Playing with water!

The Postman brought me a parcel today! I have got a bit hooked on online shopping and as I am expecting a few different deliveries I had no idea what was in this packet!

I was delighted to find it was a pair of tiny solar fountains, one for each pond! It was a beautiful sunny day so an ideal day to test a solar-powered item. I hurried out to try it out but alas the pond was so full of gung that it wasn't able to work properly. So while I tackled the pond the little fountain happily sprayed in the air in a bucket of water!

It was a perfect day to do a job like this, warm and sunny. I rolled up my sleeves and got cracking. The bucket beside was quickly filled up with pond weed, dead leaves and as much muck as I could lift. I resorted to a sieve to try and separate the gung from the water but it didn't really work. A bucket came into play to empty the pond and as the water level fell what was revealed was a really surprising number of stones large and small! 

It is over ten years since we built this little pond and I haven't really done much maintenance on it. I tried a water-lily in it but it didn't thrive so I ended up relocating it to the Stream Pond where it was much happier! I have a vague memory of putting a layer of stones in the bottom of the pond when it was new to camouflage the pond liner but judging by the pile of stones I retrieved many stones must have fallen in unnoticed over the years! The piles of stones either side of the pond were fished out today!

The cleaning of the pond took longer than I expected and by the time I had refilled it the sun was going down and my new toy was no longer spouting water! I shall have to wait until tomorrow to see it in action in the much cleaner pond!

But when I was drawing the curtains I saw the pretty Fairy Aoife illluminated by the light fountain my daughter gave me a few weeks back! She looks much happier in her new location among the potentillas of the Burren Garden!

A bit of real gardening

 It was bright and sunny most of the day today although there was a bit of an East wind keeping things cool - but I was delighted to be doing a bit of "real gardening" today - well, almost real gardening! Last Autumn I transplanted all my Hollyhocks to the Tall Herbaceous border beside the Shelter Belt and I had a plan to make supports for them from the great pile of bamboos that have been gracing my patio since last year. I considered various types of wigwams and piramids but that kind of support didn't work well last year. In the end I made trellis from the bamboos tied with the inevitable cable ties and secured them at each end to sturdy hazel rods also harvested last year. I am delighted with the results particularly since I also got round to weeding these borders and tidying them up! 

I am hoping I will be able to secure the Hollyhocks to the trellis as they grow so they should make a great backdrop to that area of the garden.  The soil seems pretty awful in these borders so I sprinkled on some of the "Soil Renew! stuff I got from Mr Middleton last year. I hope to see marvellous things after all that TLC!

One other thing - there is a notice on Blogger saying that email notifications will cease in July - not sure how that will affect people accessing the Blog.

April showers may come my way

 Today I was busy until about 4 pm so when I was free to go out I was delighted to see that the sun had come out after a heavy shower so I togged out in the gardening gear and set out to put the finishing touches to one corner of the garden that needed work after the recent removal of the hedgerow beside my garden. 

The spuds were planted a couple of weeks ago but haven't appeared yet. I was too late to get some more of the Hornbeams that are already there so I felt I needed to put something in place to reduce the feeling of being so totally exposed! 

Since it was time to cut back the willow fencing it seemed an obvious solution to extend the rather rickety willow fence at the end of the garden up to where the Hornbeams begin.

Most of that was completed yesterday but I had some good long willow branches left over so today I tried to patch up the old willow fence and was really feeling I was making progress when the lovely sunshine vanished and the heavens opened! Of course, typically, there were only a few more pieces to secure so I had to stay and complete it. 

It was probably less than ten minutes including the dash to the shed to put the tools away but I was soaked to the skin! Not really feeling like singing "April Showers" just at the moment - more like "Singing in the Rain"!!!!

Happy Easter

 The past few days of sunshine have really brought the garden into Spring with a bang! There are still some projects in progress but they are moving along now and before too long I'll be able to feel that normality has returned here to Gortnalee. In the meantime I am taking time out from the project work to just enjoy the fabulous colour! 

Spring Fernery

Close-up of Snakes Head Fritillary

Omphalodes Cappadocica 'Starry Eyes'

Grape Hyacinths at the small pond

Happy Easter to all!