Greenhouse Gone

I'm so glad that our two greenhouses have found a good home - our immediate view is so much more picturesque and less congested without them. They were so unsightly in their placement.

 

A very nice couple with a 4 acre property spent 4 days dismantling both greenhouses and hauling the pieces away. We've got to know them over this time, and have really enjoyed their company. They've given us tips and pointers about services in town, libraries, shopping and local activities.

We're going to make this our extended outside BBQ/entertaining area. Though we love the gorgeous array of flowers growing over the supports of the chicken-wire and wood pergola, we aren't fans of the bits that aren't covered with plants. We hope to order a louvre-opening pergola like the one we had in Maine. I'm going to work really hard at keeping as many of these beautiful flower displays intact and will somehow weave them into a solution. I really don't want to dig them up and destroy them.

Granted, it looks ugly without them too, especially this area, which has a retaining wall made of wall radiators! Some work is needed, but we see a lot of potential here. Dale has major design plans in mind.

View from my utility room, before and after

Poison Garden

We attended the Summer Fayre at Bryngwen Hall last weekend, where they have a token area set aside for rewilding, which is shown in this photo

There were many stalls selling nick-nacks and food, but the garden tour was the highlight of the visit. It included a poison garden featuring 115 plants - mandrake, monkshood, poppy, hemlock and many others. We heard about mad honey from bees feeding on rhododendrons in Nepal that has some intoxicating properties. 

The head gardener shared fascinating stories of some of the older iconic trees on the 60 acre estate, many of which were sourced from exotic corners of the world - Bhutan, Chile, Sikkim and Northern India. This was back in the day when rich people took home many treasures and exotica from other parts of the world to have for themselves, no matter the cost.

This dawn redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides) was thought extinct for many years until a specimen was found in western China in 1944, so it became a source for its seeds. This is a fast growing ornamental tree that has become popular as a garden feature since its rediscovery.

I was very pleased to make the acquaintance of the majestic Welsh oak, or sessile oak (Quercus petraea), an unofficial emblem of Wales. It has a commanding presence in the garden

This stand of irises was striking in the sun

The well-groomed grounds are peaceful and seemingly endless

Since this outing, I've come down with my first Welsh chest cold - I'm inexperienced with being unwell  since I haven't had to deal with a virus since the COVID lockdown (that's 6 years!). I hate feeling miserable and tired all the time, and the crackle in my ears is driving me nuts!

Garden Blooms

I have Campanula and Chinese windmill palms in flower

Monkshood, the queen of poisons (if ingested)

A most obscene looking peony

Astrantia and Firefly broom

Tutsan, (Hypericum androsaemum)

Bara Brith

(We've been in Wales for 4 weeks already! Time has flown by)

Speckled bread is a traditional Welsh bread, known as bara brith (pronounced bara breeth). I made a sweet, tea infused version that is more cake than bread, but which is the most widely served kind. It's pretty much like a regular fruit cake and is definitely speckled.

I then dove a little deeper into the origins of this bread, and discovered that it had traditionally been a yeast bread with sugar, mixed spice and fruit for special occasions in the mining community. 

I tried an online recipe of the yeast version, which came out like this. Funny thing was, this one didn't have any tea in it. It tasted just like hot cross buns for Easter, it just didn't have a white cross on it.

I tried to find a more 'traditional' tea and yeast bread, and found one from The Great British Bake Off TV show, so I tried to see what the tea version was like.

Mixed dried fruit plumped up with tea. The remaining liquid part of the tea is used, too.

This is it

Well, it was okay. Meh, nothing to write home about, though that is exactly what I'm doing! Definitely bready, but no real impact from the tea. I'm going to stick with the fruit cake version from now on. We both like it more.

You just never know where curiosity will take you! In researching breads, waterfalls, town and river names, I have stumbled onto a pattern of Welsh naming conventions - the common noun comes first, followed by the specific name, so for Bara brith: bara is bread, brith is speckled. For Pistyll Rhaeadr, the literal translation would be Waterfall Rhaeadr and for Afon Cain, it would be River Cain. In English, we're more likely to say Cain River or Speckled bread. So happy to have worked it out for myself!