Showing posts with label Saturday Saunter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Saturday Saunter. Show all posts

Monday, 22 February 2016

A Saturday Saunter Down A Country Lane

Hi Everyone

I'm still experiencing problems with my camera and yet to sort it out. Thought I'd try my DH's Olympus but having just as much trouble with that. It would seem I need a CD Rom to enable me to download pics to my PC and, as it was bought secondhand, we don't have it. So, just to prove I haven't given up altogether, I'm posting some photos taken during a saunter we took a couple of Saturdays ago, before cameragate!!! It's a short walk that takes us by several footpaths and streets down to the lane that goes through the nearby golf course.
It was, as you can see, a bright and beautiful day. This is the boundary hedge to the golf course. It was a chilly but dry day and the sky was mostly a clear blue with just a few 'white fluffy clouds in a cluster hanging on a breeze to dry' (lyrics from an old Max Bygraves song - can be heard here).
Lichen growing in the hedge. I believe that they are an indicator of clean air but this growth is only a few yards from the A77, the main arterial road from Glasgow to Stranraer - a very busy road causing, you'd think, a great deal of pollution. Not so here. The only other fact I know about lichens are that they are used in the making of natural dyes. A quick search online shows that the colours can not only be the shades of yellows and browns, as might be expected given the colours we see growing, but also very pretty shades of pink and lilac. If you fancy having a go at dyeing with lichens there's more information over at Jenny Dean's Wild Colour and It's A Stitch Up websites.
Ivy in flower. Apparently this is good for the bees and gardeners are now being urged not to rip up ivy when tidying their gardens. Honey bees rely on ivy for the majority of the pollen and nectar they collect during the autumn months, a crucial time when the insects are trying to build up stores for the winter and feed their young. Now, I like ivy for the way it clads a fence, climbs up trees, and provides some much needed foliage in a winter vase when there's little greenery about but DH considers it nothing but a pest to be controlled at all costs. I think I have a major hill to climb to persuade him otherwise!
There's a big old house down the lane which has a pair of ornamental iron gates, at the end of the driveway, with some very nice detailed work on them.
A pretty shrub flowering away in February. I'm not sure what this one is called, possibly a viburnum tinus, but at a time when there's not many flowers in the garden spotting it blooming away was such a treat.
That sky again! This photo was taken at the top of the lane. We live under the flight path from the airport at Prestwick so it's unusual to look up and not see a plane overhead. It was no different on this day - seconds after this photo was taken one flew over, no doubt full of folk escaping the cold of our Scottish winter for warmer climes.

Hope you enjoyed this wee stroll down our nearest country lane.

Taking the advice of a fellow blogger, I have on order a new memory disk for my camera. I'm hoping that will provide an end to my camera problems and I will soon be back posting my crafty makes. Until it arrives I'll try to find other, previously photographed but not posted, items that might be of interest.

Many thanks for popping by. If you leave a comment, all the better.

Saturday, 12 July 2014

Saturday Saunter ...

... round my garden.

Evening Everyone,

I hope you are having a great weekend so far. Here, it's been a dull and dreich day so no lounging around topping up the sun tan for us today. Instead, I took a wee saunter, with camera, round the garden and thought I'd share a few of the photos taken.

Our garden is divided into two - the front garden and the back. The following photos are from the front.
Our front door surrounded by pots of pelargoniums, primulas, pansies and hanging baskets of surfinias.
The EM's pride and joy :)
These hanging pots were planted up with pansies until recently ... they didn't do well there at all. We're hoping the red and white pelargoniums will fare better.
To the left of the front door and in front of the dining room window is this wonderful rose. Inherited with the house, it has no name but I think it might be Queen Elizabeth. It's vigorous, the blooms are large peachy coloured and the perfume is divine. If anyone can put a name to her we would be delighted.
Much of the garden that is directly in front of the house has been gravelled - before our time - leaving a small border running along the fence which the EM has planted up with roses, lupins and nasturtiums. The lupins are slowly recovering after being attacked by an army of slugs and snails!
We brought this pot containing a smoke bush (Cotinus coggygria 'Royal Purple') and Lady's Mantle (Alchemilla mollis) with us from our last house. I plan to free them from the confines of the pot eventually and plant them in one of the borders. I think the smoke bush would benefit from being able to spread its roots again.
On the other side of the front path, and therefore to the side of the house, there's a lawn with a shrubbery on two sides. The butterfly bush (buddleia) is another plant inherited with the house but the lavatera is one we planted just a few weeks ago ... stunned to see it flowering already :)
Finally, because I think you might have seen quite enough by now, here's a last shot of the butterfly bush growing just in front of one of the two Rowan trees (Sorbus) in the garden. It was pruned quite drastically in the spring and has now repaid us by growing purple panicles that are at least a foot long. No butterflies on them today - but then, sigh, it's not really butterfly weather.

I hope you enjoyed this little saunter round what is only a fraction of our garden. And that's only the front! I'll leave the back for another time.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend.