A few months ago we bought a few new plants with vouchers that we were very kindly given by our friends and family for our wedding last year. I say a few, but we did manage to fill the boot of Keith’s car!

Over the last few years we’ve done a lot of major things in our garden – we removed two conifer hedges that were down each side of the garden and dug out part of the existing lawn to create some wider borders. We dug up the front lawn and removed an ‘ornamental’ ash tree (!!) at the same time – but haven’t actually touched the front garden since then. Once we’ve had our building work done, I’m really hoping we can make a start on that…Anyway, these plants would fill in some of the gaps in our borders very nicely, and we started by working out where they would go:

Then, after a bit of well-needed weeding we got them planted!

We were really grateful to have Helen there to help us – especially when it comes to pruning our hedge at the back! Things were starting to come together nicely once we had got the new plants in:

Our borders have filled out really well since then. Now that Autumn is well and truly here, the leaves are turning on the willow and things are dying back a bit. We realised this year that it’s much easier to cut back the willow early in the year instead of now, because all of the leaves have fallen off and it saves having to remove them! I’m really pleased that we chose to put it in. I realised that this photo was taken before I made my bird bath – the birds have finally got the hang of it now and they love it!

Our yellow rose has done so well this year after we gave it a really good cut back at the start of the year. It has produced so many flowers and is even still going – I took this photo last week when I went to hang up some washing!

Hopefully we’ll be able to remember some of these things for next year. I guess it’s quite useful to document this on my blog – I must remember! There are so many things that I’d like to do in our garden next year, but if this year is anything to go by then I had better not make too many plans…in the meantime, I’ll enjoy the last flowers before winter comes!

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This weekend I went to York to spend some time with Mum and Dad before our wedding, which is now less than 2 weeks away! Mum wanted us to do something crafty and booked us into a workshop at Softpots on Stonegate. Softpots is run by the lovely Annie Austen-Meek, who invented the concept over ten years ago, originally to transport plants practically and safely. Softpots are flexible and are kinder to plants, allowing them to ‘breathe’ and drain freely. Not only are they practical but beautiful, and it is very therapeutic making them.

We spent an hour with Annie and she showed us the basic techniques of making softpots, how to decorate them, which shapes to use and what does and does not work for a softpot. The workshop was incredibly informative and invigorating, and just left us wanting to make more! We made two pots each in just one hour, and in fact, are already planning our next pots! Here we are with our creations:

We’re so pleased with our pots – I’m particularly proud of my pink softpot, which I have nicknamed ‘The Mystic Beetroot’!

I love the hanging softpots too – the whole concept is so versatile:

Annie has also created The Softpot Garden, where you can admire and even buy your own softpot to take home. It’s like a little oasis in the centre of York!

You can make your own softpot in workshop sessions starting at £10, and we would highly recommend it! Check out the website or find out more on Facebook. Thank you again, Annie – we hope to come back and make more softpots with you!

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I love cold and sunny winter mornings when everything is covered in frost. It always looks so beautiful! Now is the time of year when I only really get to appreciate my garden at the weekend when we’re not going anywhere, because during the week it’s dark when we go to work and dark when we come home. This year was a write-off when it comes to the garden – it rained so much this summer that I spent most of my time looking out of the window at the rain and wondering if it would ever stop!

So today I’m at home, just doing a few jobs around the house and a bit of crafting this afternoon, and I decided to go out and take a few photos. The frosty leaves look so wonderful – I’m glad I went out just when the light was right!

When we first moved in to our house (which is almost three years ago now) there were various garden ornaments which the previous owners had left behind. I’m not really a huge fan of garden ornaments, so the meerkats were quickly disposed of, but there was one that I couldn’t bring myself to throw away. This could be to do with the fact that we gave him a name, so I felt a bit more attached to him – thank goodness I didn’t name the meercats! This is Hadrian, and he still lives in our garden:

I’m not sure if he is actually Roman – I suppose he could be Greek…But we live near to the Newcastle end of Hadrian’s Wall, so we couldn’t really call him anything else! Tom’s Mum thought that he looked a bit chilly when she first saw him, and decided to knit him a scarf with scraps of wool that she had left over from sock knitting. I’ve heard that a mini bobble hat might be on the way at some point too, so he’ll be toasty warm all year round!

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