Two men went to mow, went to mow a meadow

1 June 2018

John and his off-sider have done a high cut of the meadow areas. The results look more like a No 2 buzz cut to me, but as with all severe haircuts, we can console ourselves that it will grow back, for sure, and in no time at all.

The oleanders and gaura have been severely stressed (perhaps even killed) by the frost in late winter. Let's hope the root stock is still viable...

(Persons of a nervous disposition, those suffering cardiac conditions, the elderly and pregnant women are advised to exercise caution when viewing the video.)

Brown leaves on the oleanders :( but a happy little insect hotel :)

Dead gaura - or just playing possum?

Warned you!

"Give me odorous at sunrise...

30 May 2018

...a garden of beautiful flowers where I may walk undisturbed."

I'm with you there, Walt.

A few more images of la Fromagerie's delights, and evidence of friend C's hammock indolence.

Male walnut flowers overhang the rather wild meadow

Broom, planted last August :)

The figuier looks good

Rose #1 - 'looking a little lonely'

Rose #2 

Female walnut flowers lag behind the male flowers, and are just peeping from the leaves in this image...

Not easy to see, but take my word for it...

Table and chair in the 'best spot' for lunch

At first, the hammock was strung between apple tree #1 and #2. Then, feeling inspired, C strung it in a new spot - between apple #3 and walnut - and the photos taken while savouring the sloth clearly show the discrepancy in leaf canopy. The walnut is always slow to awaken in Spring, but makes up for lost time with a beautiful, cool (but deadly!) shade later on...

Le noyer

Apple #3

And now, some location shots: wild flowers and J-M's roses.

Chabrignacois

Simply gorgeous

Another gardening quote to finish:

"To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow."

In that case, Audrey, I'm a true believer.

How does our garden grow?

11 May 2018

OK, so not with silver bells or cockle shells, and with a notable absence of pretty maids, but rapidement, for sure.

A series of photos from John shows the burgeoning growth in recent weeks. They were taken in the interim between friend C's two visits featured in the last post...

Peeping glycine...and a grapevine up to her ankles in wild flowers

The meadow encroacheth...

All neat and tidy now

Our own little Sugar-Plum tree, growing valiantly in the garden of Shut-eye Town, yet still to bloom on the shore of Lollipop Sea ;)

The scrambling rose, lavender and glycine are all going great guns.

The hazelnut has been cut down to size and is now dwarfed by the pear/quince.

We've asked John to do a high cut of the meadow areas and hopefully, he'll manage this before the summer gets underway and growth slows up.

It's hard to believe that many of the perimeter plants have been in situ for five of six years now, and it's very rewarding to see their progress.

What a difference a month makes; 30 little days

9 May 2018

It's a rare treat to have a rich feast of images showing the garden, orchard and environs waking up to Spring. Friend C has stayed twice recently, in early April and again in early May, and has been out and about showing his customary enthusiasm for the bucolic.

As you scroll down through the photos below - the first four from his April visit, the rest more or less current - you'll see Spring's steady advance....

Bâche still pinned down and plum tree centre stage

The neighbour's old fig tree - still asleep

The grapevine appears skeletal, but the wild pear is in bloom

Location shot - the nearby Chabrignac château

My absolute favourite in this batch - peach blossom in foreground, Renault Clio in the background, new skylight also cunningly in shot...

The walnut just stirring...

...but wait - it's dripping with flowers!

Photinia in all its glory

It's safe to say that one man (with or without dog) did not recently go to mow the meadow 

So it's not entirely asleep, then

Location shot - les fleures sauvages sont partout

Room with a view

18 April 2018

The dépendance, that is, with it's new Velux.

Of course, the official reason for installing a skylight was to improve the ventilation and light, since we are not technically allowed to use the dépendance as habitable space.

But then, did Heidi's grandfather - the alm-Uncle - apply for council permission to put her in her cosy little Heidi-hole? I think not.

So, Tom has worked his magic and has installed a single Velux, and, he says:

"I'm pleased with how it looks, there's a great view from it!"

Now we'll be able to lose the ugly ventilation fan in the apex...

It looks pretty good from the outside too.

Can't wait to see how the dépendance handles the heat in summer, now that the hot air can escape.

Happily, not too long now: I'll be there at the beginning of July, G not far behind.

Well, if you MUST live on the other side of the planet...

18 April 2018

...you can expect to have glitches. Every silver lining has its cloud, after all.

At the end of Feb, an email from Tom, who had been around to measure up for a skylight in the dépendance:

"Someone has smashed into G's picket fence, near the water manhole on the corner of the dependence, it looks like it has been down for a while.

Also, I walked around and noticed that one shutter on the rear gable wall (ground floor) was  open and looked like it had been blowing in the wind for a while (this is the door that G repaired in the summer).

