservatory.  We then have to have work done on the boundaries...which leaves me to dig nursery beds to take the plants I have brought with me from Warwickshire.  Meanwhile I am enjoying looking at the many beautiful gardens around and popping in frequently to the Bishop's Palace.

It is so very tempting to stroll along market stalls isn't it.  Tadham Nurseries have a pop up stall in Market Street in Wells on Fridays and Saturdays, which is where this excited gardener goes to spend her pocket money...or else resist temptation and walk into town another way.  By the way there are also two other excellent plant stalls or more...at the twice weekly markets.  Last week I just had to spend my £10 pocket money in one go on the Tadham Nursery Stall!  Six good plants for £10 as follows:

I had admired Sedum Kamtschatcum at Tatton Park Flower Show last year, but they were sold out.  I must get some grit ready to help open up the clay when I have decided on the layout of the garden.  Another new plant which I have not grown before but have admired many times is Origanum Kent Beauty.  Then because Mr S loves small things and also Hebes bought Hebe Buchananii Minor...for the moment planted out in its own little pot...but I can see that an Alpine sink may be added to my wish list for the garden!

Sedum hispanicum because the gentleman loves small things!  Just like the lady loves .....

I love small willows and without knowing much about this one added it to my little collection on the stall.  Salix Nakamurana Yezoalpina is showing a lot of promise, and as I write this I am wondering the best place for it.  In the meantime it is sharing a larger pot with Clematis Cartmanii moonbeam.  I fwonder whether the two can be companions for a year or two!  However I just learnt that some plants just do not like companions...I heard that walnuts are very good at seeing off plants that grow nearby.