Thursday, 13th of April 2023 [58]
It’s 13th today! Do you believe number 13 brings bad luck? Well, I hesitated putting the date on today’s report at work and left it to finish next week. Despite the fact that I don’t believe in luck. Or do I?
Well, look at me! I’m slacking with writing, yet I publish right on the 13th. Can’t be all that back, can it?
I took these pictures back in December, when I last visited Crystal at xmas. Last weekend I went to visit her during long Easter weekend and I wanted to take more pictures, but I only took a few. What’s the point if I don’t ever use them?
So this week I decided it’s time to take a virtual walk around Crystal’s garden. It won’t be a long walk, but I’m sure it will turn out to be a long post 😉
As I arrive at Cryztal’s place, I always take the left drive. Not that I like or dislike either, but there is a bit of one way system going on here.
There are 2 parking spaces at the end of left drive and that’s where I usually park my car. After this point, the drive curves, leading to the house.
Then comes out back to the road. As you can see, Crystal is pretty much the only person using this one-way system, as once she’s in, she parks right outside the door, right in the middle of the drive 😉 Cause she can!
Kylo has a little enclosure by the front door here.
Ok, it’s not so little. It’s actually a very good size garden, taking up the whole lenght of the house plus some more.
Space is definitely not something they’re lacking here, up North. I’d be very happy if even one of my gardens was this size, but my front and back put together are smaller than Kylo’s enclosure 😉
Space is also one of the main reasons why my bestie moved all the way up North, 200 miles away from me. With 2 growing teenagers, new partner and his daughter, her small, 2 bedroom house rented in a beautiful location was no longer cutting it.
I get. She’s much better off here, close to her parents who also help with the kids. I still miss her though. 4h drive is a long time to be travellig to see her every month, like I used to.
As for Kylo, I look at him and I’m not sure if he loves the new, much bigger garden or if he also misses the old place, where he was allowed in the living room and even occassionally on the sofa.
Since we reached the front door, here it is.
I’m happy there is a little table and a chair right by the front door. Makes my sneaking out for a smoke much more pleasant, especially when the weather is good.
As if one front door and 2 drives were not enough, there is also a second door and a third path that leads to the second door.
The fence is on its way out though and I heard Crystal is planning to put up a new, much taller fence in it’s place. Makes sense, as the house is just by the main road. A village main road, but still, there are always curious eyes peaking into the front garden.
With taller fence they will have much more privacy for the sunny days, once BBQ season starts.
Back to the first front door. I wanna show you what I did to her! I infected her with my succulent inflactuation 😁
I love the tiny babies growing out of the crowns of some of them.
Couple years ago, when she still lived in a reasonable distance from me, we would pack all our unwanted stuff from the house and take it to carboot sale to make room and earn some money.
I always had some trays with plants to sell with me. Since succulents weren’t a hot product to sell though, I’d leave them at her place for another time we go to carboot sale.
Somehow those succulents migrated to her pots after a while. Then I also show her how easy it is to propagate them and that’s it. She was hooked.
Now I can proudly present to you the awesome compositions she makes of them for herself. Almost like a proud mom moment 😉
I love that I managed to plant this little seed of interest in her. It’s always a good feeling when you infect someone else with the love for gardening (or anything else for that matter).
Rosemary is the only thing that’s left of a big pot of summer flowers I gifted her for one of her birthdays. It was full of colourfull blooms back then, but since all of them were annuals, I knew it was only a seasonal pleasure for the eyes, so I decided to add Rosemary in the middle of the pot for years to come.
Between a one-way system drive of hers is garden number 3. This part of full of various bushes.
I love those big palms with impressive flowers on them.
You can tell Crystal’s stylish hand touched the garden, as you look inside some of the pots. Cute painted stones that she most likely did herself during one of the creative days with her daughter.
They sit pretty in another pot of Rosemary. I’m surprised how little it grew in all those years I’ve been visiting Crystal. Maybe next time round we’ll do some repotting or at least replace part of the soil. Knowing her, she could pot it up in coffee grains 😁
And here is Selby. A caravan that Crystal and Eddie refurbished all by themselves and take it around England for various staycations.
When not traveling, Selby serves as a tarot reading corner. One of the very few pictures I took this time round adds a little splash of colour to Selby, thanks to a bush that started flowering already.
I also found some of my absolute favourite spring flowers here - Violets. She has tons of them growing in various parts of the garden. My only beef with them is that they don’t have that intoxicating scent that I remember from Poland. I often wonder if they’re a different, non scented variety?
At Crystal’s even a pile of rubbish has some love in it! She’s planning to set it all on fire in summer, while her partner insists they should take it all to skip. I do wonder who will win 😉
Back to garden though! There are so many flowering bushes there. This yellow one I once wrote about, but trust me to forget the name of it already!
Well, never mind. What matters is that it smells amazing!
If not flowers, there are some funky shaped bushes.
And others with seeds.
Since it was December, the lack lf flowers is excused, but there were plenty of pretty seeds.
And fruits.
And many, many more bushes that I recognised, but don’t know the names of.
One thibg for sure… I’m very happy that I finally put these pictures to good use.
I have so many that never seen a daylight of social media. Now that December garden update is finally comoleted this April, I can take plenty more pictures upon my next visit to Crystal, probably in early summer, without feeling some kind of way 😉
Until next time 💙