The Flower Garden - March

Time for me to take some photos of how the garden is looking this month, so we can see, at the end of the year, which parts of the flowerbeds could be improved and how to get the best from each season.

There is a lot going on in all the flowerbeds at the moment, the front garden has most flowers, with a lovely show of daffodils and muscari.

There are lots more bulbs coming up and the aubretia is just getting going as well.

Elsewhere, it is mostly leaves emerging for the new season so far.

In the back, there are some lovely tulips now in flower and the alliums we planted last year are coming up but of course not yet flowering, and the primroses I planted in containers are starting to look very pretty too.

Apple Trees

As we arrived home at lunchtime on Friday, I said to Braveheart - I wonder when our apple trees will arrive? They are supposed to come between mid-Feb and March. I think I'll phone Thompson and Morgan and see when they are planning to dispatch them.

About an hour later, before I had got around to making my phone call, there was a knock at the door and a UPS guy delivered a HUGE tall box with three apple trees in.

So when we had finished putting the louvres and the last pane of glass in the greenhouse, we set about planting our new apple trees. First we faffed about for a while trying to remember where we had planned to put them. After a lot of measuring and placing of plant pots we settled on three locations which left a suitable space for a fourth tree in due course. We also had ready three large tree stakes, three tree ties, some bags of manure and a bag of bark chippings.

We marked out the edges of each hole as a 2 foot diameter around the tree and cut away the turf. Then we began digging. We measured the depth of the planting hole by placing the tree in the hole and checking that the earth would come up to its previous planting mark with some space for a layer of bark chippings. Once dug, we poured in a can of water and left it to soak away while Braveheart hammered in the stake.

Then we added some manure to the earth in the bottom of the hole, and some Root Grow, before placing the tree in the hole and filling it with earth to the correct depth.

Finally bark chips were added, and the tie was attached to tree and stake.

Our trees are a Bramley, a Braeburn and a Cox's Orange Pippin.

Meanwhile, indoors, the seeds I sowed last weekend are doing well. Tomatoes,

Broccoli and Sweet Pea seedlings are all growing well.

Greenhouse Progress

Since my last post on the greenhouse project, we have worked on the construction whenever we had spare time and it wasn't raining, which unfortunately wasn't as often as we would have liked.

We opened up the boxes with the greenhouse bits in and laid out all the pieces on the patio. We counted every single item and checked it off against the parts list!

The first step was to assemble the front, back and sides separately.

Then we put them together and added the roof section.

The greenhouse at this stage is very light, so we carried it carefully across the lawn to its final location, where we placed it into its base, and checked that everything was squared up and that it all fitted.

The foundation was completed with a path, gravel around the edges and we dug over the vegetable beds which will be inside.

Then we fastened everything down.

The final stage was to make up the door and window vents, and to put the glass on. This took a surprisingly long time, and we have so far completed the roof. This morning our new glass roof was covered in frost! It seems to have survived, though.

The Flower Garden - February

This year I've decided to take photos of the various flower beds each month so I have a record of what is in flower throughout the year and can use that to decide if I want to change the plantings. This month the snowdrops are out and tiny miniature daffodils are just opening. One thing I can see is that it would be nice to have more snowdrops in thicker groups, so I've begun moving them into clusters as I weed. I think I will plant some more groups for next year, as well.

There are lots of bulbs coming up all over the garden, so in a few weeks there should be a big change in the flower garden with a lot more flowers coming into bloom.

Planning Ahead

Although it's still winter, we have started planning for Spring. I'm very excited about Spring this year, and about the garden. This time last year we were still unpacking boxes every weekend, and my entire collection of clothes was stored in a heap of black bin liners handily stacked beside the mattress on the bedroom floor which was our temporary bed.

By the time we turned our attention to the garden, we were late planting most things and all the flowerbeds were out of control. It took us all year to get things back in some kind of order. We did have some successes with vegetables, and also some less successful crops, so we've got new ideas for 2011 as well as some old favourites.

