Smile of the day - What is yours?

[Adam Ef]

Originally Posted by garynortheast

Chris, what are you doing? Are you deliberately trying to make it rain?

I thought exactly the same thing! Fully expecting roads full of mudslides now.

[Chris_SVS]

Good test of the Tracers off road capability

[chris8886]

Originally Posted by garynortheast

A couple of SotDs, both about similar things.

First the indescribable pleasure of standing quietly for 10 or 15 minutes and watching the bees working away on my front garden. I brought it back to where it should be this year by hoiking out the bloomin' pampas grass that had self set and was going for world domination, and then pruning the perennials (roses, hydrangeas, cotoneastor) and finally by densely sowing wildflower seeds in the empty spaces. It's now a fabulous looking area of flowers and the bees are loving it (and so am I!).

Secondly, walking 500yds up the lane. The second half of the walk is what makes me smile. I'll explain.

When I first moved to this village around 23 years ago the top half of the lane had verges with quite a lot of wild flowers in them, but over the years the bracken got in and starved the native wild flowers of the light they needed to thrive.

About eight years ago I started a little experiment and began pulling all the bracken out of a short stretch of one verge to see what would happen. The result the following spring was impressive so ever since then I have pulled all the bracken out of the whole length of the verge. Initially it was a lot of work but now, although the bracken does still show up, there is very little of it, and as soon as I see it, it comes out.

The results are spectacular and encouraged me three years ago to start doing the same thing to the opposite verge, which has responded similarly. This spring these two verges have been truly quite stunning to see. I've never seen them look so good and it really has made the effort so worth it. Huge smile.

Any pictures Gary? even if you don't have a before and after, just an after will do...…

[punyXpress]

I can just see a green lane from mid Wales to Hertfordshire

[garynortheast]

Originally Posted by chris8886

Any pictures Gary? even if you don't have a before and after, just an after will do...…

The really intense spring flowering bit on the lane is pretty much over now I'm afraid Chris. I never took any pictures when I started doing it as I wasn't really anticipating it becoming such a personal obsession, or the spectacular results.

Here's a before and after of the front garden though

Here's how it looked after clearing and pruning in early April.

Front garden before by garynortheast

And here's how it looked 3 weeks ago. It's got even more stuff in flower now, so a lot more colour.

Front Garden June 5th by garynortheast

From the road.

Front Garden June 5th by garynortheast

I'll try and remember to get pictures of the lane next spring at various stages of flowering.

[garynortheast]

Originally Posted by punyXpress

I can just see a green lane from mid Wales to Hertfordshire

Sounds like an excellent idea to me!

[BanannaMan]

Originally Posted by garynortheast

From the road.

Front Garden June 5th by garynortheast

Perfect

[DarrenSV650S]

There's not a drop of rain in all of Scotland. I'm going out on my bike!

[admin]

Originally Posted by DarrenSV650S

There's not a drop of rain in all of Scotland. I'm going out on my bike!

Kiss of death, it'll chuck down now.

Sent from my Moto G (5) using Tapatalk

[garynortheast]

Originally Posted by BanannaMan

Perfect

Thanks Bill, I'm really pleased with it this year.