...how do you keep blogging when you get the garden blues?
Personally I haven't even wanted to read all my favourite blogs over the summer, as they just remind me how much I have to do, how many things went wrong with the flowerbeds/kitchen garden this year, what didn't grow, what I didn't harvest and left to rot on the plant/to get eaten by birds/slugs/etc, how to get rid of all the pests/diseases, etc, etc.
Obviously there has been a lot of lovely, but the hurdles just get so overwhelming in a garden of this size.
Anyway, I've managed to fight the absence anxiety and found a few photos from my mother's visit a few weeks ago (she lives in Gibraltar and came to stay for a week). Having a completely new opinion and taste with me around the garden centres was brilliant, you do tend to get stuck in a style rut. For example, I can't leave a garden centre without buying a herb or two, despite the fact I have more than I can possible consume/take care of :D And my mum just went round picking out shrubs with dark foliage - which I would NEVER have done. Any don't they look fabulous?! (well they will next year)
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| Coral Flower 'Palace Purple' (Heuchera micrantha) |
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| Bugbane 'Brunette' (Cimicifuga racemosa) |
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| Ninebark 'Diablo' (Physocarpus opulifolius) - between the mallow and the tall aster. |
We've only had a garden for four years and my mum has never seen it before (apart from photos), and she has really green fingers, so it was a real pleasure to talk plants and gardening for the first time ever.
Here are some lovely random photos I took while she was here:
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| Union Jack up of course... |
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Went for a walk in Särö Västerskog and had lunch at Blomstermåla.
I absolutely love Scots pines and there are plenty around Särö. |
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Once you get over the fact that you will never EVER get your garden to look
like this one, some of the plantings were very inspiring. |
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| Effective block colours... |
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| Amazing dahlia walk, the yellow ones were the size of two hands.. |
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| And the visit wouldn't be complete without a crayfish party!! :D |
I will try and blog more often now I'm on top of things again, but if you have any tips on how you manage to keep blogging despite the weather, slugs, bugs, fungi, non-germinators, etc, etc. they would be much appreciated.
Thanks for coming back to my blog!
:)
I agree it can be difficult to read about other blogs. I having to learn not to keep comparing myself to others not just in terms of blogging. I was lusting over a garden a while ago and wondered how it looked so gorgeous and then I discovered that they had a gardener come once a week. I have actually found quite a lot of solace this year. It has been the worst summer on record in the UK with so much rain and lack of sun making it so difficult for us gardeners being able to share all the problems with others has made a real difference. My tip is most people don't really want to read about lots of successes, it's the trials and tribulations that make gardening so interesting, just tell it how it is, warts and all. ;)
ReplyDeleteLoving the photos of Sweden by the way.
Thank you for your encouraging words! I do wonder sometimes how people have time (and energy and enthusiasm) to not only keep their gardens/veg patches blogworthy, but also take such beautiful photos, get them onto the computer and then sit and write about it all! Super-people! :O I think my main thought though is just to make sure I eventually come back to the blog and write again, keep it going, even if I've been absent for ages, so that I don't just give up. That would be a shame, because I do use the blog as a bit of a diary and it's useful at other times of the year as a reference.
DeleteGood to know that I can have a moan :) But the problem this year has been which of the 1000s of 'problems' to moan about ;)
Glad you like the photos!
Tack, Laura! Jag tänker på dig när jag går ut i trädgården. Sommarmalvan jag fick av dig blommar så fint och du ska se irisarna - har hur många som helst och de växer så det knakar! Tänk om de blommar nästa sommar!!!
ReplyDeleteKram och solsken!
//Linda