At last - we have a wall again!

Last August, we had a bit of a disaster, when our lovely Victorian brick wall fell down, after having a lot of ivy taken away from it.  I posted about that here.

 After a few false starts, we had a bricklayer recommended to us and he duly came along and had a look at the site.  I was most concerned that my plants would all have to come out, as the long border had the brick wall as its back.  However, I was assured that all would be well.  The foundations were dug out one weekend, and it was very hard work.  Above is the view before the foundations were dug.

 The foundations were laid and the following weekend, work started on the wall. The little indentation in the concrete is where one of the ivy roots was.

 It was really exciting seeing the wall starting to go up again.  We had a choice of one brick as we needed something which was double faced and we found that most bricks aren't.  We were replacing like for like, or as near as we could, so that it didn't look too out of place with the rest of the garden walls.

This photo shows the concrete coping going on (it has all been finished now and looks great).  My plants are enjoying having some support again and I even have a little bit of extra planting area at the back...(but won't be planting ivy!)
The bricklayers and foundation diggers did a marvellous job and we are really pleased to have a wall back again. *edited to add... I totally forgot to say that Chris worked incredibly hard through one of the hottest weekends of the year, backfilling the foundations area on our side of the wall, clearing out bricks and rubble and filling a huge skip.  He was an absolute star and a huge well done to him.
I will post some more photos once I have decided which plants are going in!

Plants in Chelsea Week

 I always know that it's Chelsea Flower Show just round the corner when my alliums start flowering.  These are Purple Sensation and seem to come back reliably.

 A pink aquilegia has been flowering for a while now.

Allium close-ups...

 ...such tactile flower heads.

 Cirsium rivulare atropurpureum with Ballerina behind it.

 The very last of Ballerina - their petals were removed by the rain this week.  Nemesia Confetti is to the right.

An unnamed but pretty aquilegia which one of my sisters gave me and which is growing well for me. I like the white with tinges of pink and purple.
I have just watched the first programme about Chelsea this week - giving a little preview of what is to come.  Needless to say, I shall be watching all the programmes and featuring my favourites in a later post this week.
We are hoping that June will bring the rebuilding of our garden wall, giving us and our neighbours some much needed privacy and giving my plants a lovely backdrop. I am really looking forward to seeing it go up and I am sure there will be photos charting its progress.

More kumihimo necklaces - finally completed

 I have made a few of these kumihimo (Japanese braiding technique) necklaces now and have finally finished three which just needed the ends completing.  I chose colours that I wear at work in the winter.  The purple one above uses 6mm faceted and plain gemstones.

 The blue one uses 6mm faceted and plain gemstones too...

...whereas this blue/green one uses gemstone chips.  I wanted to use the Chartreuse S-Lon cord in a piece of jewellery, so decided to try it out here.

Here's a close up of the purple stones which include amethyst, fluorite, agate, lavender amethyst.

 The blue one has aquamarine, different agates, lapis lazuli and sodalite in it.

The blue/green one has peridot (which matched the Chartreuse cord beautifully), amazonite, apatite and aquamarine.
I really enjoy the repetitive aspect of kumihimo which does become a relaxing and meditative activity.

Update on the wall situation:  the wall man came to have a look at the damage and said that a fence would be cheaper, but a wall could be put back, although not with the old bricks.  However, this would involve foundations four bricks width each side, so would mean the raised border would have to go and I would need to save the plants I wanted and then start again.  We are waiting for the quote...

A Dis-arrr-ster (and hoorah for scones)

We have had ivy growing on the Victorian wall which separates our garden from our neighbours' garden for many years.  The owner of the house now rents it out and although he tried to cut back some of the ivy, it really needed a serious amount of controlling.  It was a wonderful food source for insects and birds and provided handy roosting and nesting areas for the birds too, so I didn't want to lose it all, just cut it back, as it overhung our raised bed and all the plants were straining to get some light.  We also thought it needed reducing in height by at least half, so that was the plan.
With our neighbour's help, we attempted to cut some of it away from the house.  Unfortunately, quite a large amount of the ivy came away and a couple of the top stones came off the wall too.  Deciding this was not a good thing, we stopped and got a tree surgeon in to tackle the rest.  Well, the ivy has been cut back...in fact, it had to go altogether, as the wall decided it had had enough and collapsed, right the way down the garden.  The ivy trunks were huge and had pushed the wall out in a couple of places - but possibly it was also helping to hold the wall up.  Some of the wall fell into the neighbour's garden, (which has no plants in it) but unfortunately, some fell into ours, damaging various pots and plants and making a big mess.  On a positive note, no-one was injured and it could have fallen at any time.  So, quite a lot of clearing up took place, and lots of damage limitation pruning.  I had to replace a couple of pots which had been smashed. I was a bit depressed about all the damaged plants, even though Chris did a great salvage job.
We are now waiting for a wall and fencing firm to look at the remains of the wall and give us some advice about replacing it with a new wall, or fence.  As the raised bed in our garden is built against the wall, it could mean a complete re-design of the garden, which could be a great opportunity...but I would have to lose lots of plants.  We shall know more once the wall/fencing firm has visited.
I am sorry to have lost the wall as it provided a lovely backdrop for my plants and stored heat during the day, helping to keep the plants sheltered.

 In other news, we went to our local cake shop to have some cream cakes as a treat, only to find it was too late and they had none left.  Undeterred, I remembered we had some cream in the fridge, so when I got back home, I made a batch of scones.

They were delicious topped with raspberry jam and cream. Hoorah for treats which make us feel just that little bit better!