Living and Gardening in Brittany

I realised when reading old posts that I have concentrated on gardening. I haven't even mentioned my 3-year-old granddaughter or my 4-year-old great granddaughter or my 2-month-old great granddaughter twins. The twin girls Clara and Lucy spent the first month in incubators. They went home for Xmas. I did see them in hospital.  I went to UK to see my oldest grandson being Earnest in The Importance of ---.  he is rather good. Neve is my 3-year-old granddaughter who rules the household and loves dancing.

I employed a tree surgeon to remove 6 dead conifers and 4 huge leylandi. I shall burn wood from the 6 conifers . The leylandi are bigger and I hope to use them to make stools in a circle.  He is also going to remove half of the mimosa when it has flowered.  It is gigantic and is spoiling the lovely fir tree next to it.  It has also spawned many babies; so perhaps they will flower. The surgeon also removed a birch tree which was touching the electric wires. One of the branches of the old cider apple trees had broken and was also covered in ivy. Guy cut down have of it and has cut it up and stacked it ready for burning. Apple wood  burns well and gives off a lovely aroma.

I stayed in France over xmas and New Year. I spent xmas eve with French friends because that is when the French celebrate xmas. It was a lovely celebration but when I returned to my house in the early hours of xmas day i found the house was full of smoke. A basket of sticks next to the fire  had burned and was still smoking.  How lucky I was that the house hadn't burned down. I went to bed and then on  xmas morning I began to tackle the smoke damage.  A friend came on Boxing Day and tried to wash the blackened walls. The next day another friend rang and suggested that I contact the Insurance company which I did immediately.  I sent a report by email and some photos and today an assessor came to assess the damage. He will report back to AXA.  So after contacting AXA I stopped trying to clean up and returned to the garden.  The Winter job that is paramount is weeding the flower beds and adding compost mixed with wood ash. I have so far managed to comple...

I have  at last lifted 2 arum  lillies which were constantly eaten by snails last summer.  I have repotted them and put them in the greenhouse. I will decide  next year where to put them.                          

I must try to keep up this blog because  I have  just  read past posts and found it interesting.  They were about events that I  had forgotten. So I will make  time to  post from now on. This is a  view from my window on an Autumn  morning.  I have been  planting daffodils in the grass under the large lime tree in front of the house.  Today I am going to begin planting tulip bulbs in pots.

The garden at Yvignac  was superb as usual and there were many willow women which I photographed and was the real aim of the visit this year.My first attempt is almost finished. I hope to weave a few more. The autumn colours are stunning this year and my chrysanthemums which I nursed through the winter in the greenhouse have been a success. I have more slates to finish in the grass garden.  I am planting daffodil bulbs. I have two sacks to plant and the ground is so hard it is a gargantuan task. Yesterday a friend gave me a winter flowering camellia so that had to be planted. Sooooo still busy, busy, busy.

There is so much to do at this time.  I was given plants on my recent  visit to the UK. Planting them was a herculean task because we have had so little  rain.  I had to dig holes and fill them with water then wait until it had soaked into the ground. I then filled the hole again.  I did this several times then finally  I was able to place the new plants.  There is one hibiscus, several blue geraniums and several forget-me-not like plants.

I saved lots of plants in the greenhouse in the Winter and I planted them out in the Spring. 1. Canna lilies. I dug up a big plant and split it up into four. I watered them all Winter and then planted them out in Spring and maybe I didn't water them enough because although they grew they didn't flower. Two of them tried to flower but the flowers were quickly eaten by something. I tried coffee as an insecticide but it did not work. Then I tried garlic and that did not work. Now I have to decide whether to overwinter them again or just call it a day.   This is how i would like my cannas to look but they were to bug eaten and manky to photograph. 2. The arum lilies did not fair any better. They were planted in attractive blue pots but were attacked by bugs too. I am going to replant them in the garden with a few others that have been dotted about; perhaps there will be safety in numbers if I plant them altogether.  Next year's arums may look like this. There is no...

Lets hope so.

I have made 2 kinds of fertiliser- 1. Comfrey- apparently this is good for flowers to help them to bloom well.  I think this has been successful. 2. Nettles- this is supposed to help root growth. Difficult to know if this is successful without digging up the plant before and after but I believe Monty Don

I am experimenting with advice from a book that I bought about organic pesticides. So far I have tried coffee but I haven't noticed that it worked. The second try was with garlic. I think this was more successful. I tried it on the canna lilies and the dahlias.   

I have made fertiliser from comfrey and nettles. I used the comfrey a couple of days ago and I swear the geraniums have flourished incredibly. Must make more and used frequently.