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 😊

Flexing those muscles...

image from Magnific.com

Well, sort of 😏 To be fair, Adrian has been doing most of the "proper" muscle-flexing ~ under my supervision, of course 😄

I mentioned previously that we were going to reuse the old kitchen garden beds to create the new, purely, ornamental ones.  The first one to be moved was the old strawberry bed.  Before we relocated the strawberries into it, it was smaller and Adrian extended it with odds 'n' sods of wood.  This made the bed really weighty and it took a lot of muscle-flexing on the part of Adrian to lift the bloody thing, with me prising it up as much as I could manage with a long iron pole that my Dad gave me years ago. 

We were able to shuffle it across the (thankfully!) short stretch of garden to lean it against the new raised bed.  Adrian then spent a fair amount of time prising off the old bits of tattered weed membrane that had been tacked to the inside.  He wanted to clean it up as much as possible so that he could get some fresh coats of wood stain on it.

The space where the bed had been looked like a flippin' grave when it had been moved 😳  We've already started to whittle the soil down, though, and it won't take long before it's level with the ground around it.

It took some huffing and puffing but in the end we got it in its new position.  It's amazing how smart it now looks after three fresh coats of wood stain!  The canes in the new bed, by the way, are just markers for when I start to move shrubs into it 😊  The very large pot to the left was one of two that originally stood against the front of the house.  At some point I will get the matching pot emptied out and moved to stand at other side of the new bed.

We have also now shifted some of the stone chippings from further down the garden to create this new path.  All the stone chippings are gradually being moved from the lower part of the kitchen garden area; eventually it will be grassed over.

As you can see, I've been "shopping" from the garden to plant up the first of the patio containers.  I also brought a few little bits and pieces round from the kitchen courtyard.  I was going to put one of the round tubs where the chair now is but changed my mind.

I also put a largish pot (that I already had) beside the bench, again filled with plants from elsewhere in the garden.  The black rectangular thing currently being stored beneath the bench is the new pond; hopefully we'll be able to get it in position before too long.  

I'm so thrilled with my beautiful white peony 😍  I couldn't get a very good photo, though, as it was a tad windy at the time.  This is the first year that it's flowered so well ~ I'm just hoping that it won't sulk too much when I move it later in the year!

Back and forth

image from Magnific.com

 I've been dividing my time between working in the front and back gardens.  As I mentioned previously, work in the new pond area in the front garden has come to a wee bit of a halt for now but there's definitely no lack of other stuff to be tackled 😏

The pots of strawberries needed a home, so I tidied up this bed and plonked them in it 😄  At the moment it's only a temporary holding place for them, but it may well become their permanent home once we've decided what we're doing with re-jigging the back garden.

The bed near the bathroom looked very untidy.

Once I got going, though, it wasn't as bad as it had first appeared although there was a rather large dandelion in there.  It took a bit of getting out as it was entwined with one of the little blackcurrants.  I ended up digging them both up so I could disentangle the bloody thing ~ hopefully the poor blackcurrant will recover from the shock of being uprooted and replanted in quick succession! 

It didn't take too long to pull out the remaining weeds, though, and I gave the bay tree a good trim as well.  I will have a poke about in the garden to see what I can move to fill up the gaps in the bed.  I don't really want to buy more plants if I can help it, so shopping from my own garden is the sensible way to go methinks 😉

Adrian got one half of the new bed built and we manhandled it roughly into place.  For now it's just keeping the weed membrane from flying away, but once the other section has been built we can get them both as level as possible in their permanent positions.  Whilst I was doing other stuff Adrian gave the retaining wall a couple of coats of wood stain, which has smartened it up very nicely.

As the planters in the kitchen courtyard had already been tidied up, I was able to get the soil out of the one that had no plants in it.  Once it was empty Adrian and I brought it round to the new patio (it was way too heavy for me to move by myself!), and over the course of a couple of days I gave the base three coats of wood stain.  The four sides were in much better condition so I only gave them two coats.

Adrian helped me to make good use of the soil by wheelbarrowing it out the front to top up the potato plants.  We seem to spend half our time shifting soil from one place to another at the moment 😄

Once the wood stain had fully dried, I wiggled the planter over to its new home on the patio.  At some point I intend to move the matching planter from the kitchen courtyard out there too, possibly with one of the round tubs set between the two.  This will provide a barrier along the wall which, as you may recall, is now lower than it was before it was rebuilt.  I don't yet know what I will be planting in these containers but once again I intend to shop from my garden.

