greentapestry : January 2008

Saturday 12 January 2008

Liverpool, European Capital of Culture 2008

Last night we watched some of the television coverage of the opening ceremony for Liverpool 'European Capital of Culture 2008'. We toyed with the idea of going into town but I was apprehensive that it might be too crowded so we made do with the disjointed snippets on BBC News 24. St.George's Hall glowed in the dark as cranes danced and container crates burst open to reveal precious cargo. I am looking forward to attending some of the events and will report back as the year unfolds.

Saturday 5 January 2008

'Surprise, Surprise'






Last year's surprises - acanthus mollis and clematis texensis
'Princess Diana' - both have been in the garden for some years but have never flowered before. Must have been all that rain !



Postscript
- the clematis flourished in the summer of 2008 but once again sadly the acanthus was a complete no show. So much for my rain theory.

Tuesday 1 January 2008

New Year



Well, here I am again with my usual new year's resolution to be a more regular blogger having failed miserably once again in 2007. Well 2008 is here - a mild and mainly grey day here so far. The predicted rain has not yet materialised and hopefully I will be out soon planting a few late bulbs.

In a nutshell gardening wise and weatherwise 2007 turned out be the strangest year. A very warm and dry April was followed by what turned out to be am extremely wet late spring and early summer. On the lottie nothing really thrived except for my French beans which dripped beans throughout the summer. I have never had a worse year though for tomatoes and carrots. Very few grapes. A pleasant, mellow autumn followed. In November gale force winds bought the exterior fence down at the allotment, so my Christmas present this year has been new fencing which my beloved has put up. I have still to see it.

Not much in the way of garden visiting last summer although we fitted in one or two beautiful ones in Devon between interminable downpours. Above is a photo from one of them - Buckland Abbey if I recall correctly. We also enjoyed a trip to the Malvern Flower Show in spring despite the wind and rain. Later in August we went to the Southport Flower Show where we managed to catch a glimpse of that rare old golden globe in the sky.


Hope to be back soon !