Grow Your Blog

Hello to my regular followers
and
If this is the first time you have visited my blog

Welcome.

Open the gate and step inside.

It's that time of the year again when Vicki who hosts  Grow Your Blog

does such a wonderful job doing exactly what it says.

If you are here to grow your blog  I hope you'll enjoy what you see.

and have fun checking out many of the other blogs taking part..

This is my second time of joining.Grow your blog.
If you would like to find out more about me take a look here
from when I joined the 2014 Grow your Blog Party.

I live in rural France so I show a lot of photos I take of interesting buildings
and also the beautiful countryside near where I live.

We often walk along this pathway, it used to be the old railway line.
There are lots of walking groups I could join, but I prefer to walk with my husband,
who I affectionately refer to as Mr France, he appears from time to time in my posts.

I spend lots of time watching the birds that come to feed
from the many bird feeders in our garden.

My favourite walk, winter or summer is only 15 mins..from my home.

Maybe you are like me and dabble in watercolour painting.

I try to remember ( I must admit I often forget ) to take my pocket camera
with me on my walks. Then later I can paint  the wild flowers I see.

I'm not an artist but I do enjoy watercolour sketching.

One of my early sketches in a journal with brown paper,

 it's easier for sketching than to paint on,

I share lots of pictures of my garden throughout the different seasons.

I love my garden, but don't make myself a slave to it.

It's certainly not a sculptured garden all neat and tidy

.I leave a lot of the wild flowers to grow, like these wild Foxgloves 

which adds colour and fills in a bare space.

During the summer months I like to have plenty of hanging baskets around our home
 and the holiday cottage. Mainly I use the simple Pelargonium which grow well here in France.
They don't need to be watered everyday and withstands the heat. 

As I live in France it wouldn't seem right if I didn't show the vines,
which are not too far from my home.
We plan to take more short trips away this year. now that I am back in good health.
We are planning be visit Denmark again
and if we can fit it in, a trip back to England to catch up with family and old friends.
so there will be lots of photos taken for you to see.

I took this photo last October on one of our short trips away.

During the summer months we have fields and fields of sunflowers around where we live,

so I couldn't resist showing this lonely sunflower growing on the edge of the road.

There will be a Give Away gift as a thank you
The give away will be open to everyone who leaves a comment on this post. 

The winner will be announced on the 15th February.

So look out for your name it might be you.

I'm looking forward to seeing lots of new blogs.

I hope you've enjoyed seeing my Grow your blog post.
Thank you Vicki and all those who volunteered  to help.

à bientôt

Barbara Lilian

In the Pink.

 

 

My garden is full of pink this summer

and

I'm also feeling in the pink.

 

 

 

Almost recovered from my surgery.

 I'm  now able to do lots of things which have been on hold

 

 

Come with me and enjoy some of my PINK.

 

Not the usual sort of thing I put in my garden.

 

 

 

This was given to me last year by the Floral committee

 along with my diploma as part of my prize .

 

Not sure how long this will have a place in my garden !

It's now tucked in a corner till I get used to seeing it.

 

 

 

The only Lily I managed to see.

The Lily bug ate the rest before they were able to bloom.

 



Welcome to La Petite Maison our holiday rental house.

 

 

 



 



 

 

View from the sun deck. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Echinacea  (Poupres)



 

 

 

Phlox ( panicilarta )

A present given to me for my new flower bed.

to be created in Autumn.

 

 

 

Wild Foxglove

  Which pop up somewhere different each year.

I hope you enjoyed my Pink mood


I'll leave with a pretty posy
 to enjoy what ever mood you are in.

 

à bientôt

Barbara Lilian

 

 

 



Looking back.

It's now early June and I'm resting after my surgery

I've only planted up a few hanging baskets and

I've just had a phone call from 'Le Mairie' ( our local town hall)

It was strange to hear an English voice and also one I recognised,

 informing me that she was now the person in charge of the 'floral committee'

and would I be entering the floral competition as usual this year,

as I had not sent in my application form.

How things have changed since I first arrived to live in my tiny village

 take a look here

 

During the time  I've lived in France I've always had pots of flowers

on the window sills and by the front door, even when we were renovating our house.

 I felt a little sad having to say NO I would not be entering this year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you'd like to look back with me at one of my previous posts  

 

here  are some of the flowers which have won me prizes.

Little by little I'm getting better.
I'm still having to rest a lot and not allowed to go out in the car yet.
Fortunately we have glorious sunshine so I've been sitting on our terrace
I've done a little sketching, but really not 100% back into it.
Hopefully I'll get my enthusiasm back soon.

 I hope you'll enjoy seeing some of my older posts.
when the pots & baskets where at their best.


Since I've been absent,  I've gained some new followers
I hope you will come back even though my posting will be sporadic
for a little while.
Also thank you so much to those of you who have sent me get well wishes.

 

 

  

à bientôt

Barbara Lilian

 

Leaving my garden to look after itself.