Eventually we will buy some nice new garden furniture for the patio, moving the old bench down to the rebuilt nature/pond area.  Realistically it's very doubtful that we will be getting any furniture this year as we still have a lot of work to do in the garden, not to mention the fact that we haven't yet moved the other two containers out to the patio.  Once they are in place, though, we will know how much space we have available for new furniture and will be able to start looking around to see what lovely stuff is out there😊

Sidetracked...

image from Magnific.com

In my last garden post, we had come to a bit of a standstill with re-making the wildlife area whilst Adrian was constructing the raised bed(s).  I couldn't really do anything to help him, so I drew a deep breath and veered off to make a start on tackling all the other weedy areas in the front garden 😳 

As you know, we've decided to considerably scale back the kitchen garden and over the coming months all the beds in the front will be dismantled ~ more on that in future posts 😉

One thing we do still want to grow is at least some potatoes, as homegrown ones are just so much tastier than shop-bought ones!  I was very late in planting out my chitted seed potatoes this year, and confess that I did wonder if they would actually grow once I'd got them in the ground.  I'm pleased to report that every single one has sent up a fine head of leaves so hopefully we'll have another good crop of potatoes again later this year 😊  I'm trying a different variety this time: Caledonian Rose.  Since this photo was taken, I have plonked a good layer of soil over the plants ~ as usual, I'm pretty behind with photo-sharing 😏

I'm only growing potatoes this year as we've got such a lot of work to get done in the garden, so the raised beds have come in useful as holding beds for the plants I've kept for re-planting in due course.  This bed had potatoes in it last year and I obviously didn't get all the teeny-tiny spuds removed, hence them sprouting away quite happily!

If the bed had been empty I would probably have left them to grown on, but I had already moved in some of the plants which had been in the beds where the new patio now is.  The potatoes were starting to smother the poor little buggers, so out they had to come I'm afraid. 

I was particularly pleased to see these dahlias coming through, as I thought the winter would probably kill them off.  I had them in pots last year and was just too lazy to store them "properly" over winter, so into the raised bed they went 😄  I suspect the fact that they were planted in a raised bed probably helped with drainage, and thus stopped their tubers getting too wet and rotting away.

This was the view I had through to the Hoy Hills whilst I was working 😍

These plants were what I decided to keep from the old pond area.  Some of the tiger lilies are currently flowering, so this part of the garden smells lovely ~ perhaps that's why next-door's cat seems to like it over here so much 😄

You may recall that this bed had large pots of strawberries in it.  Luckily it was a pretty straightforward task to tidy up the plants, disposing of the handful that had died, and move the pots round to the back garden.  They are in a temporary area at the moment until we work our way round to re-jigging the back garden at some point 😱  This will be the first of the kitchen garden beds to be re-purposed as part of the new pond area ~ all will become clear as the work out there continues, I promise 😏

I couldn't summon up the energy to tackle the garden borders, so compromised by tidying this bed over on the other side of the garden instead.  It looked worse than it actually was, to be fair, and didn't really take too long.  You'll have to take my word for it, though, as I forgot to take a photo when I'd finished 😄

I fairly often come across frogs on this side of the garden.  I didn't notice this one until I almost grabbed hold of it along with the debris I was clearing out!  It sat there with its back to me for quite a few minutes before moving off.  I'm hoping that once we get the new pond area set up we'll find more froggy visitors/residents in the garden 😊

Wall-to-wall sunshine

image from Clipart Library

We are currently having a run of glorious weather ~ warm and sunny.  This has made it very nice indeed to be out working in the garden, although I have had to water the beds and containers a couple of times.

The sunflowers are still doing well.  They are starting to develop their "true" leaves so I'll be potting them on soon.

The difference is probably not so noticeable to you, my lovelies, but I can see that the tomatoes are starting to look a tad healthier.  Fingers crossed their recovery continues!

I mentioned earlier in the week that I had moved the tulips, Apricot Beauty, out of this pot.  I've now replaced them with an erodium chrysanthum, from my recent delivery of plants from Shire Plants.  It has pale lemon flowers, and looks a little like a geranium I think.

