Thursday, 17th June 2010

How does your garden grow?

With flower kits and dried flowers and bits of railway landscaping of course vbg.  Actually it's taking less to fill it than I expected and it's getting there quite well.  Still some to go but lookin' good I reckon. I worried whether the dried flowers would mix successfully with the flower kits but it seems to work.  The yellow of the daffodils certainly gives it the 'lift' I was wanting, and some more white will help too.  I've made some 'shrubs' by the front steps by first stretching then rounding  the stretchy vine into a pleasing shape and will try different coloured flowers on them.  And I did the same method for the daisy bush in the right front corner but added daisy flowers I had made up from kits - just put PVA glue on the stems and stuck them through the foliage.  At first I tried it behind the garden bench but it didn't show to advantage so I moved it over

to the right hand side and it looks good there even though you can't see it all that well in the photo.  I like the garden to look good from every angle.

I used a bit more of the dried flower stuff to put more colour at the front of the house on the right side under the window too.  And I made up my daffodil kits.  I was really happy with the results, and when I put the flowers and leaves together I put a blob of glue on some baking paper that I'd taped to a flat surface so it wouldn't move. Then I sprinkled 'soil' over the little blobs of glue, so that patches of white wouldn't show between stems and leaves.  I then poked holes into this mixture and glued stems then leaves into each one.  When all had set and dried I 'planted' some of them in the garden.  I have heaps of them left over, happily, so will be able to use them in another cottage too.  Here are some of the daffs made up ready. 

This next photo shows the first two lots I 'planted'.  They must be the tallest daffs in the world - or perhaps it is a raised garden bed lol!  Anyway, they are very sweet and I am happy that I can buy kits to make up these sweet little flowers.

You can also see the garden seat in the corner.  This was a kit I had and it made up really well.  It's only about an inch or even less in length and it fits perfectly in the space I left for it. 

And Ginger Meggs has taken up residence in the house already.  He is the lovely hand-painted ginger cat I bought from Grace Shaw, and I just love him - he's so well done. Here he is.  He looked right at home just as soon as I put him on the front step.  He's not glued in place yet, because the Welcome mat has to go down first and he hasn't made up his mind where he wants to sit to bask in the sun.  Wonder what he'll make of the naughty squirrels I've also bought from Grace and will also add to the garden?

The pansies also were put together the same way as the daffodils, on small areas of 'dirt' but I had learned my lesson and made the areas much smaller and flatter for them. I have lots of pansies left over too, which is excellent.

Here they are ready to 'plant' but I only needed a very few of them.  I've put them either side of the path - and putting them in I realised that I hadn't allowed any access over the garden to the garden bench lol!  So more stepping stones are in order tomorrow or after we come back from our weekend away to prevent muddy feet I think!

And to finish for now, here is a bird's eye view of the garden so far.  Still more to go, of course, but it's so addictive doing it.  Each step makes such a difference and makes me want to see how it looks when the next thing is added.  But that's how it all goes, isn't it, whether it is a piece of needlework, construction, or decoration?  So satisfying.  And such fun.  And I guess I'll probably have to leave it at this now until Monday.  But we'll see....