End of the garden

Wild and wonderful Sid !!

I like a garden where the plants dance with gay abandon! It's great, Sid.

Are the tall plants foxglove and delphinium? What's the pink stuff bottom right? I like photos like this showing the scene rather than a single flower but your photo failed to capture any dancing! lol

Thanks Mr B and Gee :-)

Gf - Yes, the tall ones are foxgloves and the dark purple thing on the far left is a delph. The pink stuff is in fact a Euphorbia. I often dance around in the garden when no one is looking, but I'm on the wrong end of the camera to capture it for you !!

The bees and butterflies must be in heaven! We like wild dont we BB.

The bees certainly love the foxgloves - you should hear those flowers buzz! lol

Great stuff, thats what we like to hear isnt it. :-))

Your caption could be interpreted in two ways; simply it has grown wild at the moment or it has gone wild and you propose to make changes. What did you have in mind? When I look at an area of my garden I wonder what I should do to improve it and would be interested to hear the suggestions of others. But if I am not happy with an area I feel reluctant to post a photo on GOY. Do you think there is a complimentary culture and a precautionary reluctance to proffer constructive suggestions on GOY? What is your expectation when you post a photo? Your dancing comment leaves me wondering why you dance in your garden only when nobody is looking and how it makes you feel. I have not tried dancing in my garden - do you think I should give it a try? I like euphorbia and have started collecting them. Do you know which variety this is and what are your views on it?

Well Gf, I firmly believe a garden is never quite 'finished'. It is constantly in a phase of transition. It may for a time look a bit wild and unkempt, but the transition is necessary before it starts to look once again as intended. Personally, rather than get annoyed that a plant or area is 'having a rest' and doesn't look quite up to scratch, I try to think of things as being in transition in the knowledge that things will regroup eventually and, by the time the cosmos and various other things in there that are not flowering at the moment have come up and start performing, it will look completly different again. I think it looks ok now - in a wild and woolley sort of way - but it's just not yet as I am planning it to look, say, next month.

With regards to your point re 'complimentary culture', I think it is important to remember that our gardens are just a hobby and whilst one person might have sheds of money and time to spend on their garden, another might not and I think it is difficult to critque a garden without knowing something of the owners background. Personally, when I take photos of my garden, I take great care to miss out my 3-car carpark of a yard, the dumping ground for misc stuff under the hedge, the weedy patch by the garage, washing hanging on the line, etc, etc, as I don't think people want to see these things!!

I think you should try dancing in your garden Gf. It is most liberating. When next your Queen from accross the ocean visits, I think you should invite her to joint in too.

The Euphobia is E. x martinii.

Sid... I'm waiting for the pic of you dancing in the dumping ground. :o)
This is a lovely photo of happy flowers growing in wild profusion....

Thank you for eloquently sharing your philosophy on gardening. I found it very interesting, it has a gentle patience and the first paragraph is to me without flaw.

My memory is not as good as it used to be and I no longer regard gardening as a hobby. Describing gardening as a hobby is like saying football is a sport. Probably before your time a man known to many simply as “god” said “football is not a matter of life or death, it is much more important than that”. Well I am not a football fan but I think the quote kind of sums up how important I feel gardening is to me at the moment. I am not sure I see the significance of an owner’s background. If I went to a National Trust property where money and time are pretty irrelevant I would have no hesitation saying something was ugly. I am unlikely to tell an individual that their garden is ugly, instead if they are capable I might tactfully ask them if they are bone idle. Well now that you have told us all about the unsightly features of your garden, I was left wondering how you could spend so much time dancing when you have all that clearing up to do! However you obviously have not seen this bear dancing, so I will leave that to Queen Catfinch and witches.

As regards the “Euphobia” there is no need to fear or dislike me. I enjoy your bloggs, your interesting comments, your knowledge and humour.

Have you ever been to the Grosvenor Garden centre just outside Chester? I took Queen Catfinch there. We admired Euphorbia x martini and I intended to purchase one but was otherwise distracted at the time. After taking Queen Catfinch to the airport, I called in there again to purchased one. It was described as a shady character but it does not look very shady where it is located in your garden.

TT - you will have a long wait x-D LOL

Gf - 'gentle patience' sounds a good summary of what I would think an ideal attitude towards gardening. Thank you for that. I will try to remember it when answering garden questions, as I think very often when a problem arises they want to apply a remedy straight away - they want an instant solution, they find some greenfly and as a knee-jerk reaction want to spray it with something straight away rather than allow the birds and other preditors time to find the pests. So often, time is all that is needed to solve a problem. That could be applied to other areas of life, couldn't it.

I wonder why you do not regard your gardening as a hobby? Do you think the word belittles what the activity means to you and the impact it has on your life? I suppose to some people, a hobby, like knitting, is just something to do with your hands when there is nothing else to do. Whereas gardening is more like the thing that you willingly let fill the greater part of your time at the expense of other activities. Gardening is my obsession I will freely admit, but I don't mind calling it a hobby. It is the thing that I do when all the boring and necessary stuff (like going to work) is done. I suppose gardening makes me feel the same as you feel while walking in the hills: far away from the telephone and the pressures and realities of real life - a world where one hears the world beyond the fences and hedges, but where only the changing of the seasons has any real influence, which brings a certain perspective to life I think.

I am always happy to give advice if advice is asked for, but design is subjective and beauty in the eye of the beholder. If someone puts a picture of their garden on GoY I must assume that they are proud of what they are showing us and do not require our advice, even if given in good faith, plus I enjoy the variety of the different gardens I see on GoY, even if not all are quite to my taste, but what do I know?!

With regard to 'your Phobia' collection, i have not visited Grosvenor Garden Centre, and I had not realised that E. x martinii was a shady character - maybe that is why he's gone all lobster on me - he's sunburnt.

Sid - Yes gentle patience is a good path to follow for many issues, a balanced happy medium approach to the journey might succeed as well and I frequently favour the all or nothing ride. The sayings horses for courses and reaping what we sow seem relevant here.

never mind Sid........I love it.....

Well Sid, my projects are unfinished, my garden for much of the year looked more like a building site, but the transition continued and it started to look as intended. By August however it was me not the garden that needed a rest. I tried some more hill walking, it did not provide a new perspective but instead increasingly absurd physical challenges. Soon autumn will be with us and the garden will start to wind down but for me renewed impetus to my garden projects will be the order of the day.

In your photo the euphorbia looks like a fire and the flowers remind me of a firework display erupting everywhere. Has the colourful display now gone from the end of your garden and did you get it looking as you desired?