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!

A Glorious Day in the Garden

At one point today I was sat down, in short sleeves, my face to the sun, listening to the bees buzzing hither and thither, and thinking to myself ‘it could be summer’.  But my day was not entirely spent sitting and soaking up the sun; I was up and about early and tackling the garden on various fronts: rotavating the new raised bed; planting delphiniums, oriental poppies, alcea, salvia, veronica, scabious, roses, clematis (to climb up the rose) … a seemingly endless round of planting which resulted in one section of our circular bed looking pretty good (I’ll try and get some pictures up tomorrow – won’t be as sunny so hope it still looks good – as I just didn’t have time today); sowing leeks and more cosmos (necessary as the mice nibbled the first lot just as they were emerging); weeding; dividing and moving plants … a truly productive day after which I feel satsifyingly tired and ready for a good, long sleep!

The need to divide and move plants sprang to mind as a consequence of Monty doing so at Long Meadow during last nights episode of Gardeners’ World.  I am still frustrated by the seemingly short amount of the programme that is actually given over to Monty doing things in his garden.  For me they are trying to squeeze too much into the allotted time. But this is the last I shall mention of it.