It is a whole month since last time I uploaded a video of my garden, I am not sure where that month has gone, I have been so busy! My garden is growing like mad and with the fine weather we have had for ages, I need to be around watering and taking care of the garden on a daily basis. We have had a bit of rain the last few days, but it really doesn’t amount to anything, just enough to be annoying, just enough to keep me out of the garden, having to go inside during the showers - but I still have to water the pots and containers every day. This week the weather looks to get better, back to low to mid twenties and no rain at all it seems.
But enough chit-chat, let me present this month’s view of my garden and as always, if you have the speed for it, my films are always best viewed in full screen (button in the bottom right corner) but remember to change to 720p or 1080p, depending on your download speed. Here’s 4 minutes and 30 seconds of my June Garden, accompanied of some nice music (Sheep May Safely Graze by J. S. Bach).
I’m sorry about the colours going a bit strange here and there, I take my videos with an iPad mini and it isn’t the greatest technology invented for taking movies, but sometimes a bit better than my Canon camera as the lens for my camera doesn’t focus while filming. So until I get a new, better camera lens, the iPad mini will have to do. But some of the colours became really off this time, the dark pink colour of the chair at my seating area looks almost rusty brown! And the huge, tall hydrangea looks nowhere near like it did in the video – seems like dark pink is a bit difficult for that poor iPad mini. Anyway, here are a couple of photos of the hydrangea, just so you can see.
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So that was June’s end of month view, my garden is groaning at the seams and you wouldn’t think there were space for even one single tiny plant – but there is! I got plans for bringing more plants in, more about that in the autumn I hope :-) Thanks to Helen at the The Patient Gardener’s Weblog for hosting this meme, if you head over to her blog you will find many more End of Month Views.
That’s it for this time, I got a lot of projects going on at the moment and I hope to be able to present some of them here next month, when I get my breath back again :-)
Take care, Helene.
That was just lovely, thanks Helene. I really enjoyed a saunter through your garden and getting the whole view. So many beautiful flowers everywhere. I simply love that mislabelled Hydrangea. I also spotted those fabulous teacups that I love so much! Those Pelargoniums look fantastic too.
ReplyDeleteThanks Bernie, those teacups have been doing several walk-abouts in my garden with different plants for different locations, and all the anemones and irises that I had in them this spring are now safely tucked into the flowerbeds, hopefully coming up next spring.
DeleteIt looks beautiful. I'm impressed that you can manoeuvre the iPad so well. I've never tried using mine for video. Have the spotty cups moved or are these more?
ReplyDeleteI am not so sure I manoeuvre the iPad so well, I am much better with my camera on a tripod! Holding that iPad mini whilst walking is not easy, and I tend to pan a bit too quickly for it, as my camera can tolerate quicker panning than the iPad. But it’s all a learning curve, perhaps I’ve got it perfected by the time I can afford to buy the lens I would like - Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS STM Lens, which is what I really need for my Canon EOS 600D.
DeleteOh, and the cups? Yes, I keep moving them around, it’s 6 of them and I have finally managed to get them all planted up again after emptying them for bulbs from the spring. None of them are on the shelf anymore but they will be back there next early spring I think.
Your garden looks heavenly and the peaceful music makes it even more wonderful. Your headgardener, cat, looks so cute, after the inspection of your garden she takes a rest on the soft cushions.
ReplyDeleteThanks Janneke, my cat is with me every day when I am outside, he is almost 13 years old and doesn’t walk very far from the house anymore.
DeleteMy three favourite pastimes.... gardens, music and chocolate. You provided two wonderfully - the third came courtesy of Thorntons and was the perfect accompaniment to your lovely garden. Oh for a cat's life!
ReplyDeleteI am glad I could provide entertainment for you whilst enjoying your chocolate! Thorntons chocolate is my favourite too and although I don’t eat chocolate very often, I do prefer from them if I have some.
DeleteDear Helene, I love that you showed us a video of your beautiful garden! It almost feels like I have seen it myself. It is definitively bursting at the seams at this time of the year. My favorites were your light colored geraniums/pelargoniums in the pots lined up by your seating area and your Casablanca Lilies. Also your cat enhances your garden quite a bit when it is strolling through it in its elegant way ;-). Wishing you a lovely week,
ReplyDeleteChristina
Thanks Christina, I am so glad you feel like you have been here, that’s my aim with taking these videos, I will try to take one every end of the month. We have had very hot weather the last few days and ALL the flowers on all 7 pelargonium just dropped. I have been snipping dead flowers in buckets today! The same thing happened last year too, the first flush lasted for ages and then they all went off almost at the same time. But there are lots of new buds so it won’t take long before they are all in flower again.
DeleteBy the way, the white lilies you saw were Lilium regale, I make them myself from seed :-) I have lots of casa Blanca lilies too, they are right in front of my huge camellia, they are much later lilies and won’t flower for another month or so.
I hope you have a wonderful week.
Your garden is beautiful Helene. So colorfull and peacefull.
ReplyDeleteWish you a wonderful summertime Helene.
Thanks Marijke, I hope you have a great summertime too – and that the weather with you are just as great as here in London!
DeleteLooking good. I find blues are difficult to get right in photos, never as vibrant as in reality. Thanks for joining in the meme I hope you find it helpful.
ReplyDeleteThanks, yes I think I will continue to do this every end of the month, with a video of the garden. Lots of photos are good, but a video says so much more when looking back. I have videos from several years ago and it is fun to see how much my garden has changed!
