Friday 24 July 2015

Garden, July 2015.

I'm still waiting for my garden to come together, and for the spread-y plants I've put in to spread and cover the bare soil, but there's been some progress this month.

Do you like my DIY plant markers?  They're just corks with a wooden skewer poked into them.  After lots of experimenting, I found the best pen to use to write on the cork was Biro, sharpies and permanent markers wouldn't work!   There are a couple of tutorials for this on one of my pinterest boards here, but they're really simple to make.

DIY cork plant name makers. secondhandsusie.blogspot.co.uk

Joe and his dad brought this Very Heavy mangle from Joe's dad's garden to come and live with us.  I've put it under the kitchen window and I'll keep herbs on it, if I can bring myself to move the beautiful Livingston Daisies.  They're my favourite!  I've taken the tomato plants out of pots and planted them directly in the Belfast sink, with some calendulas and sunflowers.  While I was tying them to stakes I noticed there were lots of flowers and a few green tomatoes coming too!

Old mangle and Belfast sink in garden. secondhandsusie.blogspot.co.uk

Livingstone daisy Sparkle Mix secondhandsusie.blogspot.co.uk

My garden friend this month is this little green shield bug!

Shield beetle secondhandsusie.blogspot.co.uk

I made a start on one of the back corners of the garden.  I wish I'd taken a before photo, there were weeds and vines and brambles so you couldn't see the corner of the shed or the tree stump!  I made a 'bee waterer' too!  It's the dish of marbles on top of the tree stump, so insects can have a drink without drowning.  You can find a tutorial for a bee watering hole pinned here, but it's basically marbles in a dish!

Bee waterer  secondhandsusie.blogspot.co.uk

My honeysuckle has grown loads and is spreading along the two-tone fence, with the ivy and clematis.  (Please note the 2-tone fence is actually 3 tone, the pale and green fence in the photo below, and the khaki green fence in the photo above are all one and the same length of fence!  The other side is painted brown!)

Honeysuckle and clematis to cover fence. secondhandsusie.blogspot.co.uk

I'm still mostly concentrating on this side of the garden.  I cleared a lot from the back and planted a passion flower and a goji berry to climb up the wall. 

Summer garden. secondhandsusie.blogspot.co.uk

How's your garden this month?

I'm sharing my homemade cork plant markers as my contribution to Make, Thrift and Tell, this month's theme is natural.  And linking up with Flaunt it Friday and Your Turn to Shine.

10 comments:

  1. Looking good - liking your cork plant markers - very inventive!

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  2. The cork labels are very clever! Your garden us looking super and hurrah for the mangle!!! Yours are looking very neat. I am VERY unhappy with slugs and snails who have eaten ALL the leaves on my dwarf beans!!

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    1. Oh naughty slugs/snails! I only seem to have a slug problem down one side of the garden, the other side is fine, very strange!

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  3. Love your plant markers! The mangle reminds me of PE lessons at school, for some reason there was an old mangle in the changing rooms that must've been there for decades.

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    1. That's so funny to have a mangle in your school changing rooms! :)

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    2. I know, we never did know why it was there!?!?!

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  4. I am digging the cork plant markers and will plan to start saving my corks, not that we drink that much wine. I love how your garden looks and the slates serving as borders. It will begin to look great soon, i just know it.

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    1. Thank you Shaheen, I hope you're right!

      We don't actually drink wine, I've had to buy a packet of corks from the homebrew section of Wilkinsons!

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  5. It looks like you've got lots of space to grow goodies Susie and will make good use of it. Our little garden only had a laburnum tree in the middle and one of the first things we did was put in a small pond, transplant elder, holly, dogwood from self-sown bushes from a friend's garden, and I made two veg patches.....then I got the allotment too! But the potential in your garden looks great. This is your first year there?
    The cork idea is brill, I have one of those big wine-making jars full of corks from over the years, it'll be interesting trying to get them out the narrow bottle neck when the time comes to use them!

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