Welcome to Ethel Smith's garden zone. It may be postage stamp size but it warms the heart on a cold day. Constructed in early Spring it will mirror the changes as we move to Summer, Autumn, Winter and back to Spring again.
So it is September and Autumn is almost upon us, once the final blast of an Indian Summer has gone.
Ethel has always loved gardens and plants, from the very tiny square terraced garden of her childhood home, that was guarded by privet and, despite its size, was a riot of colour in Summer, to the often larger gardens of her adulthood homes. Even those though will have been small by most people's standards.
Still with many houseplants and pots to supplement the garden space there has always been variety. The small garden pond has been filled in last year but the frogs have still returned this year, 2009, and it is easy to feel sorry for them. However there are neighbouring ponds for them to take over whilst they mate.
Having green fingers, like her Mum before her whatever EthelI plant survives, and survives well, however little attention is paid to the rules. This zone will hopefully inspire readers to fill their gardens with as much flora and fauna as they can and then relax, sit back and enjoy.
Started in Spring today is now September 11th in the UK and Autumn is just around the corner, so this zone is ready to move on a little. Officially British Summer time ends on the last Saturday in October and Ethel, for one, will be sad to see summer go for another year.
|
Ethel Smith's other zones by Isabel Sacks Late summer does not have to be dull as the glorious abundance of summer colour fades away into the misty mornings of the autumn. This time of year enables you to fill some of the gaps left by the ten...read more YOUTUBE FLOWERSGardens and Gardening Blog ArchiveLocal Weather warningsGardeners and Gardening Blog on May 20, 09 at 03:16 PM Well it has been fairly warm of late but there has been so much rain. I think the seasons in the UK are all out of sync and it seems more like April, except the rain is more than just showers. The knock on effect is that everybody's gardens are lush and green but overgrown. It is nigh on impossible to do any gardening and sit out enjoy the fruits of your labour. With a bank holiday weekend looming though the forecast looks set to change so fingers crossed. If it turns dry there will be barbecues galore and the constant sound of lawn mowers working overtime. No doubt the doctor's surgeries will end up busy with masses of patients with bad backs and the like. on Apr 10, 09 at 10:22 PM After the unseasonal warm weather we have had a changeable week. Here in Yorkshire today, Good Friday, the weather decided to do its usual Bank Holiday trick and it rained. It has been warm but wet and miserable. Still, although I hate to be a party pooper, it has done the gardens good. Already my small pansies are blossoming out and the two old hydrangeas in the back garden have lush, green foliage on them. Some sunshine for the rest of the weekend would be nice though. on Apr 01, 09 at 06:05 PM It was hard to belief today that it was only the first day of April. The weather has been exceptionally mild. So much so that an elderly neighbour remarked that it was more like June. He then said, perhaps this is Summer?. I knew exactly what he meant. Our weather is so changeable and it seems odd to think that last weekend we had night frosts and the threat of snow. Still I shall be grateful for small mercies and enjoy the sunshine, whatever time it lasts. I am lucky enough to be on leave from work this week and have been loving pottering in the garden. Already there are baby blackbirds chirruping, mating frogs croaking away, the odd butterfly and more than one bee whizzing about. on Mar 26, 09 at 04:58 PM 26th March 2009 My attempts to restock my miniature sized garden continue. The weather has turned cooler and so I cannot plant out anything which may be sensitive. However I bought a Pink Hydrangea plant which I managed to plant out today. I love these rather fussy plants. I have a white one, which is slightly more unusal, and a Pink on in the back garden. The white one's flowers turn to green with time and are strange but nice somehow. Apparently white is the normal colour for Hydrangea flowers but it is less common when purchasing a plant in the UK. The colour of Hydrangeas can be forced sometimes. My first hydrangea was blue when bought but became pink with time despite my attempts to maintain its blue colour. Ericaceous compost works well and I was told adding rusty nails to a hyadrang on Mar 25, 09 at 02:51 PM 25th March 2009-The above photo is my front garden just as the rain took hold in the Summer of 2007. Although the rain only lasted a day many people were flooded by the time night fell and there are still a few local residents waiting to return home, once the renovations are complete. Our small front garden took a battering last year, having our temporary home, the dreaded caravan, parked on it for about nine months. This was due to the City's flooding during summer 2007. The builders had already had to demolish our front wall and chop down the central tree in order to accomodate the caravan. What grass we had left looked very sad and sorry ,come last September, when it finally saw the light of day. As gardening is harder for us as we are aging, all too quickly I'm afraid, we decided to gi  by Ethel Smith Bearing in mind that when we had our first small lawn, and no money, we had the most basic equipment for lawn maintenance, namely a manual mower and some large scissors to trim the edge(Yes you read t...read more RELATED TAGS by Ethel Smith One of my favourite flowering shrubs finishes flowering in late Spring for yet another year. We had our first Forsythia plant quite few years ago, in our second home, and recently have rediscovered th...read more Americans are "going green." They're converting their back yards to vegetable gardens; flower beds are showing off the stocky blooms of cauliflower as well as rosebushes. Not since Eleanor Roosevelt p...read more More Gardening In The Enchanted Garden
|
||||||||||||||||||
Zone Rating: 59
Write
Digg
Facebook
Del.icio.us
Stumbleupon
Reddit
Ma.gnolia
Google
Contact
Add as a Friend
Photo from flicker by historyanorak of a wet Princes Street in Hull
Showing Comments 1 to 7 of 7