The International Steam Pages


The Best Garden in Mitcheldean?

This is the 2015 index of the pages describing our very dull life in the UK since arriving in 2011. Having negotiated the maze of regulations designed to frustrate those wanting to bring a non-EU spouse into the UK, I am glad to say Yuehong is now the proud owner of a UK passport. I didn't upload a set of garden pages for 2014, suffice to say it looked rather better than it did in 2013. We were very busy not just maintaining other gardens around us but also taking advantage of unbelievably fine weather to travel the country visiting steam fairs, something we continued in 2015.

Click here for the main 'Life in the UK' index page.


For most people in the UK the prospect of taking on a property built up 33 steps on a 30 degree slope would be a nightmare. For us, it's proved both a challenge and a delight. This is our fifth summer (2015), the first started late for us in June 2011 and was spent cutting away the growth of two years near total neglect. It was dry as the seasons go in these parts by which I mean the moss had trouble making any progress. 2012 was the most miserable summer imaginable, it was cold and wet almost continuously. 2013 had as bad a start as can be imagined, but this set up the later months very nicely, 2014 was a year of sunshine and consolidation and 2015, has allowed time to sit back and enjoy the spectacle, apart from some late fungus, it's all gone very well indeed. After a good start, the weather turned cooler and wetter and everything slowed down. September and October were then quite pleasant, the first frosts being later than normal, November being rather dull and dreary.

Epilogue

November 2015

Late Summer

August / September 2015

The Fat Lady Sings

October 2015

Maintaining Standards

Mid June 2015

High Summer

July 2015

Azaleas and Rhododendrons

May 2015

Plants on Steroids

Early June 2015

A Tale of Three Trees

Winter 2014/5

Everything's coming up Primroses:

April 2015

Our garden history 2011-22

Old Normal, New Normal

Summer 2022

Fingers Crossed 

Summer 2021

Beating the Big C

April 2020

Tua Pek Kong Rules

Summer 2019

Welcome Tua Pek Kong.

Summer 2018

Oh, to be in England

Summer 2017

Our Cup Runneth Over

Summer 2016

Big Changes at a Glance

Summer 2014

How does Your Garden Grow?

Summer 2013

Holding back the deluge

Summer 2012

Getting started:

Summer 2011


Rob and Yuehong Dickinson

Email: webmaster@internationalsteam.co.uk