On seeing this I got the key from the keysafe to go inside and secure the shutter. Everything looks absolutely fine inside, and how I presume you would have left it, but the door that G fixed was not locked when I went to open it and secure the shutter. 

The shutter won't completely close due to the horrific amount of rain we've had causing it to plume up. It is now secured with a keep virtually shut. I will plane a couple of mm off it when I fit the velux."

Hmm.

We didn't have to wonder too long before our English neighbour 'fessed up and offered to fix the fence.

That only leaves the unlocked door (!), and swinging, unsecured shutter - both facing the worst of the weather, and certainly the shutter visible from the road. It must have looked abandoned there for a while :(

Hmm.

Fast forward to end of March, and John-the-gardener's email:

 "...it seems someone has knocked over the post box and fence."

This time, we got a visual.

Hmm, indeed.

With friend C due to arrive very soon for a visit, and the place starting to look like a junkyard, we asked said neighbour to fix it tout de suite, and the 'tooter the sweeter', to quote Punch (1917). 

The fence was fixed and stained and back to normal within days.

Then, the car wouldn't start for C. J-M offered a spare battery, but the battery charger showed it to be almost fully charged and miraculously, the car started on the second attempt.

Only for it to fail, once again, a couple of days later. This time, J-M was kind enough to lend C his car for an urgent trip to Objat. Then Y (J-M's mechanic brother) came over and cleaned the rusted points (I stand to be corrected, of course) and got it started again. He blamed the bâche for the buildup of humidity, and suggested we leave it off in future. That won't be as hard as keeping it on has proved to be: the wind has torn it right off the car - straps and fixings flailing - on more than one occasion.

These things must come in threes, because the Clio wouldn't start on C's last morning, so he couldn't move the car under the porch, as Y had advised.

Ah well, C will be back in May, and perhaps he can get Y to look at it then.

C's last day also revealed that the broom/mop handle has gone missing. It was there when we left, but apparently Hazel-the-cleaner couldn't find it after our last guest left. When I say 'last guest', I mean that - we've only had one guest, and that will be the last time. I don't count friends in that group.

It's simply not worth the hassle, the cost of cleaning, and all the unexplained curiosities (such as, but not limited to - as they say - the broom/mop handle, the unlocked French door and the unsecured and flapping shutter).

Don't get me started.

Wettest winter in 50 years...

3 April 2018

...and cold, with it.

Well, that's officially a real winter, isn't it? J-M and the locals should be happy - they've been muttering darkly about the absence of real winter weather in recent years, which - they reckon - ruins the harvest in later months.

I guess they might know what they're talking about - they, or their forebears, have been growing things on this land for generations.

So, while we enjoyed the last sultry days of a protracted Sydney summer, La Fromagerie struggled through, dreaming of the benevolence of spring while fastidiously scraping mud from her boots.

John's photos are testament to the growth, and it is gratifying to see.

Since the latest batch of photos always brings on an attack of acute-on-chronic homesickness, I pore over every detail and, of course, want to see things that are inevitably and frustratingly just out of frame. I want to know how every last plant is doing - are there signs of life, buds, flowers, even? Or has the severity of winter cut an unforgiving swathe through all those tender parts?

Have the pink, white and cerise laurier roses (oleanders) grown; do they screen René's pink house a little more? Is the new white Buddleia OK? And what about the two new roses, alongside the dépendance? Has the glycine taken the hint and started to climb the oak frame of the porche?

And then there's my insect hotel - has it survived the punishing buffets of the winter wind?

The Photinia is looking good...

In the photo below, you can see that John has pruned back the hazelnut within an inch, or more accurately 150cm of its life. It's now dwarfed by the wild pear tree. Rumour has it that the vine has been pruned by J-M since the photo was taken ;)

For those of you with nothing better to do than indulge in a bit of armchair gardening, check out the reasonably perky rose and rather bedraggled hortensia in the foreground, and spot the glycine bud creeping around from behind the oak post...and the pink blossoms on the peach tree to the left.

Raymond's house is still à vendre and does not improve with the keeping, if I may say so....The gaura looks a bit winter weary, but the Buddleias and laurier roses are OK. Can't quite make out the dwarf rhododendron in the right foreground...
A $10 meat tray to the first person who notices the insect hotel. It's gratifying to see that it's still vertical, though possibly guest free. 

A random photo of the wild flowers - specifically, cowslip

The bâche is still lying where we left it, weighed down with stones and iron wheel rims. Hopefully, it has suppressed the growth of grass and weeds, so that preparing the herb garden will be easier this summer.

Les taupes s'amusent ;)

As for G, his main focus is 'his' prunier, a rather puny sapling when he planted it in September...

To all you fashionistas out there, I solemnly declare that the offending footwear remains in the garden at all times.  

...and there it is, on the left, valiantly holding its own. Hmm, not sure that it has grown at all, but hey, it's alive!

Next instalment - changes to the dépendance!