NO FROST OR COLD SNAP JUST YET, PLEASE!

Mr. HCB was up and out in the garden early again today - by 7.45 he tells me - whereas I was a late starter and didn’t go out until 8.30 a.m.  Fortunately, he wasn’t making a lot of noise as he is still trying to get rid of the cherry tree stump, but it’s hard work and rather than using the axe, he is now using a bow saw to slice into it and then he cuts down and then hopefully another small piece comes out.  You can see by the shot I’ve put in as an extra what a slow and laborious job it is, but bless him, he is doing it, slowly but surely.

We both worked in the garden until about 11.30 and decided it was getting too hot, so stopped for a cup of coffee and a chat when Mr. HCB suggested that we went over to the Brinkworth Walled Garden Nursery this afternoon.  

Whilst Mr. HCB was busy, I wandered around the garden looking for something for Tiny Tuesday - I know the challenge is necklace or earrings, but as there are so many lovely flowers in the garden, I decided to go for something living so apologies for being a little rebellious today.  

I found these little runner bean flowers, Painted Lady, and you can see a decent sized runner bean next to it, so provided we don’t get any frost or a cold snap for a few more weeks, we may have more runner beans to cook.  

We did go over to the Brinkworth Walled Garden Nursery and had a very pleasant hour over there - the beauty of going to a small nursery is that the person running it often knows much more about his plants than people who work in one of the large nurseries - not always, I realise - but we are always happy when we can chat to Fraser about what plants will thrive where and what plants won’t grow in our heavy clay soil.  We bought two large pots and two Trachelospermum that we hope will grow well against our new fence - and I’m sure they will be blipped in due course.  

A few weeks ago I had taken some lovely photographs of the garden at the nursery so having made them into cards, I took a few over for Fraser - he told me as we left that he was touched by what I had done - so I told him that we appreciated all the help he had given us over the last few months - and I’m sure we will be going back very soon for more plants once our gravelling has been done.  I have also put in an extra showing some of the beautiful plants at the nursery - including a clematis called “Tie Dye”, for obvious reasons and also a lovely tortoiseshell butterfly on the verbena bonariensis.

“Dirt tired:
     a condition that occurs
          after spending all day
               in the garden.”
Anon