Growing and blooming

My second amaryllis is in bloom just 2 flowers, there are another 3 buds, not sure if they will grow, this was an expensive bulb and I truly am not sure if it was worth the money. I now know I prefer the brighter reds and pinks flowers. Checking the box this bloom should have been pink with a hint of white. 

 My orchid blooms are almost gone, this plant has been brilliant, purchased in October for £6, it's lasted over 3 months, a great frugal way to have fresh flowers, and the hope is it will bloom again. 

After complaining about all my snowdrops failing around the garden, I have found a few small clumps of them, so there is hope. 

The greenhouse is looking good, my nasties are all thriving in there, the green pot has bulbs in, it's not a pot I can leave outside, so I have placed them where they can be seen, I will probably bring them inside once they start to bloom, I'm not sure what these bulbs are.

I posted a photo of these pots on my decking table a  week ago, blooms are forming and the tiny iris looks beautiful, in my eyes this arrangement will always be hope. 

We , well I mean hubby changed the brackets along the fence, I had asked him to put up cuphooks, but they did not look right, I found 3 of these curved metal hooks in my shed, which should have been put up on the front of our pergolia, but I did not like them, totally hung the wrong way, but they work, nothing heavy will be hung here. The bird cage has all our corks in, collected over the past few summers.

Spending time outside on Thursday morning was so good for me, I got things done, checked my plants popped in the greenhouse last year, they are surviving well. I do love to see the new growth, old plants coming back to life, friends returning, the work I did last year in the back garden is coming to life, so the promise of loads of colour.

I expected hubby to say no to changing the hooks on the fence, but he loved the way we are using them, much nicer than cup hooks. I can't wait until I put all my birds along the shelves and fill this area with colour. Most of my birds will survive the winter weather, but they do get knocked onto the garden, so they are best packed away. 

The back inside corner of my shed is really wet, we can't get to the outside as it built  and placed very close to the neighbours fences, not much we can do now, but once the dry weather arrives we will empty the shed and try and fix the problem, I have moved items from the corner to allow airflow. 

I have been busy with the sleeves on my jumper, I have found a snag, because I am knitting long sleeves from a short sleeve design, I am making it up as I knit, my issue is I have too many stitches at the cuff, the sleeves are too wide, normally I would decrease from the elbow down, but if I do that the pattern will fail, so I am doing trial and error, 1st attempt too wide, 2 attempt wrong shape, I am working on my 3rd attempt, in hope this might work, photo's next post. Very frustrating, but it does need to be right, I hate to wear anything which does not look good. 

Thinking ahead.

This book from the library choice I did not think my taste, but I decided I would have a read, and I am so glad I did, the writing style is beautiful, I enjoyed the story, set in Victorian times, but with modern feeling. Book 5 this year. 

I had to pop to Specksavers, I had broken the arm on a pair of reading glasses, I have not been to town since late November last year. I naughtily popped into Wilkinson's, hoping they would have there summer range of flowers out, they did and I got almost everything I wanted, no extras, kept to my shopping list. These have already got their space in the garden. 

My jumper is growing, we have so much time, which I fill with knitting and reading, often in the evenings the TV is switched off, I can't stand it on with the rubbish often on, I never watch soaps. 

I decided to work on the sleeves, both are knitted in way where there is no sewing up to do, I will have loads of ends to stitch in, this jumper design and pattern is going to be one I use again. I want the jumper to be long, so by doing the sleeves first I can then measure the length to match my sleeves. I have a quirky twist for the sleeves, just to make it my own. 

I could not get one pack of flowers, so I will look online and get them, the chocolate cosmos has been planted in a blue pot saved from last year for them, they are tender and the pot later in the year will go into the greenhouse. The begonias will go in the tall chimney which is being moved to the corner of the flower bed, at the moment the chimney is empty. The rest of the flowers are space fillers and are plants which survive in our clay soil, I am itching to be outside and starting to grow things, but it's still a bit early. We did spend an hour outside moving some brackets, these are not for hanging baskets (which I have never liked or grown), I have a few quirky items to hang. 

This is always the hardest time of year for me, I want to do so much outside, the days are beginning to get lighter for longer, we have sunny cold days, from inside it feels as if spring should be here, so many bulbs are showing, soon we will have beautiful blooms. I need to wait, it's just too early, March has a habit of being a horrible month, so I wait. I am lucky I can plant things in the green house throughout February, give them a boost start before popping them in the garden. On the plus side we are not able to visit garden centres, so all the temptation is out of reach, I have most of what I need here, so back to knitting and reading another 6 weeks of lockdown, plenty time to relax and do enjoyable things. 

