A Cornish Garden

  This area is at the top of some steps  leading from our main patio area on the east side of the property.  The steps seen in the background lead up to the composting bins. This area has not been touched yet this year, so the pots need a good tidy up first.  Once the dead foliage is removed, I will leave them as there are bulbs coming up from previous years - tulips and daffodils.  There should be some lovely tulips including some of the parrot variety, a red and yellow flower and also a black one, that is if they survived the winter.  When the bulbs are done, I will put in some bedding plants. Next is clearing the weeds from the cracks between the slabs.  You can see the handy tool that I use laying on the patio.  You can also see my trolley. This handy little seat on wheels allows me to continue to do low level work as I can no longer kneel. The dirty pot you can see needs a good clean and refilling with water. It contains a floating fountain feature. All tidy.  On to the next job.

Time to plant out the first vegetables.  These are going into plot 7.  This plot has been used to grow some daffodils for cutting.    As with the sweet peas, the obelisks face the house.  We are planting Broad Bean, Masterpiece Green Longpod.  When they are fully grown and in flower, they will be pleasing to look at from the house.  Broad Beans need good support as they can easily snap in the wind, so the obelisks are ideal to tie the in to.                     The health properties: 1. Loaded With Nutrients 2. May Help With Parkinson's Disease Symptoms 3. May Help Prevent Birth Defects 4. Contain Immune-Boosting Nutrients 5. Beneficial for Bone Health 6. May Improve Symptoms of Anemia 7. May Improve High Blood Pressure 8. May Aid Weight Loss

They are called vegetable plots, but we also grow cut flowers in them.  The first plot to be tackled is actually plot 8. Plot 8 is on the left in this shot, next to the small greenhouse.  Covered, as you can see, in the obligatory pink petals from the Magnolia.  There are four obelisks which will be planted with sweet peas.  These face the house, so make a pleasing visual display.  The rest of the plot will probably be planted with parsnips, which we have grown in the past and achieved some quite huge specimens! After a good weed, the plot is planted with sweet pea seedlings with strings in place for them to cling to as they grow.  The varieties planted are: 💮 Wuthering Heights 💮 Heathcliff 💮 Red Arrow 💮 Fairy Lights Mix The seedlings have been planted one variety per obelisk. We also have the variety, Norman Wisdom, seedlings but these are destined for another part of the garden as they are renowned for their scent, so they will be planted in one of the areas where we sit.  

The East side of the garden, showing the top retaining wall.  You might spot the top of a huge rock protruding from the ground.  This was uncovered when the ground was being levelled, and it being too big to move, was kept as a feature.  Cornwall experiences quite a lot of rainfall, especially January/February/March time, and the area directly in front of the retaining wall sometimes looks like a garden pond!   This picture shows the wall and the top of the rock.  It also shows the palm - more about that below. The dogwoods were planted some 5 years ago, and seem to have no problem with their 'feet' being in soggy ground for a large part of the year.  They are very happy, and I have to cut them back each year to stop them growing too tall and obscuring the colourful plants that will be planted on top of the wall, between the row of conifers. The variety is Alba 'Sibirica' and these plants with their eye-catching stems, provide winter colour.  It is said that they should

A good friend, who belongs to a local yacht club, found us this disused boat.   It is positioned next to the river that runs through the garden.  We painted it and try to keep it brim full of seasonal flowers all year round.  At Christmas we decorated it with lights and created 'sails' from the stands of lights.  It looks so nice at night, that we decided to keep them, so it is lit up all year round. Really pleased with the daffodils and hyacinths this year.  The frog, with his heather 'hair' is at the helm.  

Our Magnolia Campbellii in full flower.   Lucky for us that we have different sections of the garden, because this tree completely dominates the west side of the garden.  It is particularly beautiful when in full flower, and people come to photograph it.   It is, however, a very messy tree! It starts with the buds. When they are ready to open, the fur-like jackets that cover the buds are thrown off.  They really do look and feel like fur.  Then there come the petals, which turn the whole garden pink as they fall.  They look lovely, until it rains, then they turn to very slippery slush.  Following the flowers, the leaves develop, and again, when they fall, they completely cover the garden.  The leaves are collected and stored, and make very useful leaf mould. In addition, there are the rather large seed pods, which again are thrown to the ground in large numbers.  When it has finished throwing all it can to the ground, it throws random branches down!  The tree has grown considerably sin

There are a few features that make the garden quite unique, and are therefore worth a mention. We are located less than a mile from the sea at Mount's Bay (Bay an Garrek in Cornish), the largest bay in Cornwall, a large sweeping bay stretching from the Lizard Point to Gwennap Head. The north of the bay is the fairy-tale castle emerging from the water, St Michael's Mount. Our property was the gardener's lodge, situated at the gates marking the start of a long drive leading to the grade II listed Georgian Manor House, built on the site of a castle constructed in the 12th century.  The long, sweeping drive is bordered by the obligatory mature trees.  However, due to the building of a bypass, which transected said sweeping drive, it is now a lane going nowhere . This is rather nice for us because we have unused woodland outside our gates instead of, what would have been, back in the day, a busy drive.  Our pedestrian gate can be seen to the left, under a black arch. A st