Flexing our muscles

image from Magnific.com

Although I suppose to be more accurate, Adrian has been flexing his muscles somewhat more than I have 😉

We got most of what needed to be shifted out of this front wall border.  The hypericum has gone into the latest of the raised beds that we recently got in place.  It was planted much too close to the climbing rose (Claire Austin), which was suffering somewhat as a result.  Hopefully it will feel better now that it isn't being crowded out!  The rosa rugosa beside the hypericum has been dug out completely.  It really had turned into a terrible thug, spreading across as well as out of the border 😒  I fully expect to be pulling up shoots for sometime yet to come 😳

There was another, much more well-behaved, rose to the left of the buddleia which has been relocated.  The buddleia itself will be left in the border until we've got the last raised bed in place, which won't be until next year now methinks.  In the meantime, much as I really like it, the alchemilla mollis has also been dug out.  I have more plants in other parts of both the front and back gardens, so I'm not getting rid of it entirely 😊

The weigela (between the buddleia and escallonia) is staying put, even though I planted it a little too close to the latter really.  I just don't think it's worth all the effort involved to get poor Adrian to dig it out and then me replant it just a little further along from its original spot!  I have another two weigelas in other parts of the front garden that will be dug up and moved to this border in due course.  We can get one moved as soon as we feel like it, as it will be going near to the climbing rose ~ although not too close, obviously 😉  The other one will have to wait until we've been able to move the buddleia.

  Once the weigelas are all in their new home I will probably relocate a couple more shrubs from elsewhere in the front garden to join them.  I don't intend to have any other plants in this border, although there are spring bulbs in there that I'm happy to leave in situ and I will probably add more over time.  I'm just going to top it with a good layer of bark chippings to finish it off.  I'm still not sure what to do with the little area on the other side of the climbing rose.  It's full of crocosmia at the moment and I'm contemplating digging it all out as the bloody stuff does tend to take over.  I might replace it with something low-growing and, if possible, evergreen.

The "well behaved" rose from the border has gone into this large pot, which used to stand near the dining room window.  We were lazy and moved it without emptying out the soil!  It was pretty damn heavy but we managed to shift it nevertheless, and it saved some time and effort not to have to dig out all the soil and then refill it again.  Thankfully it didn't have to go far across the stone chippings 😏

The rose is The King's Rose (again, from David Austin).  It only has a light scent when I would normally go for something stronger, but it has such a pretty pink and white striped flower that I couldn't resist it!  I now have matching pots either side of this long bed, both with roses.  The pink blooms you can see in the photo are on the rose in the tub behind: Eustacia Vye.

I've also managed to get the second planter finished.  The rose in the centre is Desdemona, the second of my recent new purchases from David Austin.  As with the other planter, I dug up some more of the London Pride plants from one of the borders to set along the back, with the two little alpine plants I'd put aside planted either side of the rose.

We're both pretty pleased with how much we've managed to achieve so far this year, a lot more than we thought we would to be honest.  If we continue to get some good days, then hopefully we'll get a bit more done before we have to stop for the winter 🤞

Dodging the downpours

"Mr Grumpy" from next-door, looking down his nose at us when we spotted him from the living room window the other day 😏  I think he's a bit annoyed that we are altering "his" garden 😉

We got some more work done last week but it really was a case of having to do bits here and there between the showers ~ some of which were actually rather bloody heavy!  Of course all the rain is also making the soil pretty damn heavy and claggy, so even when it wasn't raining it wasn't particularly nice to dig in the stuff 😳 

I had to make an effort, though, as the plants I'd ordered from Shire Plants arrived and I really needed to get them in the garden.  I started with the new little herb bed that I had finally managed to get cleared out.  We don't use a lot of fresh herbs in the kitchen, so the few I have now planted are ample for our needs.  I already had the chives, which came out of the planter which matches the one now on the new patio.  I added rosemary, oregano, two different varieties of thyme, and mint ~ the latter (hopefully!) safely ensconced in a pot, obviously 😏

The second planter from the kitchen courtyard has now been beefed up, given a few more coats of wood stain, and put in its new position on the patio.  Adrian made inroads into the soil mountain in the back garden when he filled up the planter; he then moved the soil that was left and dumped it into the empty raised bed in the front garden had been used as a holding bed for the plants I had dug up and wanted to keep.

He's very pleased to get the soil shifted, even though it will have to be moved onto a tarpaulin next year so that we can dismantle the bed to re-use it.  He really wanted to clear the area in the back garden so that he can easily access our second log-store over the coming months.  With the weather being so changeable there doesn't seem to be much point in trying to get the last raised bed in position in the front garden, not least because it will need a few coats of wood stain.  We may just get the new sleepers ordered and set them in place on the days when it isn't bucketing down with rain 😏

I finished off the first planter on the patio by adding an alpine-type plant either side of the rose.  I had already put in some London Pride plants along the back ~ there were a lot of them in the garden when we bought the house so I dig 'em up and use them to fill in gaps where needed!

