It’s wet, miserable and cold here in Manchester today (not as cold as it should be though), so I thought I’d write a summary blog of how our garden’s flourished this year.
Considering the extreme weather at times, the gardens’ fought back boldly, with some plants doing better than others.
Continue readingI’ve wrote a lot about our wildlife garden, in relation to attracting moths, butterflies, bats, bees and dragonflies for example. Recently, I was asked to speak about what we’ve done to help garden birds, from food sources, shelter, places to drink & bathe and great nest building sites.
This third blog from my Grandma brings us up to date on how her garden grows; starting with landscaping in April to a celebratory tea party in August ’21. Funny enough, I’ve been at Grandma’s this afternoon and despite making good progress last year, there’s still an awful lot of work to do!
Following on from last week’s post, this second blog, picks up mine and Grandma’s ‘gardening graft’ from Autumn ’20 through to late Winter ’21, with a quiet Christmas and another lockdown thrown into the mix.
If you follow me on my social media sites, you might know that I’ve been helping to redesign my Grandma Barbara’s Garden. Started back in July 2020, we’ve worked on it together at weekends and school/college holidays, whenever we could squeeze a session in. Sometimes we were so busy we forgot to take ‘before & after’ photos, but my Grandma always wrote a little log of what we achieved. Here’s the first in a series of blogs
I’ve received lots of feedback following last week’s post about making Green Plans for ’22, it seems January makes us all feel motivated to plan for brighter times ahead.
I had such a great response that I thought I’d share some of your inspiring comments; here’s just a few:
Continue readingJanuary, it’s a bit of a weird month; after all the hype of December and despite the start of new beginnings, it can seem a little grey and drab. At times I can be quite a fan of January, especially those crisp, frosty, blue-sky, walking outdoors kind of days, but often it feels too long of a slog til the first taste of spring. For me, it feels like, ‘head-down, work hard’ and plan for brighter times ahead; here’s just a few of my Green Plans for 2022:
Continue readingI’ve lived opposite The Pennines all my life and during the many lockdowns I became a bit obsessed with exploring the hills, trees, rivers and paths, literally every nook and cranny. The moors rarely change: the wind, the rattling heather, the carved rocks remain, and always remain. For me, when everything seemed so out of control, they were the one thing I could rely on. And now it’s my time to give something back, as I’ve just started doing some volunteer conservation work with RSPB Dove stones.
Today is World Mental Health Day and there’s stacks of info out there about the benefits gardening can have on your wellbeing.
I wrote this blog a while ago, about how gardening makes me feel free and how it has helped me, when I’m feeling stressed and worried about stuff and it’s just as relevant today.
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Tomorrow, (20.08.21) BBC Radio 2’s Big Bee Challenge Garden is launched and I’m proper buzzin’ to have been involved. Bees are so important in our gardens, for pollination – flowers, plants, fruit and veg all need them – they are an essential part of our eco-system!
Green Fingered George 