Today, I’m blogging directly from Kit’s Garden, having taken the bold step of separating my gardening skills from the rest of Kit Domino’s World, which is rapidly growing faster than my waistline. I hope you’ll enjoy future (and past) posts and photos of my little piece of heaven here in beautiful Gloucestershire.
So, what is a garden? By definition, a garden is simply a group of plants controlled by man, us humans, mankind. Thus, it can be anything you want — be it trees and shrubs, a rock garden, water garden, only grasses, flowers or no flowers.
Gardening has become a way of life for my husband and I, both flowers and vegetable growing and over time I intend to blog about the individual plants we grow, how and give advice where we can. There’s no right or wrong way to garden, what works for one person, may not for another. Different soils, different locations within the country and various weather conditions across the UK all effect Mother Nature.
Gardens are not static. They change over time, over seasons, plants fall in and out of fashion, your health can affect what you can do in the garden, family needs change. And, like painting the Forth Road Bridge, it is never finished. There is always something to do, a bit of pruning, deadheading, a renegade weed that needs to be dealt with.
Ah, yes, the perennial argument over what is a weed and what is not. A weed is nothing more than a plant growing where it is not wanted (coming back to plants being controlled by man again!). Our native wild flowers, evolved over thousands of years to flourish and seed and grow in profusion, are often referred to as weeds. They are not, unless you do not want them in your plot. But take a closer look at some of them. The flowers are often exquisite, our wildlife thrives thanks to them, and Kit’s Garden has learned to live with them. Well, some of them. Oh, all right, a few!
Every year I throw down a packet of wild seeds in the back garden. They are inexpensive, fill gaps, and help bring in the birds and bees. Okay, they may not all be native species, but that doesn’t matter. Most plants and flowers growing in UK gardens are not natives. The vast majority having been imported and/or crossbred years back from across the world, the good and the bad. They’ve settled here, enjoy it here or they would have keeled over and died many years ago. And we, as a nation, have come to regard many as our own.
I hope you’ll continue to join me in my garden, find something of interest, learn something new. A gardener never stops learning; none of us professes to know all there is to know about plants and gardening. And a true gardener always loves to help other gardeners, whether advice, plants or simply pass the time of day. Most of all, a true gardener needs to stop a while, make time to smell the roses, sit back, relax and admire their efforts; I know I do. I hope you’ll continue to join me in my garden, find something of interest, learn something new.
See you next time!
This summer has certainly been sweltering so far, and I love it. But it has its downside too, for keeping the garden thriving has been a major task. Thankfully we’re not on a water meter or a hosepipe ban so the new flower border is more colourful than ever. But despite our best efforts our vegetables have been a failure – a first for Dave 
He (I say “he” but it could well be a “she”) is a young starling that thinks he’s a sparrow. I first became aware of him few weeks ago when the local starling flock of descended into my garden with all their noisy fledglings to feast on the birdseed dropped by the sparrows. The fledglings were able to fly reasonable well and most could feed themselves but preferred like most youngsters to let mum (or dad) feed them…
So, that’s dark and dreary January over. Thank goodness. February here may still be dreary but at least the days are getting longer in soggy England. February hasn’t gone well so far for us. Only three days old and already three bad things have happened. First, a close family member on my husband’s side has passed on. The next we heard some other bad news which upset us both. And this morning,… 
Already some of the daffodils are open too, the majority of which are the small, dwarf types. The stock of these has been building up over several years as I am wont to buy small pots of them in the supermarket each week instead of buying bunches of, as I used to. My sister gave me the idea of buying the potted ones for indoors and then after they have finished flowering, to plant them in the garden for next year. Now why didn’t I think of doing that sooner?
