Front and back

image from Magnific.com

Yup, I'm still jumping from the front to the back garden ~ then round to the front again 😏

That's one of the two little soil mountains we currently have in the back garden.  We managed to get rid of some of this one when we filled in the hole where the old pond had been in the front garden.  Since this photo was taken, we've used the rest of the soil to start filling the new raised beds along the retaining wall in the front garden.  Hopefully we'll soon get the other soil mountain whittled away to nothing once we get going on remaking the pond/wildlife area out there 😊

This bed is situated between our garden shed and original log store, and in some ways its a bit of a nuisance to be honest.  We have wondered if we should dismantle the bloody thing but that would take a lot of time and effort that we just don't have the enthusiasm for.  Adrian dug up the bulbs and leftover bits of rosa rugosa that were in there and I knocked off the soil from the roots ready to get rid of it all. 

We've had a bit of a rethink about digging a new hole to accommodate the old pond that we moved in the front garden.  We had already bought a shallower, rectangular, pond which we were going to position beside the old one but of course everything changed when we had to have the wall rebuilt.  We will still use the new one out the front but have decided that the raised bed above will be ideal for the old pond.  Obviously we've still got to dig soil out of the bed, but hopefully it won't be as back-breaking as digging down into the ground!

We won't be tackling this little project for quite some time, I suspect, as we've got such a lot of other work to get done first.  Still, at least it will give any lurking weeds a chance to show themselves so we can whip the buggers out 😏

It was a pretty chilly and windy day when we cleared that bed, but I was on a roll and full of good intentions to get this side of the back garden tidied up too.  I plonked myself down to start on this bed but omg, it was like sitting in a bloody wind tunnel 😱 It was obviously much more sheltered between the shed and log-store!  I started to get ear-ache so decided to leave it for another day 😉 

I don't think it will take too much time to work my way around once I get going.  The second soil mountain, by the way, is just out of sight in this photo to the right ~ you can see a tiny piece of the blue tarp that's covering it in hopes of stopping it getting too wet and claggy when it rains!

This is the gathering-place for the bags of stuff that need to go to the tip at some point.  I don't think I'll be able reach across to sort out the bed until it's all gone.

I can easily reach these pots of dahlias, though.  I was surprised to see they were sending up shoots as they've been out all winter and there isn't so much protection for the tubers in these smaller pots.

It looks like the little fuchsia plants (Pink Galore) also survived the winter.  They must be pretty well protected beneath this escalonia as I believe they are only half-hardy.

After forgetting to take "after" photos of this bed when I'd tidied it up, I did remember a few days after the event 😄 

Along with the ferns, it also has some other nice little plants in it .  A fair few of them, though, have lost their labels and unfortunately I can't remember what most of them are called 🤷

I do know that this is a lamium but can't remember the variety.  It's a pretty little plant and is growing really well in this bed after being moved from elsewhere in the garden.

The bed is fairly densely planted, which all the plants seem to be happy with.  I do have to keep the lamium in check a little to stop it taking over, but all-in-all I'm pretty pleased with how it's looking and it's really nice to have at least one part of the garden that I feel satisfied with 😊