Some of the dahlias are starting to come up: Cafe au Lait Twist and Cafe au Lait.  Hopefully the other three will follow on soon.

Whilst the tomatoes are starting to recover, alas the same can't be said for the poor French beans 😒  I'll leave them in situ for the time being and hope for a miracle!

The strawberries are starting to look lovely with their pretty white flowers.  I wasn't sure how well they would do after being moved this year, but they seem to have taken it in their stride 😊

The compost I ordered last week arrived on Monday, so I was able to top off bed 5 which holds this years potato crop.  I should think this will be the last time I top the bed off as there really isn't much space left to do so now 😄

Two more dahlias are coming through, Creme de Cassis and White Aster, beside the wooden tubs on the patio area in the front garden.

I've had a large tub either side of the dining and living room windows for a while now, both planted with similar plants.  Unfortunately I can't remember what said plants are called and, of course, the labels have disappeared 😏  I think the shrubs, though, are varieties of euonymus.  I had planted them in the borders originally but they weren't doing so well to be honest, so I moved them into these large tubs where they've been much happier.  The tub in the photo above is by the dining room window.....

but the little plants in the one beside the living room window died.  The euonymus is absolutely fine, and indeed is happily sprouting new leaves, so I don't know what happened to the two little plants 🤷  Anyhoo I've now replaced them with another of my favourite little garden plants, erigeron karvinskianus ~ let's hope they fare better than their predecessors!

To round off my working day, I decided to spruce up the wheelbarrow.  I was too lazy to completely replace the old compost but added a good sprinkling of chicken manure pellets to add some nutrition and did top it up with fresh compost too.

I've left space between the plants for them to spread out as they are perennials.  I may well lightly cover the barrow with some fleece, or even netting, over the winter to protect them a little from the worst of the weather.  I've planted pratia pedunculata, which apparently has sky blue flowers, in the back two corners, with two fuchsia Pink Galore between them.  There are two more pratia pedunculata, Alba, in the front two corners.  In the middle of the wheelbarrow are yet more of my garden flower favourites, this time three little bellis perennis.  This is a variety called Dresden China which has very pretty pink flowers.  Hopefully the blackbirds won't keep picking over the compost like they did when it was planted up with pansies!

A little here, a little there

Work continues in the garden ~ I'm trying not to think too much about all that's still to be tackled out there 😳  After the disappointing French bean plug plant delivery I decided to just hope for the best ~ although, to be honest, expecting the worst! ~ and get on with tidying the kitchen garden beds.  

When I took you on a stroll around the "grounds", I pointed out that this bed (number 2 😀) had the most weeds.  Although it didn't take too long to clear out, it did take a bit longer than I anticipated as I had so many potatoes to dig out!  This is the bed I grew my crop in last year and obviously I didn't get out all the tiny little tatties out when I harvesting the ones that had grown to a reasonable size.  I didn't feel that it would be a good idea to eat these potatoes so they were all discarded, along with the weeds.  I restrung the bed into my favourite 12"/30cm squares and it's now ready for the next lot of plug plants to arrive.

I forgot to take an "after" photo of bed 3 😏 but as you can see it didn't have too many weeds to tackle.

This year's potato crop in bed 5 is sending up shoots.  I will need to top off the bed when my delivery of compost arrives in the next day or two.

The extra Jazzy potatoes need to be topped off, too.

These lovely tulips are Moon Blush; the basket to the right (out of shot in this photo), Apricot Emporor, have finished flowering now.  

I moved three baskets of the "cutting" narcissus over to the strawberry bed.  On the right is Lemon Beauty, with Orangery in the middle, and Slice of Life on the far side.  Hopefully they will continue to thrive here and I will be able to cut some for the house if I want to 😊  The strawberries are flowering and starting to set fruit; I shall have to get some netting organised soon!

There are now just three baskets of narcissus left, which will be moved out once I've found the right spots for them in the borders.  The variety still in flower is Pink Wonder, with Cassatta beside it, and Tete a Tete at the back. 

I was very excited last weekend to see that a couple of the sunflower seeds were already sending up shoots ~ it's not all that easy to see them in this photo, hence the arrows!  Look out for regular updates on their progress as I'm finding this perhaps much more thrilling that it actually is 😉