A Dog Walk Around the Village!

I decided to take a few pics of our 3.5 mile walk around our village, there are a number of working farms, so the roads are horrendously muddy and shitty too!!

Darcy loves this walk when its dry

Walking uptowards Heddington

Roundway Hill

Our own Meditation Temple

Darcy does everything not to walk in the running water down the side of the road!

Still going uphill

We have walked across the top of the village, turning down just before the church.

Passing the Village pub.

On down the hill we are now going through some of the muddiest parts of the village.

The hill to the right is called Kingsplay!

Coming back round into Stockley. Darcy is now trailing behind, he really hates wet and mud!

Coming to the home straight. I am now having to chivy Darcy along ....

More mud and puddles....

What is better than a bath after a long walk errrrr not, Darcy hates this,, but it is a regular occurence becuase this is what happens to a dog with short legs!

But then we have a grotty bath to clean out!!

Afterwards once he is towel dried

he goes mad running around downstairs, something he always does, I must try and get it on video one day!!!

All Packed Away?

At my slimming club this morning I was asked, if  my garden was all packed away yet?

So I thought I would show you, my now very empty garden.

Hubby and I managed to get the last plants out of the ground on Saturday, just in time, as we started having quite white frosts that night.

Now it is empty and desolate. The Ricinus as you can see have finally succumbed, they where just starting to form seed pods too. Everything that is left is hardy so will remain until next year.

On the patio the TRex seems untouched by the frost

The same with the tree ferns,

The Arid bed all tucked up. My Olive tree, I have had this for years, I would really like to plant this in, but it is so small it would look silly. I suppose I could make a raised bed for it? Something to think about.

From the archway down to the greenhouse, all bare!

Had a fright Sunday night, when I went in and checked my thermometer and found it was -3C so set up and extra heater. That has obviously done the trick!!! 5C is as low as I like it to go.

So the Brugmansia are now in and will remain dry all winter. I had them planted in the garden this year, but they failed to flower , I will put them back into big pots next year.

The Ensetes (bananas) still upside down, I will turn them in a couple of weeks.

The cactus all seem happy.

Whats worrying me is how empty the greenhouse is? I have looked back over previous years and for some unknown reason, I have no pics of the winterized greenhouse.

Looking up the garden from the archeway! The hardy banana Musa Basjoo, will die right back then pop up again next year!!

So there you go, probably the last post for this year, I am already buying seeds ready for next year, just have to put them in a place I remember where they are!!!

Autumn Has Arrived!

This morning we had our first frost. 3C when I got up at 06.00 this morning. We have had a lot of fog the last few days, which keeps the temps up. But his morning was sooooooo pretty.....

I love these sort of days, cold, crisp and sunny, the ideal autumnal day. Realistically it is grey, murky and damp!!!

I thought I would share with you one of my all time favourite flowering autumnal plants. Grown from seed each year, this plant slowly scrambles over vast distances before it begins to flower in October.
I introduce Cobaea Scandens

Day one...

This is the purple one, but all the flowers start off cream.

Day two....

Day three...

also day three, you can now see other Day one flowers opening..

Day four...... I know, I know, looks very much like day 3, but I can assure you it is darker and obviously time to get a new camera.

all I can say is this is definitely worth growing

The other option is Alba, which is cream, but why have just cream when you can have cream through to purple?

We have had our first serious frost this morning

but the 'cup and saucer' plant  keeps on flowering.

The following pics are taken this morning after the frost and I would just like toploint out this is just one plant.

Highly recommended!