Staying inspired

I don't know about you, but it can be hard to stay inspired this time of the year. It's cold outside. It gets dark really early. And gets light really late. I'm an early riser and, as much as I love winter, the cold and long darkness can put a damper on creativity. Especially out in the garden.

 Image from Pinterest

So each day I spend a couple of hours searching for inspiration on the internet or scratching around in my store room, trying to find something that I can use in the garden. Isn't the image above absolutely adorable?! I've even gravitated towards my husband's workshop, looking for an old car body that I can utilise like this.

But one needs quite a bit of space to utilise an old car body like that, not very practical or so easy to execute, I mean, who is going to carry it to the garden for me? So in the meantime, all I've come up with is an old wooden wheelbarrow, which I can visualise filled with pansies,  and an old vintage seed planter, which is badly in need of some wood protection for the handles and a coat of paint on the metal parts.

 A wooden wheelbarrow I found now stands in a corner of my garden

I placed them in the garden and now contemplate the next move. Pansies first and then out with the paint. I can't wait to tackle these two (small) projects and maybe follow up on some other ideas I came across, like this old door and frame somewhere in a corner of the garden.

Or a whole lot of terracotta pots (I'm just MAD about terracotta pots!) placed on top of the wall surrounding my garden (like the example below). But who will be getting up the ladder to be watering them...?

Pinterest

But first, I'm going inside to warm up with a nice cup of hot coffee! Enjoy your day!

 Pinterest

::

You just gotta love garden tools!

I just absolutely love garden tools and garden sheds and watering cans! I have about 17 watering cans and I just cannot by-pass a set of hand tools in the garden shops! I do have my favourites that I use, the rest are displayed on shelves and corners in my house together with baskets and garden gloves, another favourite of mine. Not that I use them often, who can use the hose pipe or dig in a piece of earth with gloves on?!

"Where, but in a garden, do summer hours pass so quickly?"

Some of my favourite garden tools are my Lasher spade and fork (above) - petite and light-weight, they are ideal for the woman-gardener. I have had mine for many years now, and they're certainly showing wear, but they're still as sturdy as ever, taking pride of place in my garden shed. Nobody, not even Chrissie, my garden manager, is allowed to use them, she has her own set. Between the two of us, we make a mean team in the garden!

I prefer hand trowels with a wooden handle, they seem to have a better grip, especially when one's hands are wet. Besides the normal size, I have some very small forks and trowels for easily getting in between potted flowers for removing weeds or lifting a plant to transplant into the garden.

 

Some of my favourite tools ready for use on a potting table on my patio 

Some of the chores awaiting me this week are moving some of my tender succulents into the house for over-wintering, removing the last of the summer weeds and transplanting some potted plants into the garden, like this little Acacia karroo tree (above) that took root in this pot all on its own. I've been pampering it for a couple of months now, and soon it will be ready for its own space in the garden.

Geranium cuttings ready to go into the garden 

A weed growing from a rock on my patio - I'll leave it just where it is!

A watering can sharing space with some terracotta pots on a shelf in my potting shed 

 

 

These Echeverias (E. glauca) should be coming inside for the winter, just wondering where in my flower room I'm going to find space for them...? 

 Cleaning out the chicken coop 

The Nasturtiums are coming to an end and I will be removing dead stalks and creeping vines, but last winter a lot of them saw it fit to flower all winter long, maybe I'm lucky again this year!

Some of my girls helping with bug control...

 

::