How does your garden grow?

Oh how much better everything feels when the sky is clear blue and the air is warm. How are you all, my sunny smiley readers. To ask if you are enjoying the sunny interlude would be silly so I won't but I trust that you are all soaking it up as much as you can.

Sunny weather means time in the garden for me, particularly when I am waiting for payday and need to avoid spending money. It's probably un-natural to enjoy my garden so much at such a young (ish) age..but I am what I am. I don't make any apologies for it. The heart wants what it wants.

This evening I took a little wonder around with my camera to capture my summer garden this year. It's looking lovely in the sunshine, I must say..

I spotted this little guy getting intimate with my lavender. It's smelling wonderful
at the moment (the plant..not the bee)

My climbing rose has finally learnt to climb and now it has outgrown the 7 foot trellis and
is now reaching on up into the blue sky. 

Beautiful penstemen, I adore the colour on this one.

Obligatory cat photo, he's such a poser is that Mr Austen.

Thank you for your wonderful book recommendations in my last post. If you missed it last week and you have a fabulous book that you think I should read, do please let me know. I am currently avidly reading 'The Language of Flowers' as suggested by the wonderful Jem from Beautiful Clutter. She was spot on with this recommendation as I had been thinking of reading it anyway.

Besides reading and enjoying the sunshine, I have been coming to terms with the fact that change is afoot..both at work and in my personal life. Not bad change, not at all. Just some things that will make a real difference and I am excited to see where it leads. (Not the work stuff, that's pretty boring). Change may also be on the horizon in other ways. I am considering upping sticks and moving to the country and I have been pining over beautiful homes in Sussex and Surrey. It's defnitely on the cards! On a less serious note, I have also been getting busy with some rose decals and decorating any glass vase, jar or drinking vessel that I can lay my hands on. It's so simple and so effective. Have you ever tried it? I will post my results some time soon. But if you are following me on Instagram then you may have seen my little sneaky peak.

And that is all for now. What have you fine folk been up to? How are your beautiful gardens doing these days?

I am wishing you a splendid sunny week whatever you have in store. Do please think of me as I prepare myself to battle the tube journeys to work and back again during that big sporting event that is starting on Friday. Roll on August 10th..that's all I can say.

With love,

Lexie



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A little bit of what you love..

Hello bank holiday-ers!

Are you having a splendid Jubilee weekend? I have done nothing remotely patriotic, nothing involving street parties or union jacks..I have been out and about with lovely friends instead..bargain hunting, wondering around pretty towns and a little bit of crafting too..

This weekend, my bestie and I headed to Buckinghamshire to stay with bestie's parents. We had tickets to see Derren Brown in a nearby theatre for Saturday evening so they had kindly offered to put us up and feed us!

So, on Saturday, when there was a hint of sunshine..we all headed out for a lovely pub lunch in the countryside. One of my most favourite things to do..

After a delicious lunch we headed to the little town of Great Missendon to wonder around the lovely lovely shops and visit the Roald Dahl museum, which was great fun! I found a few treasures in some independent shops, that I couldn't leave behind! And then it was on to the Antiques Centre at Wendover. It's located in an old post office so its all rickety, with quirky little rooms around hidden corners and up crooked stairs, each one filled with antiques. Heaven. I was very lucky to find a set of two embroidered vintage linens for a tiny tiny price. I plan to make pillow cases out of them.

On our return to London yesterday, I was very happy to find that there was an issue of Mollie Makes waiting for me. I signed up for a subscription back in April as a treat and finally got my first issue! This also meant that my subscription gift had come through as well! (which to be honest, was my main reason for subscribing). My free gift was a fabric, ribbon and button pack. It was a lovely lovely gift, but the best part was the wooden spool that came with it...love it!

Pastel spoons picked up in Great Missendon. Love the colours. 

Embroidered linens from Wendover Antiques.

Wooden spool and ribbon from my Mollie Makes
subscription gift.

 I have also found the time to tidy up my garden a teeny bit and had my first pick of fresh flowers. My sweetpeas turned out to be a lovely lilac colour and for the first time in three years, my climbing rose is making an effort. For the last few years it has been focusing on climbing rather than flowering, this year it is covered in flowers and still climbing. I was very happy to finally bring some of the lovely pastel roses indoors.

And that is the story of my weekend so far. Well, I have missed out the part where I am covered in paint and glue but the story of my bank holiday project will follow very shortly!

Love,

Lexie
x


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At the bottom of the garden..

Afternoon ladies.

I'm sure you are all too busy laying like vegetables and soaking up the sun to be reading blog posts but never the less, I had to stop by.

I popped into my garden this morning to eat my breakfast and I was greeted by a few new faces. Faces that were not there yesterday when I was busy trimming and tidying my quickly overgrowing flower beds. So I  ran for my camera and took a few snaps..

My lovely coral coloured 'Just Joey' tea rose has sprung its first flower. It certainly was not there yesterday. This rose smells divine. It's a David Austin rose and smells like no other flower I have smelt before.

