guest bedroom!

Lol,Fran..you could always leave it up ,and shelter any tender plants etc,under it,till it's given it to be frost free ,and open it up in the daytime..mind you,if you haven't enough pegs,it would up,up and away,I guess :o)
Your planters are looking nice,and your shrubs too..

wow, Bloomer, what a brilliant idea! totally never occurred to me.

I was short of pegs to fix the dorrway, and there's an extending porch that I also couldn't fit; but the main idea was to check the tent for damage and air it, which this is enough for.

This kind of tent goes up tent first, then flysheet over - the inner tent has tabs on the corners, one for pegging the tent and the other for holding the ends of the fibreglass poles. Ii'd been thinking about ways to put just the flysheet up, to use as maybe a summer shade (with the tent as well, the grass underneath is totally covered, and will suffer if it's covered too long). Not sure i could rig the flysheet solo, as the poles fit into sleeves on the tent, so would need to find a way to hold the poles in place (apart from tying them together where they cross at the top) and no way to brail up the fly, either.

lol but i've got another tent, a small hike tent which can be pitched flysheet fisst, so doesn't need an inner tent at all - though still not sure how to lift the sides and yet keep the whole thng stable.

But you've given me food for thoguht, thank you!

the plants and shrubs seem to be doing ok; I try to rememebr to take pics now and then, so i've got a comparison - just found the pics i took last September and this january, so I've got a couple of seasons covered!

Where there's a will,there's a way,Fran,and if anyone can find a solution,it's you ! Lol..I wondered about the grass going yellow though..but not till after I'd posted my comment. I'm good at afterthoughts :o)

lol Bloomer you and me both!

Thanks for the compliment - I'm sure I could "build my own" summerhouse - a light one, bamboo cae frame and woen wicker roof?? but it'd have to be wind-resistant! it whistles a bit round hte corner of the bungalow. There's lots of time, I've only been here four months (gosh, a third of a year already!). I have a beach windshield, might try that, if I can anchor it firmly enough!

in the old days they had separate gorundhseets, so the sides could be lifted to air the inside, and the stuff takend out and hte groundsheet lifted to air the ground. you could always tell bad campers, yellow rectangles in the grass! sadly, wtih the advent of sewn-in groundsheets, yellow grass became the norm.

When we did a couple of the big flower shows with the old Garden Club, we bought a cheap gazebo and stored the plants in there to keep any bad weather off them. It kept them safe from rain and wind the first time, and scorching sun on the second occasion.

good call, Andrew. a gazebo would be big enough and tall enough to have some air circulation and to let people go in and out wtihut having to bend at right angles! this has only one door, so even if I could work out how to rig the flysheet on its own, I'm not sure how useful it'd be as a plant shelter.

All ready for the next music festival Fran or as suggested use for sheltering plants? Your garden is looking very spruce and colourful. Getting to be lawn cutting time too. Our lawn grew like Topsy after I put 4 in 1 stuff on it now it's all blotchy as the moss treatment has kicked in. Our friend cut it this morning. I just want the moss suppressed. It never goes completely anyway. Lovely coloured shrub on the left too.

I don't have any grass-cutting equipemnt (or practice!) and hesitate to buy anything - it'd hae to be electric, cos they're lighter, not so much effort to lug around, and it'd only be used a few times a year, the rest of the time it'd be hanging in the shed, and i've got enough stuff in there at the moment!

Besides, it'd be like vacuuming - i wouldn't be able to get close enough to see that I'm doing it properly - and with a cutter, doing it wrong might damage the plants on the edges.

I'm still waiting for the local gardener service to come round - neighours have said that they'd pass him/her on to me.

I want to get rid of a lot of that grass, anyway, andput raised beds in - did think of just putting large troughs on legs over the grass, but it'd still grow and still need cutting; so maybe take it up in strips. But i do need some professional advice before I do anything that drastic.

I have two other tents which could also do with airing! the very first tent I bought was a 2-person hike tent; it had a pole in the centre of the entrance, which because a prob when my back started playing up and i wasn't as supple as I used to be; dad made ma an A-frame for the entrence, bless him! but it was too heavy to take camping, so I've not tried it more than once. And I have a 1-person hike tent that's never been out of hte bag - back finally gave up just after I bought it - so I'd like to put that up at last once, to see if I can and then to see if I can get into it

But the next time there's a big event in Shrewsbury I could advetise sleeping spaces - for one, two and three people for each tent!

By the way, just noticed your set of bird feeders Fran. Looking good, I was busy tent spotting and my eye went past them.

thanks, Dorjac - they are a bit peripheral, I hadn't noticed that they'd be in the pic myself while I was taking it, was too busy trying to line the tent up. And after, as you say, the eye goes past them.

Ha! Ha! I thought that was your residence LOL :o))

not mine, Bagheera's!! I took it down yesterday; as I started to pull the guys out, the tent shook, and then shook some more as a black cat leaped down and legged it!