Long Mizzle Garden

 Hold on February, I forgot to say hello! Camellia morning over Long Mizzle. Please cue the confetti cannons as I saunter in to the room nonchalantly in my silk housecoat... arms stretched out in a operatic way...THE EXAMS ARE OVER! I sat my last two RHS horticulture theory exams during the week at Duchy College Rosewarne. That's eight exams done and dusted, and I don't want to see another one any time soon! Time to be a lady of leisure, even just for one day. After a night of binge watching 'Canal Boat Diaries', along with copious amounts of tea, I bundled the kids off to school the next morning and waited for my folks to pick me up en route to Redruth town and Portreath for lunch. * Canal Boat Diaries on BBC iPlayer: Recommended for lovers of canal boats, locks, impossibly low and long tunnels, viaducts, aqueducts, Midland and industrial North adventures * Above: 'Tinners Hounds' made from boots found at Geevor Mine, by artist David Kemp. Redruth is a no ...

Aha!!! from outpost station Long Mizzle,   Jolly good of you to join me for my weekly correspondence.  It's been very quiet in the garden, bar the sound of freezing horizontal, non-stop pelting rain!!! To prove the garden's continued existence, I have included a picture of the Camellia in bloom at the bottom of the garden.  I've named this one 'Dan'. I heckle him from up t' top. (Above picture: my Alan Partridge stance!) The weird growth on the Tree Aeonium (Aeonium arboreum) is its very first flower emerging - A native of the Canary Islands, where is clings to arid hillsides, Tree Aeoniums grow very well in Cornwall, and can be seen in abundance in the hedgerows of the Scilly Isles (the archipelago off the tip of Lands End). I was surprised to read it is considered an invasive specie in Southern Australia. This particular rosette will die after flowering. Luckily cuttings strike very easily from its sausagey stems. You can see here some stems look like slayed ...

Bonjour mon petit jonquil! Got your cuppa? Let's go....Wow, what a difference one week makes. It really feels like spring has sprung. The question is, is it warm enough to sit bare bottomed on the soil yet?... certainly not, how dare you! The mornings are still a little frosty. Here's just one job I've been meaning to do all winter: sorting out the area by the playhouse. I wish I had taken a  'before' picture to go with my smug 'after' picture, as it was quite a mess! Nettles removed and bramble roots wrestled out, I laid weed membrane down and covered it with new bark shredding.   A landing area where the kids put their deck chairs, I have been instructed not to grow plants in this spot. This is where they natter to their friends at the bottom at the garden  (p.s. the friends sound made up, but they are indeed real). So, what to put there instead??? A wooden throne of course!!!   Voila! The Long Mizzle Throne, forged from seven pieces of fallen wood, co...