I've saved two of the little alpine plants for the second planter and used the rest of them to make a little rock garden in the old wheelbarrow.  I made use of some of the fine stone chippings we had originally used for the paths between the old kitchen garden beds, both to mix in with the compost to help it drain more freely and to top off around the plants.  The pebbles and cobblestones were a mix of some we'd brought with us when we moved, and some we'd found in the garden here.

It's a simple little display but I am very pleased with how it's turned out 😊

More done than it seemed!

Last week was a pretty mixed bag, weatherwise, but despite feeling that we didn't get much done, more was actually achieved that I had at first thought.

I think I mentioned that I was going to relocate the old wheelbarrow from the other side of the garden across to the new patio?  I got it moved ~ no easy task as the front wheel is bent to one side! ~ and emptied out, ready for new plants to be installed.  I've ordered a selection of alpines (along with a few herbs for the back garden) from Shire Plants, as I'm going to make a mini rockery in the wheelbarrow.  I also wanted a couple of low-growing plants to finish off the black wooden planter on the right and I really didn't have anything suitable I could "shop" from the garden. 

However, I was able to use what I already had to finish off this side of the long raised bed.  Unfortunately we've had to put some of the netting panels from the old kitchen garden beds around some of the new ones as a cat (most likely Mr Grumpy from next door 😒) has been digging in it.  As I said, I got this side planted up and then topped off with bark chippings.  Although it's not a fool-proof topping, the cats don't seem to like to dig in it as much as they do in nice fresh soil!

The dwarf buddleia and erigerons were temporarily being housed in the planter on the patio.  The little variegated shrub (which has lost its label, unfortunately) to the left of the hypericum was in the back garden, in a bed which I am going to plant up with herbs in due course.  I was worried for a while about the little rowan tree, in the centre of the bed, that I had uprooted from the other side of the front garden.  It was looking very sad and dropped all it's leaves, but I'm happy to report that it is looking much better now and is putting out fresh new foliage 😊

I also relocated another hypericum from the planter on the patio, which has now planted in the other side of the raised bed, next to the hypericum which has been there for a little while.  The fencing is still in place around this side of the bed as I can't really get any more plants moved into it until I've dug up another rowan ~ which is still on the other side of the garden 😖

I moved another plant from the back garden, which I can't remember the name of, to replace the two wooden blocks that I'd put there to try to keep the cats from digging.  Needless to say, they took advantage of the freshly turned over soil and have dug in there again 😠  Much as I don't like to crowd out my plants too much, I think I will have to put in a fair few more to try to fill the gaps as much as possible.

We finally got the old wall border emptied out ~ of course, I've forgotten to take a photo of it in its bare state 😄  I really wanted to keep the lupin plant that was growing in the corner next to the escallonia and Adrian managed to dig it out with a fair bit of root still attached.  I drastically cut it back, just leaving these small, fresh, shoots.  I was amazed at how much liquid came out of the stalks when I cut them!  I didn't know that lupins retain such a lot of water.  The plant seems okay, though, so fingers crossed that it will survive being treated so brutally 🤞

The rosa rugosa, which we inherited when we bought the house, is going to have to go I'm afraid.  Lovely shrubs as they are this one was such a terrible thug, sending up new shoots all over the place.  I got it all cut down ready for Adrian to dig out at some point soon.

I had a "supervisor" whilst I was cutting back the rosa rugosa.....

it sat on my leg for a good couple of minutes before flying off.  I guess it just needed a little rest before carrying on with its day 😊

I also repotted all the new pond plants, something which I should have done when they arrived to be honest but didn't really have time right there and then, so I just plonked them into the water!  I was glad to finally get the job done, and I'm happy to report that the water is also starting to look much clearer now.  

I turned my back for a couple of seconds and found that another butterfly had taken advantage of somewhere to have a little sit down!  Good job I noticed before I sat back down on my gardening stool, otherwise it would have been a squished butterfly 😄

No much going on

😉

It's been hard to get back into the swing of things since we've been away, not helped by the amount of wet days we've had.  Not that I'm complaining too much about that, to be honest, as I think the cooler, damp weather is helping the plants and shrubs that I've been moving to settle in to their new locations with a little less stress than they might otherwise have had. 

Adrian has managed to get the fourth bed in place, though.  Once again it's been positioned much more by eye rather than the spirit level!  As I've already mentioned, this may be the last bed we get moved this year.  It all depends on the weather (of course 😏) and how well we get on with replacing the old sleepers along the front wall border.  

