Where once there was only mud

Back in March I wrote a post in which I had included an image of an area of patio from where I had lifted the paving and was preparing the ground to be a new bed.  The image you’ll see is probably a familiar one: an area of earth bare of anything but full of potential.

The scene now is rather different.  The bed looks better then I had hoped and the plants seemed to have established themselves pretty well.  With the help of a few annuals to fill in the gaps the whole area is looking good and is full of some wonderful fragrances.

Fuller view of the bed

Salvia, white Valerian, Allium 'Christophii'

Cosmos and Salvia

Some pictures from the weekend

The entire weekend was a wonderful one, sunny and warm, a perfect lead up to the spring equinox.  The picture below shows a portion of the circular bed where on Saturday I added some additional Delphiniums.  On Sunday I added more, plus some different varieties of Oriental Poppy, Salvia and Scabious.  This area now looks full and lush but with plenty of room for the foliage to expand in to. 

Things are starting to look lively!

A large chunk of Sunday was spent constructing the boards for the new raised bed, putting them in place and treating them, and finally digging in about 22 barrow loads of topsoil, very nice stuff which has a had a few years of horse manure and mushroom compost dug into it.  After this I ached…and I’m still aching!

There I am hard at work while the wife takes pictures!

I just thought I’d put in this final picture, not for the pleasantness of the view, but for the glimpse of the beast, a.k.a. Amber, trotting towards me.  No doubt this was followed by barking.  Just behind Amber there is now a very big hole, dug out for the footings of the new garage which should be up in six weeks or so.  This will present an opportunity for some new planting so watch this space!

Here comes the hound!

For those of you lucky enough to get into the garden this week, enjoy it.  I’ll be thinking of you whilst I’m sat in the office and wishing for the weekend!