Cats in the Kitchen, Flora in the Garden

Today I went into my local town to look for some plants to finish off my garden and a shrub for Pixie. No problem at all in finding a shrub, but there was not much choice in the selection of plants and too many of them looked as though they had lived in their small pots too long. However I did buy two cuphea hyssopifolia, I have never seen these before but one has pretty little blue flowers and the other has white ones, and they are supposed to flower from May to October.

I came back home, went out into the garden and suddenly decided that one of my small flowerbeds was becoming a bit wild. The trouble is that I just filled it this year with plants I was given, and there was quite a bit of guess work involved in what some of the plants were. Now a lot of them are in flower I see that a number of them are too tall for the bed and are blocking my pots of flowers behind the bed. I think a bit of shuffling around is called for and some will have to move to spaces at the back of other beds. I hope they will transplant ok but they certainly cannot stay where they are.

This afternoon I cut back my poppies as their flowering time is over. I collected all the seedheads on long stalks and tied them in bunches, they will hang upside down in the barn to dry out with paper bags over the heads to collect the seeds. When they have dried they will look lovely in vase as part of a dried arrangement.



This photograph taken at the beginning of June shows how the shady spots between my kitchen and barn are shaping up. Everything in this area is grown in pots or whimsical things like old baskets and kettles. The petunias are a lot more mature now. You can just see the old brown kettle with ivy and periwinkle in it.



This photograph shows my fern and some of my hostas. The fern was a tiny little thing when it was first put out in a pot. I don't know if you can see but just behind the basket handle to the left of the hosta there is a solid green tube, this is the stem of an old bird bath, the basin of it is filled with pots of calendulas and nasturtiums, and when they are flowering I will take a photo of the whole area.



Another selection of my hostas against the sandstone wall of the barn. This shady spot does get a little very early morning sun that shines onto the plants through the slatted bars of the fence. I am surprised at how well the petunias are turning out with just that little bit of sunlight.



I just couldn't resist showing you this photograph of my largest red poppy flower, I have never grown one that large before. Everyone that has visited my garden has commented on its size.

I have decided to make tomorrow a 'me' day, and as it is supposed to be sunny I am going to spend it in the garden pottering about and sitting reading my book and some magazines I bought in the town yesterday. After my 'me' day I will have to get busy in the house as my daughter is coming up from London to stay with us for a few days, and I need to get tidying, cooking and baking.

I must just add as a final piece about Pixie, that we had a lovely sympathy card in the mail this morning, from the staff at the animal shelter where she came from. I thought this was a simple but lovely gesture, and they also said in the longterm if we wanted another cat they would be happy for us to house another of theirs. How comforted I felt, although I know that sounds silly, but I just felt pleased that they thought we were blameless and had done a good job with looking after her.