My special zombie sweetpea also changed from its bud like state to a more floral affair..I call it my zombie sweetpea because it literally came back from the dead. I pulled up all my sweetpeas last year after they finished flowering and turned a bit crispy and yellow...this little thing sprung up in the middle of the above rose bush and has become a beast of a plant...I am looking forward to cutting these sweetpeas and having them and their lovely smell in my home.

Then, while I was waiting patiently for some honey bees to make an appearance on my butterfly lavender..this little chappy landed right in front of me and stayed a little while so I could get snap happy.

My petunias have also finally made an appearance and a few of my perennials are reawakening and bringing some lovely summer colour. It's such an exciting time. Now if the weather could just settle down a bit and stop being so extreme then perhaps I would be able to keep up with my gardens rapid growth..seriously, it's out of control this year!

I hope you have had a lovely weekend in the sunshine. I have been doing more holiday clothes shopping and I spent some time customising my new summer hat. I finally found one to fit my head!

So tell me, how are your gardens looking? And what are your favourite summer blooms?

Tomorrow is giveaway winner day so I will see you all then to pick one lucky name.

Lots of love,


Lexie
x


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Buds & Blossom

Happy April 1st my wonderfuls. 

Can you believe that March is over and a new month is upon us? I am starting this new month in a time of change..a very peculiar time where I am endeavoring to give up my two worst habits, which also happen to be two things that make me very happy!! Food and Spending money! Talk about hitting me where it hurts. 

So I am on a very strict eating plan for the next few weeks and on a very tight budget. It's hard readers, so very hard. But all for the good. The weight loss is going very well! I am doing Anna Richardson's Body Blitz Diet and it's a tough one but definitely rewarding! My only problem is that I am constantly craving Chinese food, not because I want it but out of habit and after 4 days without carbs, my mind is tricking me into thinking I can small chips..all the time. What I wouldn't give for a baguette right now.

Nevertheless, I am pushing forward with it and finding other things to keep me happy and entertained.

I went for a wander today, around the lovely cemetery at the bottom of my road. Weird, you might think but this cemetery is so beautifully old and enclosed it really is a great place to get some fresh air. It stretches for miles and is swaddled by trees, it's like a woodland and it's so peaceful that you can forget for a moment that you are in England's capital. Bliss. It is always at its prettiest in the spring, carpeted with daffodils, crocuses and later on, acres of bluebells under the shade of the trees. Today I was delighted by the beautiful displays of magnolia. What a lovely tree the magnolia tree is! Of course I took a few spring snaps as I wandered around..

When I came home I spent some time in my garden, enjoying the spring sights and spotting the new buds and new signs of life. Next weekend I will be going plant shopping and it will be time to get my non frost proof decorative bits and pieces out of the shed and into the light. How I have missed them! But there was one thing I couldn't wait to put out...I just hope the frost stays away!

I got this little bird bath dish for my birthday last October and it has been sitting in a cupboard ever since. Today I decided it needed to be put to use so I have perched it on top of my little side table that I picked up in a "Troc Shop" while visiting my mother in France a few years ago. The side table has been in my garden since I first moved it but has never served a real purpose (other than looking nice)...until now..

There will be no thirsty birdies in my garden this summer!

Have a happy sunny Sunday sweethearts! I'm going to hide from the chip smell!

With love,

Lexie 

x

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Sweetpeas and Memories

Afternoon petals,

Everything good? Yes? Wonderful! Where did the weekend go?

I thought I would stop by today and share a little treat that I purchased for myself recently. Last week I spent some time hunting for new blogs to fall in love with...I tend to look at the blogs I already love and see whose blogs they read and love. It has never failed to find me some wonderful new blogs to immerse myself in. One such blog found in this way was the delightfully beautiful and superbly named Beautiful Clutter. Instantly obsessed! I just love clutter and so does Jem and she really has an eye for the most exquisite clutter!

All that aside, she posted about something so lovely that I simply had to find it and purchase it for myself...

The premise is simple, a five year memory book in the most beautiful blue colour with Gold detail. There is enough space to write brief snippets of information that you can look back on over the years. It was just what I needed.

I often feel that time is running away from me and I try to remember as much detail as possible but things get lost and overshadowed. The writer in me hates it and yet I am awful at keeping a journal! So the writer in me now gets a pretty book to document the most important parts of every day for five years! Not too much detail required, its perfect. I am looking forward to being able to look back on it over the next five years and beyond...that is what appealed to me the most.

I must thank Jem for posting about this wonderful diary! How lucky you are to have such a thoughtful friend!

For all you Spring lovers, are you excited for the clocks to come forward? The waiting is nearly over. I had a lovely reminder that spring is in the air and summer not far behind...in the form of a little guest appearance in my garden:

Do you spy the little green visitor crawling its way up my tea rose? That is a sweet pea..more specifically a sweet pea that somehow survived the great sweet pea purge of summer 2011. I thought I had pulled up all my sweet peas after a season of beautiful flowers ended abruptly in a dried up, yellowing mess of dead sweet pea plants. But, miraculously this little guy somehow made it through and here he is, making an appearance. I wasn't planning on buying any sweet peas this year but now I will at least have one token sweet pea to brighten up my little garden.

