Category: Yardening

#1365 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Yardening1 Comment
View from the Studio window.

The first early darkness of GMT in the studio/work room. We have installed winter lights. 4 years in, living in this house, and the yard is where we want it to be. Even last year the yard did not spark joy when illuminated in winter but the curious weather of 2025 gave us an enormous growth spurt of our container and climbing plants from September until now. We picked a fresh strawberry yesterday and there are still tomatoes ripening.

The loss of natural light in the afternoon is sad but an urban jungle illuminated  by festoon lights is going to be something to look forward to as my afternoons get darker.

The upstairs room above the studio has a deep window seat, a fabulous place for reading books. Largely ignored in the winter it will become the favourite place it often is in Summer.

The window seat also has  really heavy curtains so it becomes like a glass walled hide-out.

Of course seeing our winter yard in the dark, gives a different perspective and already I have spotted a corner where another container tree  might find a home. A Mimosa perhaps?

All this and I didn’t even turn on the old mortuary neon light!

#1325 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Gardens and gardening, YardeningLeave a comment

I realise I have never shared this beautiful passion flower making its way up an external staircase.

No particular reason to share it today. It has been a very rainy day and it is exactly a month since I took this photograph. In that month our weather has downgraded considerably. Passion flower plants are clinging on for dear life in the wind and the rain. A month ago this passion flower was at risk of being scorched on a hot metal staircase.

My own passion flower who was an early bloomer avoided the really hot weather of our summer by appearing and fading in June. Yesterday I unfurled its tiny, curling, climbing tendrils and put it on a path of my choosing rather than the harum scarum route it had decided to take on my washing line.

Actually all the climbing plants were redirected  to my aesthetic desires rather than their own urges yesterday. Roses were pruned.  Growth and direction for 2026 was the name of my yardening passion in a couple of  rare dry hours this week.

Gardening however has taken a real back seat this week. Gardening is done at a tennis club not far from home . But Weeding Wednesday was redesignated No Weed Wednesday to allow the gardeners to celebrate a significant birthday, 60 times around the sun of our gardening guru. 20 people gathered for crisps, cake and conversation. The weeds can grow for another week or maybe longer if this wet weather persists. No Weed Wednesday could become an Autumn/ Winter passion

#1350 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Yardening1 Comment

A late ponder, #1350 was started at 13:50 BST. Late because domestica started early today and involved car domestica and a visit to the vets. All routine stuff but we added peripheral domestica to the core tasks. At 13:50 we are officially in a lull. I could be packing for our weekend camping trip but instead I thought I might celebrate my climbing rose who is just poised at the top of a small wall. Almost ready to begin her career as a Defensive Planting Rose. Once she nips over the wall she will be free to cover our garage roof and hopefully her nasty little thorns will discourage the neighbourhood cats from taking trips to our yard to take a dump in our pots.  She has 14 rosebuds ready to bloom. She clearly has a different objective, putting beauty before Warrior Queen. The only creature she has stabbed so far is me as I gently train her towards my own specific needs , quietly tying her growing shoots towards the top of the wall. Maybe I should have discussed the plan with her.  But her blooms are lovely.

#1342 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity, Yardening1 Comment

Woman and Snail, both doing a balancing act.

Summer is officially here and a job needed doing. We have a large parabolic sun parasol. Something was not quite right with the parasol last year but we put it away regardless. In my experience over-wintering a problem never improves the situation.

Me and the parasol resolved our differences after a few hours of relocating the base and replacing some nuts and bolts. All a question of balance and diligence. I think last year the parasol base was not level which caused a slight imbalance and nuts and bolts do need attention at some point.

On balance all is well that ends well.

Balance was certainly on the mind of this snail who really had no need to take himself along the yard-long stalk of an Agapanthus. Snails do not eat Agapanthus blooms.

On balance all was well that ended well for the snail too.

#1341 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn YardeningLeave a comment

Yesterday it rained and a scrappy old rose that persists in the tropical bed in the yard put on quite the show against the water butt. I am not quite sure why we allow the rose to continue. A misplaced belief that it marks the spot where someone unknown, a previous owner of this house, had buried a beloved pet. It is a very old gnarly thing that has survived against the odds. It blooms throughout the summer, but not really in a meaningful way. The buds are neat and a fresh bloom can be beautiful, as this one is. But within a day the flower will open fully and fall apart. Just looking tatty and ugly.

The bush is mostly hidden beneath ferns. Out of sight and mind. Apart from yesterday when this perfectly pink bloom properly perked up a wet summer morning .

#1320 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Urban Jungle, Yardening1 Comment

We are a long way from the sterile, plastic- lawned, dog toilet yard that we bought four years ago. Our planned urban jungle has leapt into action this year. A warm dry Spring has been followed by a very wet early summer. This is the corner that overlooks a semi-subterranean garage and is about 4 feet above the back lane behind so it has the feeling of a very substantial balcony.

Like all good balconies there is an element of privacy whilst observing others. There is very little visual observation of other humans except an occasional shadow of an unknown neighbour. Deliberately oversized in these pictures because the shadow represents all the shadowy figures who enliven our viewpoint.

Aural overlooking, overlistening if you like, is the thing. The back lane is a stone-walled corridor that links a small car park with the road that leads to the sea or the city. We can hear but not see the people walking up and down. Swimmers chat animatedly, dog walkers are quieter. Largish groups of Royal Marines who occasionally run down the lane have two distinct personalities. One is heavy and mildly worrisome  when they are fully kitted up with guns and big boots. The other is more chattery and indeed fragrant as they do the same run in sports gear.

Evenings are quieter, couples and groups heading out to restaurants or the cinema.

But early mornings are my favourite thing. There is a sweet spot when all the singing birds are at their peak, just before the seagulls get up and move them all on.

A noisy corner of an Urban Jungle.

#1302 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity, Yardening2 Comments
View from the Studio

In the pink, the view from the studio. We are exactly a year on from having trellis added to our garden wall to extend the height of our North and East facing yard walls. After that all our walls needed painting so we lost almost all of last year’s  peak growing season for our new project of growing climbing plants. So this Spring has been a revelation. The climbers are climbing and mingling exactly as we hoped they would.  Not completely hiding the neighborhood cats  that promenade on the tops of our walls but almost, which leads to a quieter life dog-wise.

After a weekend of potting and preening all anyone needs to do now is bloom and grow. Lets see how that goes.

#1292 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity, YardeningLeave a comment
Dead heading in the yard.

What sacrifices have you made in life?

I don’t believe I have ever made a sacrifice in life.

I have, however,often given up something I valued for the sake of other considerations.

Surely that is just part of normal life and does not deserve the grandiose title of sacrifice.

This morning I got out of a comfy bed to let Hugo out for a wee. An entirely practical consideration in my opinion. I chose to do that.

I am wary of people who say they sacrificed something. The word is just all a bit too ‘drama queen’ for my liking.

But yesterday some light pruning occurred in our yard.  Old blooms cut off to allow new blooms to flourish. That is about as sacrificial as it gets in our house. Anything else is a choice.

#1285 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity, Yardening1 Comment

Love Darting in the sunshine.

There has been way too much of this in our yard. Warm walls and gentle rain has brought out a parade of young snails on a Monday morning. My early morning cup of tea ,with birdsong, was somewhat ruined by watching dark snails of all sizes make their way up my crisp white walls.

Time to redirect the snail population off my white walls and into the snug, bijoux, terracotta paradise that is my composting system. Which means collecting them in a pot and moving them myself.

A Monday morning moan in May.