My Garden and St Andrews, Fife

Posted on 23 March 2021 by Katrina

Spring has definitely sprung in Fife, not that you would kow it from this photo, I think a new camera is required, or maybe it would be better if I used my phone. Anyway there are various primulas, snowdrops, heathers in flower, but they look very ‘peely wally’ in the photo, that’s a Scottish phrase meaning pale.

Since these photos were taken the garden has had a good ‘redd up’ that’s another Scottish phrase meaning tidied up. There was a whole winter’s worth of dead leaves and broken branches.

There are a lot of primroses around, I think I only had one plant to begin with, they’re great at self-seeding in this garden.

The one thing that does really well in my garden is moss, it grows abundantly on the soil and the grass. Looking on the bright side – I won’t have to buy any sphagnum moss to line hanging baskets!

The Belfast/butler’s sink in the background is a fairly new acquisition which is needing work done on its surroundings. I plan to entice birds into it, it should make a good big bird bath. In my previous garden I had a bigger one and I put some water plants in it, it was very popular with the blackbirds but I’ve only seen a couple of magpies in this one so far. Luckily they were together so it was two for joy!

I’ve been hard at work in the garden digging up more turf and I’m waiting for a delivery of gravel to arrive. Jack is very happy to have less grass to cut.

What else have I been doing apart from gardening and reading a lot? Well, last Friday we drove to St Andrews, it was really quite exciting to travel more than five miles, just lovely to see some different scenery for a change. It started out so bright but it got duller as we reached the coast. Below is a photo I took of one of the beaches in St Andrews. It was very quiet by the time we walked back towards the town. The wee cottage on the left hand side of the photo is the lifeguard centre and the ruins of the cathedral are almost in the centre in the distance.

The town itself was very quiet too, the only shops open in Scotland are shops selling food so it was only the ice cream shops and a posh whisky shop which were open. I’m presuming that as the whisky shop also sells shortbread that was the reason it was allowed to open!

I could only stand and gaze at the secondhand bookshop, my nose wasn’t quite pressed against the window, but it wasn’t far off. I think it might be open again in about five weeks from now – one person in at a time – or two from the one household no doubt.

Apple Blossom in my garden

Posted on 11 May 2020 by Katrina

This year I took some photos of the apple tree in my garden as it blossomed. It begins a deep pink colour but opens to pale pink and then mainly white. This is the only plant that was in the garden when we bought this house. I’ve since planted another apple tree but it is a later variety.

We had some hail today, our weather has gone really crazy, but it shouldn’t affect the apples as they haven’t budded yet, so my fingers are crossed as we didn’t get any apples last year because of a late frost.

It was so hot last week when I took the last photo, and until then I hadn’t realised that apple blossom actually had a scent, the heat really brought it out and I’m surprised that no perfumiers have tried to capture it as it’s really lovely, or maybe they have tried, I’m not a great one for perfume in fact I think a lot of them smell really horrible and a whiff of some of them leave me with a three day migraine. I hold my breath when going through the perfume department of any department store – remember those places? They were becoming an endangered species in recent times and I think that Covid-19 might do most of them in completely, but I suppose that’s the least of our worries at the moment. The delicate looking blossom survives though.

My Early June garden

Posted on 25 June 2019 by Katrina

I took the photos below earlier this month in my garden, just at the time whem we were all thinking – what has happened to ‘flaming June?’

But it just kept getting wetter and I had to rush out whenever things dried up a wee bit. Then came days of high winds and everything flattened, especially the lupins.

They continue to fight back though and new spikes are coming through.

It looks like we will have a bumper crop of raspberries and Tayberries this year, if all the rain we’re getting doesn’t bring the dreaded botrytis fungus. The pears which were growing got blackened in a May frost – such is life, I can’t see any pears on the tree now.

If you click on these photos it’ll take you over to Flickr and you can click on them again to zoom in to see the details better.

Since I took these photos I’ve been out cutting back and dead heading and more roses are coming out.

We’ve been promised decent weather over the next few days, although wouldn’t you know it – it’ll be much better over in my beloved west of Scotland where it’s supposed to reach 25 Celsius.

Apparently that’s 77 Fahrenheit, I’m just glad that I’m not with my brother in Holland at the moment because it’s going to be seriously hot there. Global overheating is definitely in mainland Europe.

My garden in Fife, Scotland

Posted on 12 May 2018 by Katrina

After suffering a winter which was about seven months long featuring several large dumps of snow, it seemed like we were never going to get to Spring, but when we got a few good days of weather everything began to come to life again, well almost everything, there were a few fatalities.

The result was that everything seemed to be flowering at once, as soon as the snowdrops stopped flowering the tulips began, and normally there would be about four months in between those varieties being in bloom. So below are a few photos that I took of my garden over the last week or so.

I’ve been amazed that the harsh winter doesn’t seem to have been a problem for the insect life. I think I’ve already seen more butterflies and bees than I saw all of last summer. These red admirals (I think that’s what they are anyway) have been enjoying the heather in my garden.

The ornamental cherry below is a recent purchase so I can’t claim any of the kudos for its lovely flowers, it’s called Brilliant and is a slow growing one. I’ve put some seeds in the bare ground in the photo, eventually I hope that all of the soil will be covered with plants, apart from anything else that should stop so many weed seeds from germinating!