SOME GARDEN CHANGES

I have some geraniums in one half of the border that spreads - like mad! - and entwines itself through other plants. Whilst the flowers are lovely I really don't like the plant's habit, so I replanted one elsewhere, dug one up and binned it and tied the other upright.

I then found a lavender cutting I took last year and moved that to give it some space and light and dug up 2 Aquilegia which were just leaves now. It looks like this

I plan to move more plants when the time is right as I now know how high each will grow.

The other half got a tidy up

The massive verbena are attracting the butterflies and you can hardly hear anything above the buzzing of the bees. Oh what joy!

And what a sight to savour

COMPENDIUM OF CURIOSITIES - CHALLENGE 6

All the details for this challenge can be found here. Page 37 has all the 'how to's' so you must have a copy of your own to be able to follow the challenge. It's worth having a go because there is not only a stack of goodies from Tim and Mario to be won, but the Funkie Junkie are also giving a $25 voucher to the winner. So what is the challenge this time?? it's to alter a burlap panel. I have to admit to making mine a little while ago but I have never entered it into any challenges so I reckon that makes it ok.

I used a variety of elements, tissue wrap, distress paint, dies, stamps and inks. I really like these panels especially for Xmas despite the burlap is really called hessian LOL.

12 TAGS OF 2014 - JULY

This month's tag certainly made me feel very summery indeed. I immediately thought of the Sea Life centre in glorious Torquay, Devon and all the wonderful boats moored in the marina. Thanks for that thought Tim, it brightened my day. However, making a tag as lovely would be most difficult especially as the dies used haven't made it to the UK yet. Thinking cap time again me thinks!! I had some card seahorses so I glued 4 together in order to be able to add paint and crackle without the card buckling or worse, disintegrating. That did the trick and my little chap looks full of life.

I put him to one side to crackle and made the base tag. The colours are so refreshing. The rest of the tag was going to be hard. I found an embossing folder as near as possible to bubbles, it's actually from Tim's dot matrix set, and the plastic is recycled packaging. I cut some foliage - love, love, love that strip die, from Nostalgic Kraft - Core and assembled that together with my now dry seahorse. I remember making faux snow on the 12 tags of Christmas and decided not to make sand because it uses so much glossy accents and generally falls off all over the place plus my tags are hanging up so the floor would constantly be covered - sorry Tim. Instead I used my Brixham, Devon shells and put some distress embossing powder on some of them to look like sand. The word band is a cut down lolly stick painted with brushed pewter distress paint and a couple of rub ons. My July tag turned out like this:

I really like it too.

HOORAY IT's RAINING

Never thought I would be pleased to see rain but the ground is so dry we really need it. Having said that, I will no doubt still have to water all my baskets and pots as they are so abundant the rain barely touches them. 

Here are some photos of the fuscias this year. 

Aren't they just gorgeous.

PLANNING FOR 2015 ALREADY!!

My perennial border that is.

Wow has it grown. Some plants are not true to their label like the verbena which must have been labelled wrong because they said 36" but they are already over 6' tall. I think they should have  had the 90" labels on them!!! Anyway, they are just gorgeous but far too big for my narrow border so I need to hatch a plan for 2015 which is just what I am doing now sat looking and contemplating with a glass of wine in the blazing sunshine.

Have a look at what I mean

I took out one of the geraniums today as it was covering the smaller plants beneath it and uncovered the striving lavender I took cuttings of last year. 

That's gardening according to Bill, my once head gardener, taking stock and moving plants around. 

I will certainly be doing that and enjoying every minute.