Painting, Planting & The Daffodil Farm

Greetings lovely friends & readers

Welcome to the first day of  Spring - my absolute favorite Season 💗

 We have had a week of blue skies, sunshine & chilly-but-glorious days where you can just about see the garden waking up from it's winter sleep.

Down the end of my lounge by the French Doors, I have what I call My Hospital Corner.  It's where I put plants that need reviving or some extra care. It's warm, filtered light with no draughts & plants seem to really come back to life here.  I often wish I could just lie down there awhile & rejuvenate myself !! It's also where I start my cuttings off & so I decided it was time to pot up some of the plants that I had grown from cuttings over winter.

A rustle around under my house & I came across some old pots that had been tossed under there.  I painted them with left over chalk paint & applied oddments of transfers to cheery them up a bit. 

After I've applied the transfers I like to spray them with two coats of clear matt varnish just to seal & protect them & I find this works really well & also makes them scrubable if need be.

This plant was grown from a leaf off my friend Joyce's plant

I forgot to take a "before" of this one but it was a dark almost black colour.  I loved the fluted edge of it.

This pink paint I have used is actually a Resene Testpot in the Colour Pale Rose - it's the perfect shade of pink 💗

This was a tin bucket with rope handles that I found in my sleep out. It was the perfect size for my poor pot-bound ladder fern.

(I can cut 3 plants labels from one length of Dowel)

Pretty plant labels are expensive to buy but I enjoy making my own from these round wooden discs that you can buy from the Variety Stores ($2.99 for a packet of 4).  I buy a length of dowel from Mitre 10, hot glue it to the back & then paint the entire piece before adding the transfers.  These are great if you need to stake a plant too.

I decided to use this old tin trunk as a plant display area as the large picture window provides good light for my plants.  These ones are all newly repotted in larger (upcycled) containers.

Just beside the tin trunk is a selection of thrifted plant stands that I have painted over the years. I seem to have a bit of A Pink Theme going on down here.

While I was outside re-potting I gave my deck table a good scrub & potted up these sweet little viola's.  The purple in them almost reminds me of velvet.  The potted white hyacinth was pulled out from under a garden shrub - its fragrance is divine.

The other week I had to deliver some fresh bags of my citrus pot-pourri to The Farm Shop at Gordonton.  I had not supplied them for over a year due to Lockdowns etc & I wanted to deliver it & remove any old stock I had there.  My car smelt beautiful on the drive over!

I had arranged to meet up with my lovely friend Sue out there & have lunch together.  Sue took me to the cafe out at Woodlands Estate on the other side of Gordonton.  I had not been here before & it was just stunning.  

We had a lovely lunch & a wander around the gardens but could not go in the main house due to a private function being held there.

Sue & I both wanted to go to Clandon Daffodil Farm.  It has been a couple of years since I was last here & it is one of my favourite places to visit.  Just seeing those rows & rows of happy yellow faces as you drive up is so uplifting.  Even though it was a wet rainy day it was still such a pleasant & enjoyable outing.  

The shop is self service & they have a huge selection of daffodils for you to choose from & very reasonably priced.  Sue & I both bought a big bunch of Seconds.  They also sell a selection of bulbs here & have a display garden where you can see the different varieties of daffs available to grow now ... even a pink shade.

When I got home I divided all my daffs up into different vases as I wanted to share them with my daughter in laws.  Sue has begun learning pottery & is doing such amazing work - I was delighted when she presented me with one of her bowls in a lovely dusky blue glaze.  

I put a large vase of Early Cheer Daffs in my lounge so I could enjoy them each night & Oh the fragrance was amazing.  They always make me feel happy because I know when they appear each year ... spring is not too far away.

Interestingly I took a photo of this notice at the Daffodil Farm & decided to do exactly as they suggested.  I often find daffs don't last long in my home as it gets hot here due to our fire.  But I did what they suggested (putting them outside on the deck each night), changing the water every 2nd day ...& they did Not begin to wilt until day 6 or 7, so I was really pleased.

Thank you so very much dear friends, for staying through this lengthy post,

I am off to fill the wood basket as it feels like another frost tonight,

Wishing you a wonderful weekend - be kind to yourselves & to each other,

With much love & friendship to you all,

Julie & the furry ones x0x0x