Building a Garden Pond and Other News!

Hello, my lovely friends! So lovely to be back here and so much to share about the garden. My husband has had a few weeks off work and has spent much time tackling some very big garden projects. These are things that we have always wanted in our very own garden and now that we own our home we can go ahead and do things that we would not have done in rented properties.

Last weekend was a special weekend because yesterday we picked out three lovely rose bushes to plant up a memorial garden for my dearest grandmother. We picked out a rose called ‘Precious Gold’ because she was like precious gold to us. I also remember when growing up she had a HUGE trailing rose outside her front door which was yellow. 

The second rose we chose was called “Pensioners Voice”. The choice on this one was twofold, first I remember many years ago when she reached pension age she was excited and positive as always and was delighted to tell everyone that she was now officially a pensioner! My eldest daughter said instead of Pensioner’s Voice is was Gigi’s voice (the girls called her GiGi). It also happens to be very similar in colour to a rose that was actually named after her so we thought it was fitting in more ways than one. We underplanted the roses with lavender and we are looking forward to seeing these roses establish and grow over the years to come.

The final rose bush is called “Peace”. This is a delicate white rose tinged with pink. This is a nod to Gigi as she rests in peace.

 This past week we started and finished our next garden project… a wildlife pond! No garden should be without water and we have often had ponds in our various homes. Now that we own our home we are building a pond that we can enjoy and we are looking forward to seeing what critters come to live in our pond!

Now ponds and fish happen to be one of my husband’s favourite things. He loves to potter about and tinker with them. He has always had huge success in creating a happy pond environment as any fish that we put in thrive and multiply. In the UK fish can quite happily survive cold winters as long as the pond is deep enough which we have made sure that it is.

When we were living in Devon we lived through the ‘Beast from the East’ which was a huge snowstorm and cold snap. Our pond froze over numerous times that winter. I would go out each morning with a pot of boiling water and set it on top of the ice to create breathing holes for the fish. They all survived happily.

We managed to find most of the plants we needed to plant around the fish pond in our garden. I think I have mentioned before that the previous owner of our home had thin strips of bed around the perimeter of the garden and every inch and more was simply crammed with plants. So we have had enough plants to fill the beds we have cut and new beds we have created.

Today we tootled off to the garden center and picked up the fish and a few pond plants. The pond is now complete and we are thrilled with it. Our little cat has been intrigued by the fish darting about and has spent hours sitting beside it watching them. She makes no attempt to catch them and nor did she do so in our Devon home. She’s just happy to sit and watch.

We have also ordered a sweet little summerhouse which will be situated close to the pond. I plan to plant trailing roses that will climb over the summerhouse and have lots of traditional English cottage garden plants flanking the sides.

The reason for the summerhouse is…and this is all VERY exciting…It’s going to be my dedicated little studio. This is where I shall sew, film my podcast and create from. It won’t be the dye studio, that is going to be set up in the garage because it can be a messy job dyeing yarn. No, this is a creative space. 

You see we have had a few changes in our lives of late which started off being very stressful but God works all things to the good of those who love him and these have ended up being good positive changes that have prompted some further thought on things that I have been mulling about in my mind for a long time.

I am so excited!…you see I’m coming home. I have put in my resignation and will be back at home full time from the end of July. I will be building my yarn business which is picking up and doing well right now. I am and always have been a homebody. I love being a homemaker and looking after my home and family. Since working full-time lots of things that were normal for me have fallen by the wayside because there simply is no time. I have spent the past 18 months trying to juggle both home and work and have discovered that it’s not the work that I want to do and that I miss…really MISS being a homemaker. I’m happiest creating and keeping home. 

I wish I was home already but isn’t that always the case? You make a decision that has taken ages to make and then you want it to happen straight away. I have a feeling that it’s going to be a LONG month and a half!

Happy Friyay to you all, hope you have something lovely planned for your weekend.