Now if that isn't a reminder that summer is coming then I don't know what is.

Now I'm going to make some welsh cakes..just because (healthy welsh cakes of course)

Love,

Lexie

x x x

Spring-a-ding-ding

Reader, I survived the week...the one I was dreading. It was a test of endurance but I survived it somehow. I fear this week is going to be another test but lets hope it's a little kinder to me and won't get me down quite so much.

I've been feeling a tickle of spring in the air and doesn't it feel great? A hint of a spring breeze, the peek of a new spring bud. Very exciting. I've spent my lovely long weekend in preparation for Springs arrival and as always my camera wasn't far. It is good to share in blog land, after all.

I painted and decorated some plastic eggs with pale blue paint and
patterned tape (remember how I told you how wonderful this stuff
is)

Now I have a lovely spring table in my living room.

I also made myself a little herb garden, I'm doing more and more cooking from scratch and I decided that fresh herbs were a necessity, plus it gave me an excuse to plant things, which I love doing and I'm far too impatient to wait for all the Spring/Summer plants to come out! I have already had compliments on my selection of herbs and the way they look all planted together in my wooden crate so call me pleased!

Herb garden complete with labels.

Now, choosing herbs is a tricky business you know, my final selection mixes colour with aroma and practicality..there's no point planting anything that you won't be using now is there but no point planting something that isn't pleasing to the eye..or nose.  I chose Oregano, Purple sage, lemon thyme, Foxley thyme and Grapefruit mint. The lemon thyme and grapefruit mint both smell delightful and the purple sage and foxley thyme are both lovely to look at.

Oregano, Purple Sage, Grapefruit mint.

Foxley thyme and Lemon thyme.

I am very much looking forward to trying the herbs out and I will report back with some wonderful recipe ideas for you all to enjoy.

I also had the pleasure this weekend, of spending an evening at Alexandra Palace with the amazing Florence & the Machine. I have loved Florence and her band since her very first single so it was a really very special evening for me. You know when you just adore a song so much that hearing it live and loud is truly wonderful? Well that's how it was for me, except I love most of the songs so that's a whole lot of wonderful for one evening!  If you're a fan and you ever get the chance to see her live then you simply must go!

Lots of love to you all,

Lexie

x

Blooming lovely

I feel such pride and happiness when I look at my garden that I can't help but smile. I simply had to share it...

Monsieur Buckley doing what he does best.

Mr Austen being regal

Mon petit jardin rose

I finally managed to focus some attention on my little garden and I thought I would share some photos of my lovely summer blooms.

This is the only rose in my garden at the moment

and it sure is perfect.

My hydrangea withered and all but died last year within
weeks of being purchased...this year it seems
to be feeling better as it has turned from nothing into
a huge, beautiful plant.

I love penstemen

It's not all pink...not quite anyway!

My pretty sweetpeas!

I didn't intend to take pictures of only the pink plants, there are other colours in there somewhere!!

Creative thinking...

I always think that home design is 90% creativity and improvisation and 10% personal taste. I bare this in mind when I'm trying to come up with ingenious ways of displaying pretty things. Yesterday I took my first pick of sweetpeas from my little wannabe cottage garden. This is exciting because I am a little country gardener, jam making, flower loving loser dressed as a worker type and living in a city suburb!

I don't know about you but in the past I have used a variety of household items as vases..because sometimes the flowers just don't sit right in that pretty spotty jug that is just perfect for floral displays. I've used glasses of differing kinds and designs, tins and tea cups. Let me tell you, they all make great vases.

Today, I used a jam jar...because, why not? It was just perfect for the top heavy, wire like, skinny stems of the sweetpeas and it looks very country...which fills the 10% personal taste quota that I mentioned earlier very well!!

Also, if you've never grown sweetpeas then you must...they smell so sweet and the colours are so pretty! They just need something to support them as they climb...or even better something from them to climb up (Trellis, wire or a sweetpea teepee thing) and a whole lot of water!

Me and my garden

I have always dreamed of having a little cottage garden and last year I was lucky enough to find an apartment in London that came with a garden. Ever since then I have become somewhat of a garden nerd. My garden is by no means big, or special. It's one half of a garden, the other half is not looked after and there is no fence to split the two but I have done my very best to turn my half into some semblance of cottage garden...it's a continual work in progress but I am a bit of a proud garden momma so I thought I would share some snaps!

This is my flower bed full of cottage garden plants. I have let them grow tall and crazy
for a hectic, messy, effortless look. It takes more work than it seems!

I'm a big fan of the cluttered pot areas in gardens. I love my seating area.

I'm hoping to have a good crop of Lavender this year so I can give
bunches of it to everyone.

I love roses.

No garden is complete without food for the birds.

And that's it. My beloved garden full of colours and scents. I'd love to hear about your own cottage gardens so why don't you tell me all about them?