How does your garden grow?

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockle shells and pretty girls all in a row.

Was this a nursery rhyme you used to say as a child. When I found out what contrary meant - I liked it even more, as my sister is called Mary!!!!!

We have a wonderful garden at our home. Some of it was planted by the previous owners but we have done quite alot of new areas ourselves. It is quite the English garden - and by that I mean that there are a lot of plants, all thrown in together - and in no way is it formal! We also have quite a few fruits trees, a little raised bed area for our tomatoes and other vegetables..and relatively new is our arbor above one of our outdoor dining tables. We planted table (ie eating) grapes over it and last year they had some mildew, the previous year some animal (raccoon?) ate them all one night before we had any....but this year, we have a good crop and are enjoying them every day. They are seedless green grapes as opposed to our red merlot wine grapes that we grow. Quite small however..... as we joked last night. We made chicken skewers for dinner and had marinated the chicken and were alternating the chicken with our own grapes on the skewers. My husband was moaning that the grapes were so small - until I pointed out that really, there wasn't alot to complain about! How many people can use their own grapes on their skewered chicken!

Anyhow - my husband does alot of work in the garden and I do very little. The majority however is done by Hector and his crew. We inherited Hector as our gardener when we bought the house - and I'm so glad we did too! He's wonderful - and all his various family members who seem to help him.

Even though I don't spend alot of time working in the garden - I love it! It is so pretty and restful....and looks wonderful year round. We have many roses - hundreds - a big bank of lavendar...a few of our favorite English plants like aubretia...and countless others I could mention.

When I started working with silver clay, I made quite a few different silver flowers....but then I seemed to move on to other things. A few months ago however, I went back to the garden scene and made this watering can. I've often thought of putting some flowers in it - but then revert back to it just being a watering can. It is entitled "how does your garden grow?" and I think the answer to the question is really Hector! Thanks Hector for all you do!

I think it's a lovely necklace for a keen gardener - little details like the holes in the rose spout, the little "screws" on the handle. You can wear the chain either through the top handle or the one on the side. And when you are not wearing it, you can take the chain out -and it's a little decoration!

So how does your garden grow? What is your secret? Let us all know........