Garden
Cadeby Stem Vase
I’m going ahead anyway with thoughts of spring – it has turned distinctly cold with bitter wind here after half a day of warming sunshine earlier in the week. Birdsong encourages my belief that the seasons are shifting! I’ve been making some Cadeby vases, so at least some uplifting spring stems can be brought […]
A pot for a baby Pilea
I’ve just bought myself one of these sweet little plants – its a Pilea Peperomioides (or you may know it by its other names Chinese Money Plant, or Pancake Plant). It has rather squishy, rubbery leaves, growing on vigorous plump stems. Here it is in one of my stone pots. It is going join […]
The Yews are filled with birds
I’ve just watched Goldcrest, but Blackbirds, Thrushes, Fieldfare and Greenfinches are turning up too. They’re stripping the Yew Tree of its fruits. Unlike many conifers, the common yew does not actually bear its seeds in a cone. Instead each seed is enclosed in a red, fleshy, berry-like structure known as an aril, which is […]
Oaks and Acorns
About this time last year I collected acorns, eight in total, and planted them in pots. For a number of reasons, along with natural withering and rot, I let two dry out during the summer beyond saving, and the geese nibbled three which didn’t survive, I have only two oak saplings left. They’re doing […]
Abundance in Red
Already my geese have scrumped all the apples from the lower branches, and are very good as a team – one pulling at the leaves and twiggy ends, the other two jumping up to reach the apples. The riper the apples get, the easier this is for them, as a knock or nudge with […]
Common Red and Golden Ringed
The summer heat over the weekend brought out a mass of insects at the workshop – my bramble full of butterflies and bees and the grass stems alive with flying and crawling things. A dragonfly bumped into me – I was startled as it hit me quite hard on the head, followed by […]
Sculpture in the Garden – a map
This afternoon I’ve been putting together a map, showing the locations of my sculpture in the garden – so if you’re visiting Nunnington Hall you won’t miss any! Just as I finished I got a call from a lady to say she’d been round the garden today and loved her visit, especially coming across […]
Sculpture in the garden at Nunnington Hall
Here is Hedgehog in the Cutting Garden (which is also the vegetable garden) at Nunnington Hall. All the pieces arrived in the rain and wind, it was a very soggy setting up, but today they enjoyed the drying sunshine and look much happier. High Moor Goat surveys – looking out on a live willow […]
Maltese quarry message
When I saw the M&G Garden, winner of Best Show Garden at this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show it made me feel at home, all that stone and feeling as though I was at the quarry. The designer, James Basson has created the dry, dusty, stony feel very well, with the planting looking to […]
Easter Sunday morning
Woke exceptionally early (too much chocolate the night before?!) and was met by a frost. Anxiously did my round of checks at the workshop, new seedlings, just planted out sweet-peas, my re-located Good-King-Henry plant, tender parsley, my tiny Oak – all okay! Collected the goose eggs, and hadn’t at all needed to decorate any, […]