Drunken fairies!

The fairies look like they've had a night on the town 😄  We've had some rather windy weather so I left them laying down for a day or two, rather than risk the poor little buggers ending up being blown into the pond!

We got this next bed lifted up ready for staining and being moved to its new position.  Thankfully it was very much easier ~ and a good bit lighter ~ than the bed when the pond now is 😳

We put it on top of the bed at the far end of the garden, which made it much easier for Adrian to tidy it up and apply a couple of coats of wood stain. 

Once we'd cleared out the first section of the wall border, he was able to remove the first of the sleepers that we'd used to edge it.  

This gave us enough space to get the newly-renovated bed moved into position.  It took a bit of fiddling about to get it in place but again, it wasn't as hard as that first bed had been!  As you can see, we are stepping the beds down to accommodate the slope.  Now, in the interests of transparency, I feel I should confess that we decided in the end to set the bed so that it looks "right" to the eye.  We did attempt to do this using the spirit level but it really looked more than a little odd, to be honest.  Now this may well come back to bite us on the proverbial bum at some point, of course, but it is what it is 😏 

We put a layer of the rubbly soil in the bed first, then we used the soil from the old rhubarb bed on top of that.  That completely emptied the rhubarb bed, so we'll be able to move it round to the back garden in due course.

There wasn't enough to fill the new bed, though, so we started to empty out the one beside the old rhubarb bed.  I'd been using it as a temporary home for plants that I moved last year, half of which have now been replanted.  This left enough clear soil to finish topping off the new bed.  I will be moving the hypericum and rosa rugosa from the wall border at some point into it, then I can go shopping in the garden again to see if I can finish planting it up without having to resort to buying new plants 😉

It's possibly not that easy to tell from this photo but the pond has started to go a little green and murky...

but fortunately, the pond plants arrived at the end of last week 👏 I bought them online, from Puddleplants, a company I've bought from previously.  Once again, I was very pleased with my purchases and hopefully the water will clear in due course now that there is some "life" in there 😊  

The lovely little delosperma sutherlandii in this pot seems very happy.  I can't remember what I planted in the little pocket above it, but it didn't survive the wet and cold winter.  I may see if I can divide the delosperma and put a section in the pocket instead of a different plant.  I must also try to remember to put the pot under cover this winter, as I don't think they really like to be very wet!