Sunny September Afternoon At Ulting Wick

Although there have been a couple of chillier, rainy days, on the whole September has still felt very summery so far- I'm making the most of it before Autumn sets in! Last Sunday was gorgeously sunny and warm and I spent the afternoon with Mr Writer and his family at Ulting Wick, a beautiful house with spectacular gardens, tucked away in the Essex countryside. You can find out more about Ulting Wick in this previous post, when we visited the gardens to see the tulips in bloom.

 Here are some photos from our lovely September afternoon... 

It really is a quintessentially English, picture postcard garden. Just stunning

My Mother and Father in Law are great gardeners so it was interesting to hear their knowledge of the different plants in the gardens

It was so bright in the sunshine that it was difficult to take clear photos in places but I hope you get the gist of the beautiful place!

You can see just how bright a day it was!

This wasn't intentional but I love this hazy, summery effect!

The colour of that sky!

If you've been on any trips recently I'd love to see your photos! Do you have any recommendations of great places to visit?

RHS Wisley Garden

It's always sad when holidays come to an end but I've had a lovely two weeks off work, mostly knitting, sewing, cooking, relaxing and going out for day trips. Last week, on a gloriously sunny day, myself and my lovely friend Kate headed off to RHS Wisley Garden in Surrey. We had the best day, the gardens were in bloom and absolutely beautiful, even more so in the sunshine. I took LOTS of photos (thank you for your patience Kate!) and here are just a few. If you love nature and you get the chance to visit, I can't recommend it enough, a brilliant day out.

Soooo many pretty sights!

What a lovely lovely place. I hope you've been enjoying some sunshine too!

How To... Thrifty Plant Name Labels!

On Sunday I posted this How To for Chalk Painted Terracotta Pots and today I wanted to share the How To to make these really thrifty plant name labels! They are really easy to make by recycling materials you easily have to hand. Here's the How To...

1) You will need

Pretty papers from old magazines, A flat piece of plastic food packaging- I used a lid, PVA glue or Modge Podge, paintbrush, lolly sticks- you can easily buy these in craft or food stores, but it's much more fun and thrifty if you treat yourself to some ice lollies!

2) Cut the plastic food packaging to the size and shape you'd like for your labels. I've free hand cut mine as I'm going for the rustic look, but you could draw a shape onto the plastic with permanent marker first if you wanted to. Hearts or cloud shapes would look pretty- I might make some of those next!

3)Tear the magazine pages into small pieces and collage together on the plastic pieces using the PVA or Modge Podge, overlapping at the edges. I've only covered one side of my labels as the other side won't be visible in my plant pots, but you could collage both sides if you wanted to. Leave to dry

4) Trim the edges

5) There are a couple of options to use for the lettering on your labels. The most thrifty way is to cut letters from the magazines places to then collage onto the labels

Or, if you have an alphabet stamp set, you could use these to stamp your plant names as I've done with mine, stamping the names onto brown paper and then gluing onto the label back

6) Stick the lolly sticks to the back of the labels using the PVA or a strong all purpose glue and leave to dry

That's all there is to it, it's a super simple How To! Display in your herb, plant or flower pots. 

These labels aren't weather proof- I keep my herbs on the windowsill in the kitchen and put them outside on sunny days. I think a coat of varnish or even laminating the labels could be the solution to making them weather proof, if your plants live outside in all weathers. 

I'd love to see your gardens, be they conventional or balcony or window box. Share your green space in the comments!