Before and after x 2

You will recall (keep up!!) that in the daisy etc border we have apples in the course of being espaliered, and that I was reserving a space on each side for an ornamental of some sort.  So the last pic you saw had plant / no plant as shown here.

But that was 'before'...






'After'
...with my birthday money from Judy and Pat, I have bought a coral-bark maple to go at the shady end of the border. Isn't it absolutely lovely?  Amusingly, it came with a label saying "Plants do not look their best at this time of year".  It's going to have to go some to look better than this - although it is also supposed to do spectacular spring and autumn colour, so maybe they are right.  V pleased - thank you Pat and Judy!



The next 'before' and 'after' requires a reprise of a post from December 2014 when we had just gone out to quote for the project.  We finished the year with a pic of our Christmas tree in the bungalow

<< and it looked like this...  What a little cutie!


>>>four years later, here it is again - an inch short of the ceiling :)

Meanwhile, further east...

The grass-and-daisy-and-fruit borders...

...in concept design in February...

...in April when the fruit fence was first installed and fitted with apples...

You can hardly see the grasses hiding behind the osteospermum in the foreground












In June with the everything starting to grow on...



...but then I was away rather a lot so there are no pics of it with osteospermums, anthemis, zinnias etc flowering away like billy-oh until...

...Late October when we were well into Michaelmas daisy season.  The largest grasses are the splendid miscanthus sinensis Malepartus (far end of near bed) and stipa gigantea (closer to house).  Miscanthus nepalensis is the one to the left of the daisy with weeping flowerheads - said to be less hardy but spectacularly elegant in huge clumps down at Hilliers so we're giving them a go.  They've certainly suffered in the very sharp frosts in November - we'll see if they make it through.
And yes, the wiggly wires WILL be replaced during the winter.

Interlude

You know they used to have 'Interludes' on the telly, like that film of someone turning something on a potter's wheel.  This post is that sort of thing - nothing to do with the build or the garden, but very pleasing (to me at least!) none-the-less.

It's about cheese. 

There, I told you it would be good.

Nearly a year ago, John and Paula gave us a cheese-making kit which we've been so busy we haven't got round to doing anything with.  Until yesterday!



Here is the inaugural cheese batch on the brew:

And here it is once the curds have formed and the first run of whey drained off...










And now - after some time under pressure to form the cheese properly - Ta Da!!! - here is some cheese!!

I thank you.

The tasting panel convenes tomorrow when Nikki and Brian arrive :)

The winter garden

This is a  bit of a sneaky reprise of two of the pics from the previous post, but here we go:

Before












During












After.  Sorry there has been no sunshine this weekend to take the pic 😒

But we think it looks rather good - and it looks as if the Neigh-bours approve....  All the crocus which were saved/lifted when we stripped the turf are in pots pending replacement once I've dealt with the worst of the dandelions / couch regrowing, there are snakesheads somewhere in there and there are also daffs on order which will go in as soon as they arrive.  The plan is to bark-chip the area, but that requires our village tree-surgeon to have another load of surplus chippings...