Japanese Style Courtyard

We have at last finished transforming the courtyard. I have been waiting for the leaves to come out before publishing some photos.

John has moved every rock himself ... under supervision!

Guess What.....

........its stopped raining  and the temperatures have risen to the high twenties. So I hurriedly took some photos of the late Spring garden before the tulips got burnt up.

 

 

I know this photo has no tulips in it but it was my attempt at an "arty" photo which popped up whilst I was taking the others.

Showing Off

As I now have two articles published in glossy magazines I feel justified in shouting about it. OK they may not have the largest circulation but I feel quite proud.

Many of you will know that we open our garden under the auspices of Open Gardens/Jardins Ouverts. This a charity started in 2013 to raise money for children in France affected by cancer. It is organised on roughly the same lines as The National Garden Scheme in the UK. The concept of opening ones garden to the public is rather "strange" to the French but never the less from three gardens open in 2013 this year 200 will open. I recently took over as coordinator for the Lot Department and no doubt photos will appear here in the future when we attend numerous plant fairs to publicise the scheme.

It was through this organisation that I was asked to write a piece for "French Entree" which was published last Autumn and in April "Living France" published another article which I wrote about our garden. Both magazines are aimed at people living in France or planning to move here. If you are interested you can read the article at this link 
 http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk//launch.aspx?eid=1092ee66-3088-47a9-95d0-eab4457297afis. Unfortunately it is on page 61!! I haven't been asked to contribute to Gardeners World yet but you'll be the first to know if I am approached!!

In the doghouse?

No ... just the latest piece of gardening equipment to 'harden off' young plants.

Mind you it's big enough to get in with a sleeping bag!

The Eternal Optimist ...

... or is it just a new way to feed the birds?

As you can see we've finally got round to reseeding the bare patches in the front lawn which we made in the autumn by weed-killing it.  We've done about a third and then had to go off to buy more cheap compost!!!
That was our second trip of the day; we had raced off to Lidl's for 9 am to buy Petunias which Sue had seen advertised as arriving today.

They weren't in as good condition as previous years so needed some emergency TLC and a good drink ...

Busy Day Yesterday

Just to let you know that despite the days of rain we are not idling about. Also it is a bit of showing off that we can still do quite a lot.

6.30am - Jump out of bed as Nurse is due at 6.45 am to take a routine blood test. (Actually we were up at the same time on Monday as we drove 3 hours north to have lunch with a friend and 3 hours back. Yes we know we are balmy) Today (Wednesday) repeat alarm call as John had his annual appointment with his Hematologist in Toulouse. Tomorrow morning visit from Nurse again scheduled for 6.45am for further blood test and injection for me.........Friday lay in!! So far medical results all good.

Returning to Monday
9.00am to 12 noon we filled 50 sacks of compost at the recycling depot brought them home and started to fill the raised bed which John has made for me in the new Japanese garden. It was 20% off everything at the garden centre over Easter so we bought about a dozen plants which need planting.

1.00pm - 5.00pm John mowed all our grass and I finished weeding/digging the prairie beds.

5.30 - crawled in for a restorative drink

7.00 - Evening Meal

9.00 - BED.

As it wasn't raining yesterday I managed to take a couple of photos of the Spring garden which is looking a bit sorry this year.