New life always wins!

The garden has been breathing  a sigh of relief this week. Finally it would seem that the unbelievable series of storms that hit the UK over the last months have burned themselves out. Devastation is a pretty good word to describe the damage that they caused and although on a minor scale compared to the poor people who are still flooded out of their homes, we did suffer a bit. 

Yes it was those bl**dy Eucalyptus trees. Known as the widow-maker in Australia because of their propensity to fall on peoples heads, they started to dive all over the lawn here as soon as the wind got up a bit.. Heaven know what possessed the previous owners of this home to plant them in a spot that receives the full blast of any sort of wind that set off in the USA five day previously!!

So gradually since Christmas, Jim came up with ever more inventive ways of propping them back up. St Valentine and the now infamous storm put an end to that.  Sadly the five smaller trees are now firewood and we have a huge gap to fill in the garden. 

This was the entire rootball of a five or six year old 15 feet high tree. No wonder they couldn't stand up. 

The beach here took a bashing as well.. huge boulders have been moved but luckily there was only major damage to one beach hut, and it was one of the older ones. 

The hut owners of the next place along the coast were not so luck. You may have seen the pictures on the Uk news of Milford on Sea and the devastation caused. I do hope they are replaced but it may take a while because as well as damaging the huts, a lot of the beach they were standing on has gone as well. You can read about it here

In the garden amazingly my brussel sprouts stayed upright 

It was time for them to come out though, so I picked all the remaining edible ones 

These have been blanched and frozen for another day. It then only remained to clear the bed ready for its next crop

I haven't decided quite yet what that will be but I have plenty of choice, because as usual, just a little bit of sunshine and all my seedlings are growing like mad

And there are loads more planted, yet to germinate, and hundreds more to be sown 

Outside my Autumn sown flowers in the cutting patch are looking very perky

And my garlic, shallots and onions are doing very nicely

and I can alway rely on the good old Rhubarb

So at the moment its just getting going, but hopefully in a few weeks it will look much fuller

The Camellia I moved here with us, and planted in the ground has rewarded me with some beautiful early colour

And for now that about it. One benefit of the amazing seas was some lovely bits of driftwood have been washed up amongst all the rubbish

And heres the sea, a couple of days after Valentines Day, a whole lot calmer

Have a great week and keep your fingers crossed for more sunshine and no late cold snap.