This year we are planning well ahead, and looking forward to starting the growing year right at the beginning of Spring. The key to all this is our new greenhouse!

The greenhouse itself is flat packed and is currently waiting patiently on the patio. For the last few weeks we have been working on constructing the foundations. We decided to make these using concrete paving slabs. The first step was to take the greenhouse base measurements from the instructions and use those to produce a scale drawing of the foundations. The drawing enabled us to see how many slabs of each size we needed and to order them.

The garden is not level, so the base has had to be measured, dug out and levelled.

First the area was marked out according to the plan and the turf was removed.

Then the area was dug over and levelled out, which left some sides higher than others. We decided to put a wooden edging all around to make sure that the edges didn't cave in. To do this the area had to be enlarged and then the edging had to be hammered in with a mallet.

Finally, using sharp sand a level bed was made for each paving slab and then the slabs were carefully placed. At each step the measurements were checked to ensure that when we reached the end there would be enough room for the last slab, that the base was square at all corners and that the base and slabs were level. We invested in the biggest spirit level I have ever seen and it has been one of the most useful tools for this job.

This has taken a month at weekends, but the result now looks a bit like the foundations of a ruined Roman Temple! Some of the slabs need to be levelled a tiny bit more, and we need to put sand in the gaps and some gravel at the back of the slabs, but then we will be ready for stage two - putting up the greenhouse!

Pictures From The Philippines

Last Tuesday morning I landed at Heathrow Airport at 5.00 am on a wet, cold and blustery English winter day. I had just returned from 10 days holidaying in the Philippines with Kino, who has been living and working in Manila for six months.

The Philippines is a developing country, not particularly focused on international tourism, composed of hundreds of islands in the Philippine Sea, and close to the Equator in the southern hemisphere. I travelled from London to Singapore and then onto Manila, the capital city of the Philippines, where Kino was living.

Her house was an oasis of calm and green behind a gate in a noisy, hot and dirty street.

My first trip was to a restaurant called Laya in Antipolo, where we had a sensational, six-course lunch of the most superb Asian fusion cuisine in a location overlooking Manila itself and the green suburbs surrounding it.

Afterwards we visited the local cathedral.

It was 31st October, Hallowe'en for us, which is not much celebrated in the Philippines, as All Saints and All Souls are more important festivals. However, in a cafe just along the street from Kino's house, the staff had made some striking and rather gruesome Hallowe'en figures!

After three days in Manila, Kino and I flew Philippine Airlines to the island of Bohol, about an hour away by air. This is me at the airport, I didn't straighten my hair while I was away because of the heat and humidity, so it's wild and curly.

Our first stop was Alumbung Tropical Living, where we stayed in a delightful native style hut in a peaceful garden.

We were a short walk from the beautiful Alona Beach where we spent a pleasant afternoon.

The next day we took a tour of local paces of interest.

A cathedral made of coral

The Chocolate Hills

The Hanging Bridge

The Loboc River

A Tarsier in the Tarsier sanctuary.

These little creatures, the smallest primates in the world, are endangered and the sanctuary is dedicated to saving and supporting them. We walked around the sanctuary where a number of them live in their natural environment but protected from molestation, and were able to take photographs. The Tarsiers are really tiny, no bigger than the size of your clenched fist.

That evening we took photos of the sunset over the beach.

The next day we spent at the pool of a local restaurant

before moving on to our final destination on Bohol, IslaHayaHay.

Here we relaxed by the sea as the resort is right on the shore.

More lovely sunsets

A day spent island hopping took us to a tiny sand spit in the middle of the ocean, from where we watched a storm pass across the mainland

The food was lovely, and we ate at a table outside overlooking the beach.

Three days flew past and soon I was flying back to Manila where I said goodbye to Kino for a few more weeks and caught my flight to Singapore and on to London and home.

The Philippines is an exotic and different country, whose people are friendly and hospitable, and mostly speak excellent English. There is much breathtaking scenery and lots to do and see. It's not a destination that is yet widely known to European tourists, and so much of it is still unspoilt and authentic. I shall not forget my visit in a hurry!