Not done intentionally , but sometimes things have to happen that way.

I'm back after my stay in hospital, having treatment on my back.

Although not completely sorted due to a little hiccough with my blood pressure,

which on the last day of my treatment decided to shoot sky high,

which meant I was unable to complete the full treatment,

 and will have to go back in a months time.

It is greatly improved, but I still can't do any gardening for awhile.

 

 

  

Fortunately his basket was planted up some time ago
so we did have a few nice things to see
 Tete a Tete daffodils
 

 

 

 

 

So regretfully I'll have to leave things to Mr France.

Gardening is not his thing.
 Not so very long ago he couldn't tell a weed from a cherished plant.
He does all the hard ground work and I do the planting.

I'll be giving advice and asking him just to do the most important things.
 

My big new flower bed will not happen this year.

 

At the moment it's looking like this.

 

  

 

But it's not important.

I'm thinking when the soil is levelled off, I'll just lightly rake in some seeds
which were gathered last year and hope for the best.
 

This is what they looked like last year when my niece collected them for me,
 it's where we go on one our favourite walks.

 

 

Our communes have been sowing wild flower seeds en-mass in certain areas for the past few years.  

They're left to grow on their own amongst the grass with no attention what so ever .

 but look so pretty, and as my garden is on the rustic side in places

I think they should fit in quite nicely.

 

 

 

This is the view from the front of our house.
 

Shall we start with the potting bench, where most of the preparation  begins.
 

 

 

Trailing Fuchsias which we over wintered indoors, coming along nicely

 

 

 

 

 

 Something I could do was watch & nurture
some of the cuttings growing, that I took back in September.

So what's been happening around the garden, naturally and unassisted?

I'll take you on a tour showing the good the bad & the ugly.

 

Work in progress, hopefully this will get finished.
Mr France loves to build rustic stone walls,
 using the stones left over from the renovation he did when we bought this old ruin 20 yrs. ago.

 

 

These Tete a Tete miniature daffodils are new

 they were planted last year in the work in progress new bank area.

 

 

Muscari  bulbs in bloom planted last year.

Two different varieties. 

 

 

and the ones in the trough appear every year

a little on the small side due to neglect, put a pretty blue.

 

 

 

These big blousey Tulips were planted here by my Danish daughter in law

over 15 years ago. They come up every year, but this year I think this is the best they have looked.

Maybe they put on a special show for me, to cheer me up for when I came home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No seeds have been sown this year, I will be buying trays of plants this summer.  

 

Some trays of summer plants already bought for the window boxes & baskets.

This year not as many as usual.

Could be a sitting down job next week.

 

 

 

 

 



 



 

 

Hopefully, slow but sure I'll be back to my old self soon

doing what I love best

 pottering about in my garden.

 

Before I went into hospital I bought myself a new Stillman & Birn Beta sketchbook.

so while I was passing the hours in hospital I did some water colour sketches.

I'll show you some I did later in the week.

 

and maybe work in my garden will have progressed.

 

 

Thank you to all my friends who have sent me their kind wishes for my speedy recovery.

Some of you are also suffering with back problems, so I hope things are improving for you too.

 

 Even if I didn't leave comments on the usual blogs I follow I've loved reading your posts,

 keeping up to date with some of the things you've all been doing.

à bientôt

Barbara Lilian

 

 

 

Scavenger hunt

Scavenger hunt

organised by

green thumb Made with love

 

My  photos for March.
I've had to do a lot of digging in my photo files to submit this time,
as I'm still not  well  and I'm now waiting to go into hospital for some treatment.
So please excuse my effort.



M. for mushroom.
This is a field mushroom which we often collect during Sept and Oct,
 it's the first time I've seen one as big as this.
I made cream of mushroom soup with it.

Mr France found this in September in the farmers field which is next to our boundary.

 

 

 

Our guests table set  for breakfast  in La Petite Maison.

 

 

Some Holly berries on the trees near our house.

This was taken in the late evening last summer
 of the Monastery in Rocamadour lit up.

 

This grate is our French 'Godin' wood-burner. with the door open.

 

Mr France working on the deck he built this time last year.

The chimney breast, which we built in our guest house .
 The bricks where from inside the old bread oven which unfortunately
 we were unable to save, it was too badly damaged.

 

 

Some antique cutlery I found at a Brocante

 when we first arrived in France 24yrs ago.

 

Some troughs and a hanging basket
 with Surfinas and trailing Geraniums
 on our summer balcony.

A cold  crisp morning ,
showing the frost on the ground and white on the tiles of our well.

A souvenir from our visit to the Basque  region in France, which borders Spain.
This was my ticket from our ride on Le Petite Train up the mountain.
The views were fantastic.

It's difficult to find a coloured door in my region of France.
Most of the properties are old stone cottages and have heavy oak doors ,
which are usually protected with a stain and not paint.

So this is my painted door.

I hope you liked seeing my contribution.

à bientôt

Barbara Lilian