My Progress at the Weekend

Ah. That's more like it. A day like that, every weekend, would make me very happy. It was so warm and sunny in the garden, I got mild sunburn! I never even thought to put sunscreen on. Go figure, when two (three?) weeks ago it was snowing.

First up was some serious weeding of the left border. And some admiring of my tulips! They opened darker than I imagined, but I'm very happy with them.

I may possibly consider re-siting them to the back border next year however, as sitting next to the round dalek that is the compost bin doesn't really do them justice. And I'm not sure if that lovely Choisya is being a bit stunted in it's growth surrounded by those lovelies. Or perhaps it just grows slowly. Time will tell!





Apart from the normal weeds, I am plagued by these, which come from these seeds off the tree at the back (not in our garden, just behind). They are everywhere, left, right, centre. I guess that's how forests grow!

Things are coming along nicely on the left. The Delphiniumhas a lovely big flower coming already, the Geraniums are about to pop, and although the Lady's Mantle (alchemilla mollis) isn't as large and spreading as I had hoped in it's second year, (having grown them before), I'm sure with some sunshine it will grow, and hopefully spread.

And my gorgeous rose has some buds! The Euphorbia looks fantastic as well. The support you see was an absolute find. If it did not have that, the whole think would be sprawled on the ground like it was last year. Perhaps that's how it managed to self-seed so much (do you see? I haven't had the heart to take all of those out. I'd kind of like to see how that pans out) but it was something of a mess. I am all for plant supports like this. The delphinium has one as well. All of these can be moved up as the plant grows taller. I'm sold!

Left border duly weeded, it was time to tackle the next big but satisfying job - cutting the grass.

There's my baby there (the lawnmower, I mean), having just done it's job.

In the meantime, though, I went off to the garden centre to get that job done. But no! Bad news, no seed potatoes left! Now, when I was watching GW on Friday evening, Joe Swift, one of the presenters had just put his maincrop potatoes down this week. The lady at the garden centre was a bit sniffy and said "well, it's a bit late..." Hmph. Alan Titchmarsh in the brilliant The Kitchen Gardener says April is fine for maincrop.

I bought my few bits a pieces there (more supports!) and was making the trek home. First, I passed an outdoor flower stall, which also sells plants - oh, very naughty, I bought two peonies (two for a fiver!).

I love peonies! The problem is I have no place to put them yet as they are intended for the back. Yikes. I think I shall put them in some large-ish pots for the time being until such time as the ground is ready for them.

If I'm realistic I'm not going to be planting up the back now until October. I mean, look at it. And summer is not the time to be laying a border, in my experience. No, October is the target.

Then I thought perhaps I'd just pop into my 99p Store. Do not ignore your local 99p Store. Result! Four bags of seed potatoes, 8 in each, for 99 pence each, I think I went a bit nuts as that's 32 seed potatoes each producing a bunch (this is my first time growing potatoes so I'm not sure about the results of a crop); I could be having a right glut in the autumn ... that's if I can manage fit them all in! We'll see.


Grass cut, smell to die for. If next weekend is fair, I believe the lawn needs some TLC in the form of a "weed and feed", but that's not looking too bad for the first cut after a winter with no sun.



I tackled the much-talked-about vegetable patch too, but I believe I will save that for the next post. Too much to share all at once!

I'm pretty happy with what I did, though. I shall enlighten you very soon!