Adrian was also able to get the pile of rubbly soil beside the bed shovelled into it before rain stopped play.  It's very slowly coming together in our revamped garden area, and we can most definitely see where we've been! 

 I managed to get some more plants moved into the third bed but still need to put a few more in there.  The wood blocks are a temporary measure to make it at least a bit more difficult for the local cats to poop in it 😒

We are planning to lay sleepers from where the second and third beds meet, running across the garden to join the path from the front gate.  This will give us a good solid edging to keep the stone chippings separate from what will eventually be the new grassed area.

Still plenty to do out there, as you can see, but I'm hoping that we can get a fair bit more done before the winter weather sets in 🤞

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 😊 

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!  

Will the mystery finally be resolved???

Amazingly the "mystery plant" is now sending out a flower 😳  I keep looking at it feeling like I know what it is ~ but I just can't put my finger on it 😏   Hopefully once the flower opens it will become clearer and the mystery will indeed finally be solved! 

We're still plodding along with the garden project.  I moved the rest of my little garden knick-knacks from the back to finish off around the pond...

and also got the far end of the bed planted up ~ shopping from the garden, of course 😉  As I've already mentioned, I know that this isn't the best time of year to be digging out and relocating established plants and shrubs.  However, I really do think that I will simply run out of time before the winter weather arrives if I don't get on with it now.  I can tell you from previous experience that it's definitely not fun trying to dig things up when the soil is cold and claggy 😒

I can't remember what this shrub is called but when Adrian dug it up from the wall border for me, it rather conveniently split into two pieces ~ so two-for-the-price-of-one meant that I could put them in two different beds 😊 

The wall border is starting to be emptied out.  Eventually we will have a stone chippings path running beside it virtually all the way along.  Whilst we've already moved stones up to the area near the pond, we will leave the path until after we've got George in to re-do the mortar in this last section of the wall.  Hopefully we'll be able to get that done some time next year 🤞 

Then it was back to shopping from both the front and back gardens...

to get this second bed planted up.  So far, whilst some of the plants did sulk at first, everything seems to be okay.  We have had some warm weather up here but also a fair bit of rain too, which I'm sure must help the plants to settle into their new homes ~ even if it delays us from getting on with the job in hand!

And to finish off this post, I thought I'd show you how nice the raised bed on the other side of the garden is looking 😊

Slow progress...

...but progress nevertheless 😊  Beverly came over on Saturday and we of course put her to work, despite the photo above seemingly showing her just taking life easy 😄 

I'm afraid that once again not only am I somewhat behind with my garden posts, I've also been a tad remiss with taking photos of our progress ~ oh well, I'm sure you are used to that by now 😉

In my last garden post, we had got the old strawberry bed moved into its new position and the stone chippings paths started.  Since then we've filled what is now the new pond bed with soil and Beverly helped us to get the pond in position.  Unsurprisingly it wasn't easy to get level, despite setting it on a good layer of sand, as I'm sure you can tell!  In the end we decided that it was just going to have to be "good enough"  Hopefully when it's got the aquatic plants in it (which should be arriving by the end of next week) and the plants around the edge have filled out it won't be quite as noticeable 😏

I somehow managed to bruise my right thumb at some point.  I really don't recall doing anything dramatic and can only think that perhaps it was when I was digging out the chunky wooden log that the windchime hook is set into, as it was harder to get out that I was expecting!

I finished planting around the pond, "shopping" from elsewhere in the garden.  I also hunted around in the wilderness on the other side of the garden to find the little frog house that I'd put there a few years back.  It had a fair few snails inside and I don't think any of the frogs that visit/live in our garden have ever used it to be honest, but it looks quite cute set out beside the pond 😊

Adrian filled the second bed with soil from the other two old kitchen garden beds on this side.  There wasn't quite enough of the "good" soil to completely fill it up, so I moved the three rhubarb plants into very large pots so we could start to empty the bed they were in.  The rhubarb will be found permanent positions in the back garden in due course.

You may recall that way back-in-the-mists-of-time we had a soil mountain that had to be sifted to get out all the pieces of rubble that was mixed in with it.  We did make use of some of that rubbly soil though as a base layer in all the old kitchen garden beds, except for the ones where we relocated the strawberries and the rhubarb bed (pictured above), as an added layer of drainage.  We've used some of the rubbly soil in the base of the second new bed but what is left will simply be spread over the ground to level the areas out. 

It's not a very good photo, I know, but I thought you'd like to see the flower on my pink ornamental dandelion (taraxacum pseudoroseum) ~ it's very pretty and I'm hoping that the white one I have in the same tub will flower this year, too 😊