Duvet Day

Took the day off work as I am sick to death of it. Chilled in the garden and did some house chores instead.

I love the lickle sparrow in the top right hand corner of this pic of me reading:

And thus plant is still looking pretty fantastic:

Malvern Spring Show 2026

I am not going to go into any details, but Mrs P.L. was in great neeed of a chilled getaway this weekend. And what a lovely break we had:

Our Shepherd's Hut near Malvern was absolutely fantastic. And the owner seemed such a decent guy. 

The main event, however, was the Malvern Three Counties Spring Garden Show, Tthe highlight of which, along with our favourite Old Rosie cider, was a 2 hour talk by Monty Don:

A great weekend, and I was so chuffed my better half got to meet her hero and have the TV gardening legend sign his book  😎

I'm Starting to like these guys more and more

Phat Barry...

...is a master or balance:

Tom-cat Turf Wars

The pied Viking cat met Sooty, the all-black cat today. We have x2 black cat visitors to the garden, whom I distinguish by his white socks. The ginger cat didn't welcome Sooty's presence. Not one little bit.

Knighton Honesty in Swansea

Remember this pic, which appeared in this old post?

Well, I took a few seeds from this Honesty plant, and here is a pic of the first of them to flower (it's the purple flowered plant in the foreground of the first image below, and bitton leftvin the pic below that). White it does not look like the pic above just yet, wait 'til it produces the beautiful seed pods!

Soft

I am growing a bit soft on the neighbour's cat. He is certainly fond our of garden :)

Patio sorting weekend mission accomplished.

A new Green Man has joined our garden. Overlooking our patio area, it appears as though this are going to get very special in this area of the garden his year...

Oue Garden has Woken!

Japanese Witch Hazel

 As usual, our Japanese Witch Hazel was the first plant of the year to drag me out into the back garden during remnants of Winter:

Variegated Caesipose Lophs

My new variegated Lophs are amazing. I was even sent a freebiee! I thing there are a couple seed pods hidden it its tuffts too 😍😍

 

X100 Baby Loph Sowing

Just surface-sowed X100 Lophohora williamsii seeds, sourced from Germany ( source: Koehres-Kakteen.de). Sown in a Westland Cacti mix (with Seramis) and mixed with Limestone. Will be placing this on a thermostat-controlled heatmat at 85° for maximum germination...

What a Whopper!

I live my new Bolivian Torch cactus, despite the pain it inflicted on my fingers when I took it from the box it arrived in:

X2 New Cacti Bad Boys

Looks like my specialist Shamanic cacti collection is growing again 🙂

An Eagerness for Spring

Acheing for Winter to withdraw its devilish grasp, we ventured out to our first garden centre trip of the year. Having to do a work shift beforehand, and given the time of year, the sun was alreafy starting to set as we arrived.

Mrs P.L. had a Christmas voucher to launder and I had a crisp £20 note to swap for some gardening delights.

Luckily, there was a great sale on.

This meant, at long last, I was able to take on of these bad boy pots home with me:

Looking like the had been hauled from the decks of a sunken galleon, lost to the oceans centuries ago and now coated with colourful and rugged barnacles and coral, these have been beckoning me from this corner of my favourite garden centre for manyca year. With 50% off thecasking orice, I finally got to bring one of these 'maritime' gardening treasures home with me this evening, which makes me a very happy boy.

Given the sale, I even had enough cash left for these seeds and still come home with a spare pound coin in my pocket 🌿🍃.  

I won't go into Mrs P.L.'s more wanton spending, except to say she is now the proud keeper of one this mother plant's speckled babies: 

Thai Constellation Monstera