DeleteWhat an incredible Hydrangea! Your movie looks great! Mine always turn out fabulous on my iPhone, but get all grainy when I try to publish to social media. I need to figure that out! Enjoy the perfect weather, Helene!
ReplyDeleteThanks Beth, the hydrangea got a severe chop in autumn 2012, and yet it has grown back to taller than it was! I would have preferred it to have stayed a bit smaller to be honest :-)
DeleteNext time you take a video you could try this: transfer your video from your iPad to your computer first, then use a program, for example Windows Live Movie Maker (free) to save it in the right format – and to do that, instead of choosing publish movie to either YouTube or Facebook or something similar, choose . You are then saving the finished movie to your computer, and then you can upload for example to YouTube and embed in your blog or link anywhere else, like Facebook etc.
Doing it this way ensures that YOU have saved the movie with the highest setting – then it’s up to the user to choose the highest setting they can view in.
I hope this helps :-)
Wonderful video, Helen! Your cat is a principal in your garden, looking around and then resting on your sofa.Lovely hydrangea "blue' :)). Mine isn't yet in bloom.
ReplyDeleteThe weather is fine in your place and our weather is awful!
Thanks Nadezda, we have had a lot of lovely weather since April and it shows on the garden! The only issue with that is I have to water a lot, some plants need water every day, so that’s a lot of work. But I am enjoying the weather. I hope the good weather is coming your way soon :-)
DeleteWow, what a garden paradise! It looks gorgeous. I love your sitting area (and it looks like the cat does, too!)
ReplyDeleteThanks, my sitting area was refurbished last year and looks a lot better now.
DeleteBeautiful video, and the actor is really having fun seems like he's really on cue! And your garden is indeed very full, and can't squeeze in anything anymore. I love the color of your hydrangea, very bright, i guess the pH of your soil changed much with the heavy rains so it is pink instead of blue! lovely
ReplyDeleteThanks Andrea, the mop head hydrangea can be anything from light pink to blue depending on the pH in the soil, more rain water helps to lower pH, the lower it is the darker colour the hydrangea get and more towards blue – so opposite of what you guessed. In my garden I rarely have anything darker than purple, never blue, I simply haven’t got low enough pH, besides I always have to water with a hose in the summer, which increases the pH. I could add aluminum sulphate to get blue or bluer flowers but I haven’t bothered with it, I like the fact that they are different shade of pink every year depending on precipitation!
DeleteThe reference to the blue hydrangea was that when I bought it, the label said this was meant to be a lace cap hydrangea called Blue Wave, if you Google this you can see how different it looks to mine – definitely a wrongly labelled plant.
Loved the video with the music. Your garden is gorgeous this year and must be quite the view for the neighbors. Your cat is so sweet in the matching chair.
ReplyDeleteThanks Shirley, not sure about the view for the neighbours, they hardly use their gardens except for storing rubbish and hanging out the washing.
DeleteYour garden is so lovely--Clematis, fuchsias, lillies, hydrangeas, roses--all my favorites. Thanks for sharing a delightful video.
ReplyDeleteThanks, I wish you could see the garden in person, it really is lovely right now :-)
DeleteLoved the film, you have inspired me to have a go myself. The Pelargoniums are particularly striking, along with your hydrangeas and lilies, in fact all of it right down to your pristine paths. You must be at least two weeks ahead of me but even so the amount of colour in your garden is amazing.
ReplyDeleteThanks Rick, taking videos is a great way of showing off your garden, but it also serves as a good reminder for myself of how the garden has changed over the years – my first videos are from a few years back and it’s amazing how much my garden has changed since then.
DeleteThe garden is a bit early this year, but not the earliest I have had since starting at this place 13 years ago. I had no frost at all this winter so that’s probably partly the reason.
Fantastic idea putting together a video, gives such a better sense of the space than still photos do. and you're very right, it's bursting at the seams with plants. Utterly charming (and I loved your sweet cat too)
ReplyDeleteThanks Marguerite, I plan to make a video every month this year, it’s quick and easy and certainly don’t take any longer than editing, saving and uploading all the photos I usually have in my posts :-)
DeleteYour kitten seemed walk in time with the music in your video! LOL Your garden is looking so colorful Helene! There is so much in flower at the moment. I always admire the trumpet lilies you have. Stunning!
ReplyDeletep.s. I love the zebra cushions!
Thanks Jennifer, I think lilies is my favourite flower in the summer – it certainly is my favourite scent!
DeleteI have made all the cushions and the mattress for the garden bench, I found the zebra material online :-)
Helene I was so excited to see another video of your stunning garden...and what a sweet tour guide. That red rose is huge and the pink hydrangea wow....mine are usually stunted with our cold weather. And I adored the wall of pots with the pink geraniums....can't wait for another visit!
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteI think I will try to make a video every month from now on, look for it on the last day of the month!
Your garden is looking gorgeous Helene! I love that row of pretty geraniums in the pots. Great idea to make the video too, the garden never seems to stay the same for very long does it, so it's a great way to record the changes.
ReplyDeleteThanks Paula, and how great to see you back blogging!
DeleteHi Helene, your garden never ceases to amaze me, what few fuchsias I have, including a couple that overwintered, are only really just coming into flower even though it has been a very mild year. All your plants are looking really healthy and I think you will have more cutting back to do before summer is over!
ReplyDeleteThanks Rick, my fuchsias are so varied in form, shape and size, I never tire of them – and I have some very special ones growing that I hope to present next year, still only babies :-)
Delete