Self-seeded Calendula and aster with ripe and ripening pears.
It is a challenge to catch the pears at the the right time to pick them before the wasps get to them. A good crop this year.
Joining Cathy and her joyful meme: In a Vase on Monday
I am completely replanting the bed behind the espalier pear trees. Everything has been taken out because the ground elder and marestail had taken over.
Looking from North to South
I dug it over, took everything out, and dug it over once a week for 4 weeks in the hope of getting every bit of weed root out. I saved all the bulbs and have replanted them in a completely random fashion and planted new and old irises
Looking from South to North
A rogue sunflower which grew in the pot I had the tiny fuschia (Jollies Nantes) in.
I have also scattered seed from Nigella, calendula, cerinthe, aquilegia, foxglove and purple loosestrife.
It will be fun to see how this looks in Spring.
The daughter of a friend of mine is just starting her garden and liked my scattergun way of creating a border, so I have collected seed for her to try it out.
I found this You Tube clip
made some little seed packets out of a Gudren Sjoden catalogue
I loved making these, I like the way they are in the shape of little flower pots.
Joining in with Cee’s Flower of the Day
Ravelry
Wild Daffodil 
The background to your vase sets it off beautifully. Oh yummy, I love pears!
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You are beyond clever, Sandra! I love those origami seed packets. I bet your new bed is going to look fab next year. I’m envious of all your delicious pears. I remember my mother used to can quarts and quarts of them. So much of what we ate came out of our garden.
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Aww! Thank you Eliza!
I really should get into preserving fruit, but for now a juicy pear for breakfast and some cooked at supper time, with raspberries and blackberries, is what I am enjoying very much.
I am hopeful that the new bed will work out well – that’s what I love about gardening – there is always something to look forward to.
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at one point around the year 2000 the edges of the motorways in Auckland were a blaze of wildflowers but somewhere a long the decade that idea disappeared…it sure did soften the edges. I see your scatter idea as something similar…
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We need for scattering on barren spaces!
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The origami seed packets are absolutely wonderful in both concept and execution, Sandra. It was clever of you to use the pretty pages of a catalog to create the envelopes. Your floral arrangement is also lovely and I’m impressed by the pear crop (but not jealous this time as pears aren’t something there’s even a chance of growing in my climate).
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Thank you for your kind words Kris. Each climate has its pluses and minuses doesn’t it. The pear crop is very hit and miss each year – it must be very difficult for commercial growers.
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What a wonderful post. I love the seed packets! Great gift idea. The photos are amazing. You have a great eye for color and placment.
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Thank you Barb, I am so glad to know you enjoyed the post. 🙂 ❤
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Pears…sublime. Some of my recipes ready sorted for you. The pear chutney will be perfect as Christmas Presents, and goes wonderfully with cheese. http://mrsmacepreserves.blogspot.com/search?q=pears
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Ooo! Lovely, thank you for the link Noelle. 🙂
Yummy!
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I smiled all the way through this post, from the lovely still life to those adorable seed packets.
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That is so lovely to know! Miles and miles of smiles! 🙂 🙂 🙂
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Ooh, the soil in your flower bed looks lovely and friable. Does that make it sound as if I know what I’m talking about? 😉
I love those little seed packets you made – you could have saved those for next Scraphappy Day!
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‘Friable’ – good word!
It has taken a lot to get it that way as when I came to the house in 2007, there was a ma-hoosive dark looming (and dying) leylandii hedge there with cold grey clay beneath.
Trust me – I have masses more scrap-happiness to share. 😉
In fact Scrap Happy describes my life.
My kids were talking about death and what happens afterwards – like they do – and turned to me and said “you probably want to be composted don’t you Mum?”
Yep – that would be good.
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Well, that’s you sorted then 😂
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HaHaHa!!!
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The pears look divine, and the seed packets are so cute, and would be an excellent scrap happy post! A post to bring joy to my eyes today.
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Awww! thank you Cathy, spreading joy is what blogging is all about! ❤
Yes, I was wondering about saving the packets for a Scrap Happy post, but I love them so much I wanted to share them now.
It seems that most of what I am doing at the moment is all about Scrap Happiness, so there is bound to be another something ready for the 15th. 🙂
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Your eyes for colour is obvious in your choice of blooms, vase and the ripening pears, Sandra, all perfectly complementing each other. I love those seed packets and will definitely make some of those, especially as I have used the last of my little brown dinner money envelopes! I feel for you and your horsetail problem especially as your border is too big for my solution to work for you too…
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Thank you for your lovely comment Cathy. It makes me very happy to think of you and Dorris also making these cute little paper pouches.
The mares/horsetail covers the whole of my front garden and that of my neighbour’s. My neighbour regularly hoes and sprays to keep hers down. I don’t like to use spray, but I’m beginning to think I might have to.
I have lived here for 13 years and it has got much worse in the last 3 years.
Another neighbour says they have got rid of it by constantly digging it up over the last 30 years, but a lot of their garden is paved and there are two of them.
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My goodness, Sandra – ALL of your front garden? What a nightmare 😲 On that scale I would probably use a weedkiller, hoping it was a one off application, because if you want to have things planted there constantly digging it up isn’t very practical. Don’t the roots of horsetail grow pretty deep? My little patch of ground elder was restricted to just that one area, as is a small area of bindweed which comes through from another neighbour’s garden – hard to get at that though, as it’s an established border, but it at least it hasn’t got out of hand (yet!)
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The roots are supposed to go down about 7ft (I have also read 30ft) Here is the advice from the RHS: https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=257
It is a long and painful process by the look of it.
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I too like the scattergun approach to gardening. Those seed packets are great!
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The only thing about the scattergun approach is that you have to be able to recognise the flower seedlings from the weeds – I love the random natural effect it gives.
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I love those origami seed packets. Beautiful. I shall copy your idea Sandra. Looks like you have good soil in your new bed
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The seed packets are fun aren’t they!
The soil in most of my garden has hard cold grey/yellow clay at its base. I have imported top soil for the new beds and added my own compost and some mushroom compost and grit. It has taken years but at last the soil is good – if only I could get rid of the ……***aarrgghhhh******!!!!!! marestail!
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I do love calendulas and have grown them in the past. I also like pears but rarely buy them because they seem to have such a narrow window when they are ripe enough to eat without being over ripe. You have so many what do you do with them? When we had a pear tree my mother used to bottle them. ours were conference pears I think. Yours look more like Williams pears.
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I have 4 pear trees, Concorde, Conference, Clapps Favourite and Baronne de Mello:
I planted them in 2013 https://daffodilwild.wordpress.com/2014/02/26/a-good-day/
They are very tricky to catch at the optimum time. So far they are ripening slowly and not all at once, so I’m keeping up with eating one or two a day and giving to friends and neighbours. I might make some crumble to freeze. I really should get into bottling.
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Sounds like a great variety. I am just keeping up with my apples as they fall off!
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