GOOD DAY SUNSHINE

It was a lovely sunny and mild morning so we managed to get out and about AND have a short sit in the garden.

Do you remember me saying that I'd done the cocoa shell mulch; I so love the way it makes the garden look so tidy and really shows up any plants are "in the green". It will gradually start to grey and break down so I took a few quick snaps to show you it in its prime.

The sun's gradually creeping down the back fence and has started shining on the "new" bed now;

this used to be a patio area but as our path to the back gate is gravelled I had to lift all the patio slabs and lay them on the path so that I could get the wheelchair up and out of the garden. It was hard work but I'm not complaining...it meant I had another area to PLANT in...I'd much rather have flower beds than patio anyway.I dug in plenty of muck (to put it politely) and was really surprised at how well everything did last year that I put in there. I didn't have the time or energy to dig out all the sand base that was under the slabs and just dug that in too!! Mother Nature must love me because I know it was builder's sand which I'm sure isn't good for your soil.

I know I posted a picture the other day of one of the Irises but as another is in bloom now had to take a photo of that too....well you can't have too much of a good thing can you?
It was nice to see that the Whiskey Mac has a nice bud on it. I think I'll cut it and put it in a vase so Mick can smell it's delicious scent. In the past we've never been ones for cutting flowers to bring indoors...we prefer seeing them in the garden....but last year (as Mick is in bed so much) I started making up lots of bouquets of our flowers so Mick could have part of our garden indoors with him. The living-cum-bed room smelt lovely especially when it was filled with the scent of Lilies!

I remembered this morning that those last few chillies I'd picked last year were STILL hanging to dry so gave them a quick blitz in the blender; it may not look much but hey were only the few "end of season" crop and it doesn't take more than a pinch to put a kick into any meal!
It was nice getting out in the open air today especially as one of the "love birds" sat still long enough for me to photograph even if it was only with my mobile phone..

ANOTHER YIPPEE!!!

We were waiting for Mick's brother Ron and his wife Brenda to visit today when there was a knock on the door. I thought it a bit early for it to be them as they usually arrive nearer lunchtime. I almost let out a whoop of delight when I opened the door to find it was my delivery of Cocoa Shells. Mick and I have been using this product for the last few years and find it an excellent mulch and soil conditioner. We used to use mushroom compost but found that after a couple of years the soil was becoming too alkaline and so switched to the cocoa shell which is an excellent peat alternative. Usually we would mulch up in the Autumn but now we can't get out and about as much we haven't been lucky enough to find it in stock on our occasional visits to Homebase. I've been trying to find an on-line outlet that delivers and finally on Sunday had found CROCUS UK. It was slightly more expensive than we would have usually paid but I was willing to put up with that. Considering I only ordered it on Sunday I think it was remarkable to receive it only two days later! It came just in time too; I really wanted to get it in place before the snow started; I had an hour to spare before our visitors arrived and so quickly got to work.

It's a good job I did because at 2pm we had a hailstorm and then some snow..........it hasn't settled but it's feeling bitterly cold.

A word of warning to any dog owners; cocoa shell is thought to be poisonous to dogs; so please take advice before using it.