Tuesday 26 April 2011

More advice needed, please

Another wonderful weekend at the Corbies. Mum and Dad brought the boys down and we had a lovely couple of days wandering around, drinking beer (not the boys), having barbeques and doing a bit of gardening. The weather was most untypical for Scotland - warm, sunny and lovely. The swallows have returned to the cottage too and are intent on nest-building. We therefore spend any time outdoors with those beautiful birds swooping around our heads as they invade the pig sty with its lovely dark corners, so perfect for raising a family in.

I think we have broken the back of the garden and it is now starting to look a little more respectable.
We spent a lot of time digging and weeding the borders and beds (with much help from my parents) and they are looking pretty good now, even if I do say so myself. Now we just need to decide what to plant in them!


And this is where you talented gardening-type people out there come in. (I know you have nothing better to do than answer my inane questions!) We have lots of lovely plants and trees but no idea of what most of them are. So I have prepared a quiz for you: Identify if you can the following trees from our little Borders garden:

1) From the patio - beautiful deep pink blossom

2) Also from the patio - not in blossom yet, but with little trailing "cat tails" which look like they might become flowers soon

3) From our deck - pretty pale lilac flowers

Apologies for the rotten picture quality - you can click the photies to enlarge if that helps!

We are planning to return to the Corbies to escape the wall-to-wall wedding coverage this Friday (no TV there - what joy!) and hopefully to plant some stuff in those waiting beds. Just have to decide what to plant.

9 comments:

  1. Lilacs are always good, as is forsythia. But you need a shrub of some sort to be at the base of the fence. Not sure. Take a look in the local nursery.
    I shall be wearing my best bonnet, sipping tea and eating scones as I watch the wedding in the middle of the night!

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  2. 1. pretty flowering tree
    2. pretty tree
    3. pretty flowering bush

    As you can see I am no help. I only wish my yard looked as respectable.

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  3. 1. Might be flowering plum or cherry. Hard to tell.
    2. Who knows? Need better photo.
    3. This one's easy. The lilac flowered plant is - ta da! - lilac!

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  4. no idea.

    I probably know less than you...

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  5. Re your comment - I'm sure your boys will have lovely memories along the lines of: I remember standing in the Corbies garden beside that lilac plant that Mum didn't know the name of...

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  6. 1 - is that a fuschia? (Don't trust me.) And that bottom one is a lilac. I know this because we used to have one when I was a kid.

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  7. None of them is a fuchsia (spelt like that).

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  8. The first might be a flowering crab? ? on two. And, yes, three is a lilac.
    The back garden ('yard' in N. America) looks splendidly neat and organized.

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  9. I know nothing about plants if they're edible I'm afraid. But I do know buddleia trees are quite bonnie cause we've got one in our back garden and when the big purple flowers come it's awfy pretty.

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