The Slope on Thursday – Hope for the future

The very cold weather predicted for last weekend didn’t materialise and turned out to be perfect weather for planting bulbs, warm, and very still.  No wind at all is quite unusual in my garden so I took full advantage and have now planted all of the tulips and the majority of the other bulbs.  There are still some Iris, Alliums and miscellaneous others waiting to go into the cuttings beds.  Yesterday it rained for most of the day but this morning there is a watery sun making photography difficult.  Cold nights are again predicted for this weekend.

Wordless Wednesday – Fruits and berries

In a vase on Monday – in the pink!

Monday is here again and time to fill a vase with flowers from the garden for Cathy at Rambling in the garden’s meme.  Cathy is away but her dedication is amazing and she has filled a vase with pickings from the garden of where she is staying.

GBFD – Sunshine, blue sky, I’m smiling

Welcome to Garden Blogger’s Foliage Day, where I celebrate the foliage that is the most important feature of my garden.  Today, as you can see from my title is sunny and after a cold start is now beautifully warm.

Looking across the garden from the top of the drive

Apart from the leafless trees this scene looks more like summer.

The Slope on Thursday – November evening light

Obviously the evening light isn’t today Thursday!  Yesterday afternoon while I was ironing I noticed that the light was once again wonderful and wanted to capture the November light as I had done the light in October.  While I was outside with my camera, leaving the ironing to wait for a few minutes, I decided I would show the slope in this lovely clear light.

Wordless Wednesday – Autumn colour in the vineyards

In a vase on Monday – a bit of zing!

Today is miserable, with rain and dark skies; I had to dodge the showers to pick flowers for today’s vase.  I had intended to include a hand tied bunch of flowers I gave to a friend yesterday who had invited us for a wonderful meal of food from her homeland of Cyprus.  But the rushed photographs looked a complete mess even though I was quite happy with the bouquet itself.  The Zinnia I included had come from my friend so it seemed fitting that she should have the last one in her bouquet.

The slope on Thursday – There’s no denying it now!

Changeable weather here again; Monday was wet for moist of the day, Tuesday was warm and sunny, on Wednesday it rained in the morning and then was cold in the afternoon, Thursday was lovely all day.  Every morning the garden is soaked with dew.

I am a day late with this post; time just ran out yesterday but the photographs were taken on Thursday morning when the sun was bright but low making it difficult on the west facing slope to get clear images.

Wordless Wednesday – Melia azedarach

Fast growing Melia azedarach

Yellow berries that will remain until spring

For more information about this wonderful tree click here.

In a vase on Monday – One year on

I’ve been looking back at some of my earlier posts for Cathy’s inspirational meme “In a vase on Monday” and see that last year I was putting roses in vases in December, while I have roses this year I seem to be more reluctant to pick them than last year, that maybe due to the advent of the cutting bed making me want to pick flowers from there if I can.

I didn’t begin the cutting bed because of this meme, I had been planning the bed for a while but the meme has meant that I kept picking and trying to hone my skills at arranging the flowers.  I’m sure without the meme there would have been some days, that might have become weeks, when I wouldn’t have done a vase.  Too much to do, wet weather (its pouring again today and I made sure I picked the flowers before the rain started in earnest), or something would probably have stopped this becoming a fixed habit.  So a big thank you goes to you, Cathy, I really appreciate that you have posted every week without fail, even when you’ve been far from home.