Garden centre

Well, I decided to change the background here and get rid of the bright yellow!  That was a bit of a mistake – the yellow, I mean, definitely not the changing it!  Then my friend Mary – my blogging guardian angel – suggested I widen the central part with my posts in it, and talked me through what to do!  So, thank you ever so much, Mary,  I hope it now looks much better!  Unfortunately it means that it has altered all the entries I have written previously, so pictures and text may be out of kilter in some of them!   

So let’s see how it goes!

Linda and I drove out to Dougal Philips’ Garden centre, just to the west of Queensferry, the other day.  This time she was looking for squirrel-proof bird feeders,  and I for pigeon-proof ones!  I’m amazed at how the crows and the pigeons manage to get at the food on the bird table – meant for the little birds – and can hang upside down on the bird feeders like huge great bluetits!  Well the crows can.  The pigeons  get onto the roofed bird table and cling on to the edges, flapping their wings to stop themselves falling off!  I tied a grid of fine wire round the pillars to stop the big birds getting in but it doesn’t deter the pigeons from trying!  At least the crows have given up now, and I don’t mind the pigeons hoovering up the seed that falls to the ground.

We had lunch in a farm shop cafe on the way out to Queensferry, and bought punnets of raspberries, gooseberries and Scottish strawberries – they are the best… really sweet and tasty – to take home.  What a wonderful stock they have in that shop, from meat in the butchery, to homebaking!

Then on to Dougal’s!  What a choice of bird feeders, but we each got what we wanted - I got one like this but with a seed container - and proceeded to wander the shop and gardens. I rather liked this, at the entrance to the shop. “So much more than just a garden centre!” is the slogan!

  I took a great fancy to these granite owls!  I think one might be fun in my re-modelled garden!  Sam is coming to measure it up tomorrow, and we have already discussed designs,  materials  and plants!  Just to get a costing now!

In the shop there were ornaments and kitchen stuff and silk flowers – very real looking these days.  Take these poppies for example!! – and cards and ……. oh masses of stuff.  I like the wooden birds: the puffins, curlews

and the cormorant!

   Then we headed outside to look at the gardens and plants.

   The centre is set in woodland so has a lot of mature trees around it and little paths that meander through them. .Little clearings have been made into little gardens, maybe only a few feet across, with maybe only half a dozen plants, and a statue or some piece of sculpture to set them off.   There are a couple of these little follies around the place too.  You can buy an arch, a couple of windows and some bricks or stone, and have your own”ruin” in your garden!  To be honest I wouldn’t mind having one of the arches as the entrance to my garden, but for various reasons I won’t!!!  Linda is looking at me here and probably saying to herself, “Oh for goodness sake, put that camera away!”  - or words to that effect!

Once again I took lots of photos of flowers and flowering shrubs like this weigela.  I don’t remember the names of a lot of the plants  but I know this is a lily, and the blue ones are irises.

and this is a philadelphus or mock orange, with the most wonderful scent!  I’m having one of these in my garden.  You can tell it wasn’t the best of days for garden viewing, with the Philly covered in raindrops but at least it wasn’t bad enough for umbrellas.  Actually, this is the one in Linda’s garden.  I should have left this to the end!  Not to worry!

This hydrangea IS in the garden centre, as is the pink lady with a drop on the end of her nose!

 

 

 

 

I don’t think either of us bought any plants this time.  I’m certainly not buying any more till Sam and Paddy have finished getting my garden in order!  Oh but it was so tempting! 

Just a couple more pictures from Linda’s garden before I go.  Outside the front door is a beautiful climbing rose, the philadelphus you saw earlier, and a ceanothus that survived last winter while so many were lost….. 

…..and in the back garden, this beautiful rose was coming over the fence from next door!

Talk again soon.