Sacha wrote:

On 24/2/07 18:59, in article , "Carol
Hague" wrote:

Fingers crossed then :-) I like bumble bees.

So do I. They just seem to go about their business without fussing about
anyone else. Honey bees can be tetchy and I think wasps are the bovver boys
of the insect world - nowadays that should probably be hoodies!

Yes - I've been stung once by a bee (when I was quite young) and twice
by wasps (the first time when I was sitting on a bus, minding me own
business!) but never by a bumble bee.


We've had a day of intermittent rain and
very little watery sun though it hasn't been horribly cold, just a bit
dreary.

Similar here - but it was only the Thursday before last that we had a
fair bit of snow and on Wednesday morning there was thunder and
lightning so I'm not about to trust the weather much yet.

Where are you, Carol? I'm sorry if I should remember but my memory on that
subject is awful which is why I put in the occasional plea for people to put
their general location into their sigfile!

Sorry - I'm in Melbourne, just south of Derby.

My newsreader (which I otherwise love to bits) can only cope with one
sig at a time, but I'll try to remember to alter it manually when I
post here - I may forget from time to time though, I have a memory like
a....wossname....use it to make small bits of earth for the garden......

Sounds lovely.

Well, it's the balmy, if extremely wet, south west, so conditions are kind
on the whole. We don't live on Dartmoor, though we're close to it and it's
as if it attracts what bad weather there is cold and snow wise and we are
protected from it. We do get some horrible gales here from time to time and
there's always a bit of a hollow laugh when somebody says "of course, you're
so sheltered here"!

grin We used to live in Bishops Lydeard in Somerset, which was lovely,
but when we had thunderstorms they'd go on for hours as they'd get
trapped between the three ranges of hills (Quantocks, Bredons and
Blackdowns).

We haven't got an awful lot in the back garden yet - we've only been
here about a year and a half.

It's pretty small and a lot of it is taken up with a large pond housing
three goldfish that the previous owners left behind.

They sound a bit like me - my motto is that any garden problem can be solved
by digging a hole and filling it with water.

They didn't quite manage that :-) It's a raised pond built of old
railway sleepers and lined with butyl. Quite sturdy though.

Since Ray and I married 7
years ago we have two new, fairly large ponds to add to the much older one
established in the 50s by a previous owner. My excuse is that I miss being
near the sea, so this is a small way of compensating and in the gales we had
a few weeks ago we did actually have wavelets on two of the ponds!

I like ponds, but this one takes up a disproportionate amount of the
garden. It's staying though, cos I'm a total softy and couldn't bear to
evict the fish and their umpty dozen water snail pals.

Most of the rest is
paved, but we've built what amounts to a giant raised bed with a
three-brick high retaining wall at the from and two tons of topsoil in
it, which we had to carry through the house in buckets as there's no
rear access to the garden. That was fun.

Think of it as 'fit'!

:-)


There's a high brick wall at the back with tall trees behind (the area
behind the house is the village cricket club) so it's fairly shady.

Oh, that sounds a really lovely setting - very villagey and friendly - glad
it's a *high* brick wall, though. Will you make, perhaps, a fernery there
or won't it be damp enough?

I imagine the trees are there to protect from stray cricket nballs as
much as for pretty. Not had any landing in the pond yet though.

Last winter we sat in the lounge and watched the squirrels jumping about
in the trees, but they've been hiding so far this year.

Still not sure what to plant yet. There's a fair bit of mature ivy
coming over the wall, which I don't want to disturb as it's good insect
hiding territory. I need to unearth my gardening books from the spare
room and look up what plants will like the shde :-)


Last month I was able to take over an allotment (complete with shed) and
am gleefully planning my fruit and veg growing thereon.

Glutton for punishment. ;-)

Glutton for sweetcorn :-) And runner beans. And other things there's no
room to grow in my teeny garden :-)

I thought I was very lucky to get the allotment right away though - I
understand many places have quite long waiting lists.....
--
Carol (near Derby)
"Never trust a man wearing leather shorts and a plastic dressing gown"
- Spray, "The Dangerous Sports Club"