Before we went away...

image from Magnific.com

we managed to do a little more out in the garden ~ small steps, certainly, but progress nevertheless. 

I rather drastically cut back the rosa rugosa and the hypericum, which made it much easier for Adrian to dig them out of the wall border.  I then planted them into the third bed.  Hopefully they will settle down and forgive me for moving them at this time of year!  

Getting the two shrubs moved meant that Adrian could set-to and take up a couple more pieces of the sleeper edging along the old wall border.  He was going to leave it until we got back from Dad's birthday holiday, but in the end decided to get it done so we could get on more quickly when we got home. 

I did a little more "shopping from the garden" and got a few more plants put in the bed, including the sambucus nigra Black Lace that was in a pot in the kitchen courtyard ~ it's not easy to see it against the colour of the soil, but honestly it's there in the middle 😄  I forgot to take a photo of the bed before we went away, hence the evidence of where the local cats have been digging in the bloody thing ~ I suspect the most likely culprit is the cat that lives next-door 😒  I need to browse around the other borders to see what I can find to fill the bed up to deter the little bugger! 

The "holding bed" only has about three plants left in it now.  I shall probably put a couple of them in the latest bed and depending on how well we get on with relocating the next one, whatever is left may have to be temporarily moved into large pots.

Adrian got the last of the kitchen garden beds from this side of the garden lifted today, and has got half of it re-stained.

I suspect this will be the last bed we manage to get moved this year, even though we will only have one more to do.  He wants to replace the old railway sleeper edging along the border at the far end of the garden with new sleepers and to give us enough space to work in, we won't be able to get the last bed in position until that's been done.  We are going to set the new sleepers further in so that the border is 7" or 8" narrower, which will make it a little easier for me to reach across to weed, etc.  Whether or not we manage to get that done this year will depend on the weather, of course.   

I'm sorry to report that the pond is still green and murky but the little waterlily doesn't seem to care, as it is putting out a pretty pink flower 😊