I am a bit of a dreamer. I like to muse over things and always have ideas bobbing around in my head of things i am planning or the seeds of new creations. This past week i have been musing about flowers for the garden. I mainly grow herbs and veg with a bit of fruit but really fancy introducing a bit more colour and tartiness to the garden. On Friday i treated myself to a little wander around our local garden centre with only myself and my thoughts to accompany me. I wandered around for ages. It's a good time to go to see the variety of plants available and to get ideas. I wasn't intending to purchase anything but something wouldn't let me leave empty handed. After coveting a beautiful heuchera, a replacement eucalyptus (yes mine died) and a nostalgic hydrangea (fond memories of visiting my granddad's house with a lilac hydrangea to the right of his front door), i came away with two dramatic 'gallery' dahlias (art nouveau) and 3 blue trailing verbenas. I wasn't even sure were i would put them. It wasn't until i got home that i realised my chosen plants reflected the exact colours i was wearing.
Have you ever done that? Deep pink really does seem to be a favourite just now....
my gardening gloves...
... and my new tulips are a similar colour.
Later that day i sat outside with all my gardening books dreaming of flowers and sowing my new seeds. Early that evening i started digging up a bit more lawn to make a bit more planting space.
My favourite flowers are echinacea or 'cone flower'. My clever youngest daughter discovered this and brought me two types of echinacea seeds for my birthday. They were sown a few weeks ago in a heated propagator and are doing well, so fingers crossed that they will be successfully potted on.
I also have studio progress to report...
The old purple wooden door was removed and a huge hole in the end of the building appeared late on Saturday afternoon.
The idea was to reuse the window we took out last week and put it where the old door was. This is a south east facing aspect so it made perfect sense put a window here to allow more light into the room.
The windows were originally recycled from an house near my father in law's some 7 years ago. Much as i hate UPVC i would rather reuse them than for them to go into landfill. Why buy new when you can recycle? You can see from this picture all the crates of fabric and stock piled up inside. Not long now before i can start to unpack.
My good man worked late into the evening to finish off the block work. He was able to reuse some of the original blocks which we discovered were actually sandstone. Unfortunately they had been painted a shitty brown colour so we hadn't realised . I had over painted them 'fly blue' some time ago... this was his first ever bit of wall building i might add. It's taking shape now. We covered it with a tarpaulin for the night just in case of rain....
and on Sunday morning the window went in, much easier than we had anticipated. So now the new shell is complete and it's just two more interior walls to finish. We sat outside last night drinking beer and marveling at what had been achieved. I want to move in now, but it'll be a few more weeks at least... so i shall continue dreaming for the time being....