I have been knitting my jumper whilst wearing another of my handmade jumpers and socks, and using my warm handmade lap blanket, I'm feeling snug and warm and happy, we are trying not to have the heating on all day, If I'm cold I do also have a really warm long Aran cardigan I made years ago, I never wear it outside, but it's perfect for inside.

At home

I enjoyed this book from the library and again not one I would have picked up myself. I will add author to my list of preferred authors. 4th book read this year.

This is becoming colourful, I have now used all the shades once, some twice, and I am loving the effect, normally I would place the colours and then repeat the pattern they form, but the jumper design does not follow that rule, and I have decided I am going to be free with the colour placements. The design had 5 shades, I have 8, as I think they all go well together, sadly the hand dyed yarn only looks good against the dark shades, so I won't be using as much as I expected. 

I have popped the sleeves on spare circular needles, and I am now knitting the body, I managed to pop the yoke on and it's a good size, just a bit loose. but that's OK, the neck fits perfectly, looking at this photo, I think I will unpick the 2 rows of the pink and swap for the hand dyed yarn, and do the pink on the next block. 

I'm feeling chuffed with myself, often when I pop spare stitches on needles the ends of the needles keep getting in my way, how to stop it?, I had some glowsticks left over from Spooky night with Will (Halloween to the rest of us) and remembered I had loads of the little plastic joining tubes, well who knew they hold two needles together, problem solved. 

Saturday was a lazyish day at home, I changed the bedding and popped the Dyson around the bedroom and our bathroom, we both had showers so I cleaned in there. We did both walk to our fruit and veg shop, hubby has not been to the village since before Christmas, we walked the long way home through the park, it was a cold bright day. Rest of the day sorting laundry and knitting with a start of a new book, TV was good, I am loving The Wheel and The Masked Singer. 

Sunday was cold and wet, it rained most of the morning, I'm not complaining, the amount of rain we get is nothing to the huge amounts in other areas of UK and in the summer months I will be hoping for rain. It was a dark day, so lights were on all through the house, but more crafting time. 

Most days I am now walking around the garden, it's not a long walk, but I am watching seeing signs of things growing, which fills my heart with joy, hubby has hung the garden signs, they look good in the dark and make the corner of the garage look good. All the time I am planning, as with every garden there is always an improvement to be made. 

Thank you for your recent comments, I do enjoy my blog, it's my record of everything I love, and so many of us like the same things,  I do try and comment on most of the post I read, it's always nice to have someone else's views. My socks arrived at their destination and are loved, so I am now looking for my February 'be kind'.

Outside in my garden

I saw this on a garden group page on Facebook and loved it, as an organic gardener, I am pleased to say our balance is such I don't suffer to too many issues. 

We spend some of our Christmas money on these solar lights, they will add fun to the garden, and have been placed on the garage wall. 

My pots have loads of new shoots, I find bulbs grow better in pots, our heavy clay soil rots most of the bulbs I have planted, the only bulbs to survive are daffodils and bluebells. I have 1 pot with snowdrops in, which I had forgot I planted, so finally I will have them on show. I looked back on my post from last year to see what bulbs I purchased, but I did not record anywhere, which bulbs I put in which pots, it's a case of wait and see. 

My Hellebores are also in bud, I cut back the leaves this week. The darker bloom was re-potted into this bigger black pot and therefore has less new growth on, the pink one has been in this spot for years. . 

I have a lone snowdrop in the back garden, I have planted bulbs here for the past 3 years, so this is an expensive bloom. I hope to remove the protective frames in a few weeks, it has stopped this bed being dug up by cats and foxes.  My pots look good, this are should be full of shades of green this summer.

The garden came through the storm unharmed, but in truth we had the weaker end of it, mainly windy with steady rain rather than the huge amounts dropped further up the country. My heart feels for everyone who has their homes flooded, I can not imagine how you start to sort out so much damage in your homes. Snow was spoken as a possibility for our area on Sunday, but I am not expecting it to pitch, I have said many times we often miss the snow, grandson Will is praying it snows he has a sled he wants to use .

I have been looking at what I have in our garden, not plants, I am happy with the placement of plants, but I do have one spot in the side garden where I moved the worms to fill, my 1st thought was to put the worms back, but they are sheltered in their new home. I have moved pots about and moved the tall chimney to the side garden, I also want to split some Alliums from the back corner, I split them a couple of years ago and they are huge again. I also have a small white lavender, it broke from daughters plants last summer, it has now rooted and can go in the garden. After an hour outside, I have noticed a few snowdrops in the side garden, none came up last year, so I'm just a bit hopeful they are such a beautiful dainty tiny flower early in the season.