Shameless and Nameless!

So many colours in a single Geranium leaf!  It also flowers prolifically and is full of fiery colour for most of the year.  I wish I knew its name!

Wild & Really Wildlife

Down by the pond.

There are dragonflies at the bottom of our garden! 

OK - so there are lots around the pond and some of them are really big and sound more like Chinooks but there's one dragon fly whose home is at the end of the Fernery Path and he sits on the hammock arch in silence whilst drifting around in the breeze and balancing on his nose.  We encourage all sorts of dragonflies here!

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Rainbow Eggs

As I said in the last post; each of our girls lays a different coloured egg and after egg collecting this morning, here's the proof!  

Now all you have to do is put each egg with each layer! Mmmm.  That reminds me: I must make some quiches!

Chicken Chat

The girls were obviously well looked after in our absence and have been laying really well since we arrived back.  They are enjoying all the fallen apples and pears as well as their usual layers pellets and mash - to say nothing of special tit bits such as bacon rinds and meal worms.  Yummy!  There are several dirty beaks and, in some cases, very dirty faces!!  Dirtiest of all is Cicely!
 Now that all girls are laying, it's very interesting to see who is (and isn't) laying.  The very distinctive and variable egg colours is a dead give away and they vary from a very dark brown, shades of cream, white and almost blue.

Two autumns in one year!

Winning Dahlias

Top Lawn Border

After all the gallivanting, it's good to be back home and to catch up with some garden work.  We came back to beautifully tended plants as Liz came over from Switzerland just to care for the hens and look after the watering!  How lucky were we?  She had very obviously been doing a first rate job deadheading as the day we returned, I was able to select 5 Dahlias which won 3rd prize at Stoke Bliss Agricultural Improvement Society Show the very following day (yawn!)  It was all a bit of a scramble - what with the usual Saturday jobs, serious jet lag and no preparation time, it was a surprise to win anything!  Whilst in Alaska, we were well into autumn and had the pleasure of enjoying all the golds of the birches, cotton woods & aspens; it's nice to return and enjoy the beginning of another autumn with all those colourful pleasures yet to come for a second time! The Sedums are opening for insect business and the rose hips shining red in the September sunshine.  The Top Lawn Border is a riot of colour and the Michaelmas daisies are full of buzzing insects gathering both nectar and pollen.

Just too many insects for 1 photo!

A.W.O.L. in Alaska!

Just because Chief Blogger has been a tad quiet of late, doesn't mean that all gardening instincts have been ignored!  She has been exploring gardens further afield and paid a very interesting visit to the Botanical Gardens of Alaska.  It was amazing so see the large numbers and varieties of peonies!  The average U.K. gardener probably doesn't think of them thriving in these winters!  In the wild Cinquefoils and Plantains are in abundance as are wild lupins and Purple Loosestrife is everywhere! The only difference is that the locals call it Fireweed!!  The hardy geraniums were impressive as not one of the varieties grown flopped.  All were sturdy and slightly lower growing.  It's well into autumn and the seasonal colours are the golds and yellows of the Cottonwoods, Aspens and Birches.  On the high ground, the first dusting of snow was evident - gulp!  Oh well this is the land of the glaciers and they say there are over 100,000!! Now that is an amazing statistic!!  More photos.

Cold Weather - Warm Welcome!

One day to go before our 'Gardens by Candlelight' Evening and despite the seriously dire weather forecast, Dave turned out and not only fixed the lights in the pond, but also put some L.E.D. strip lighting around the summerhouse! This was all 11th hour stuff late on a Friday evening! Dave in the pond! The wine is here so, if it's a complete washout, we have plenty with which to console ourselves!!  In hopes that the forecast is wrong, I've made lots of lanterns from glitter painted jam jars and also night lights in clay flower pots.  If it pours none of these will even stay alight!  Hey ho!  I can see that if any visitors show up, we'll all be in the conservatory or the summerhouse!! Either way, the welcome will be warm even tho the weather isn't!