A Plan

If you remember I was thinking what to do with this.

Well I think I have finally decided to get rid of the veg beds, use the wood from around them to build a raised bed here. Move the box hedging. Using the soil from the veg beds to help fill the new raised bed after adding grit and sand. Being south facing I hope this will be an ideal situation for a bed similar to this.

This is very different for me but I got the idea from my friend, at Hurley Designs.



Click the link and just look at his fabulous gardens. One thing is certain, should I ever win the lottery this is the guy I would employ to landscape my garden!

I have never really been 'into' Spikeys, well thats not strictly true!! As a child, my Nana planted a trough of cactus for me to keep in my bedroom, they where kept on my windowsill and boy did they grow, I think she had spotted the greenfingers in me even then!!!

So I said I had one or two, well obviously from all the following photos I lied!!

 Could have sworn I only had one or two??? There are loads more succulents Aeoniums, I just shove them under the bench in the greenhouse and forget them till the spring!

My Yucca Gloriosa Variegata has always been out of place in the patio garden so if I can move it I can probably make it a central feature for my new bed.

This is the new bed behind the compost bin, it is also the wettest part of the garden, I can't keep replacing lawn all the time so I will extend the bed out a further foot and plant with more damp and shade loving plants.

Poor tortoise, neglected and left out over winter, but doesn't seem any the worse for wear!

Theraised bed by the pond, I had planned to put the spikys in here, but I held off, no idea why, just felt it wasn't right, still not sure what to put here, succulents maybe? Still to be decided!

Rheum always the first to sprout in spring, slowly showing signs of movement?

Finally the view up the garden, always looks so different doesn't it, so the moss plot will become the raised bed, using the wood from around the veg beds. Then the veg bed area will become lawn or moss, depends what it decides to grow!!!

I will extend this flower bed right out to the path. I haven't told hubby yet so we shall have to see, to be honest as far as I'm concerned there is no point in putting lawn here apart from the fact when it is growing well it looks good, but to have to keep re-turfing each year is annoying the heck out of me!

I don't think it will be a problem, since the girls left home (Tori part time at home) we have become really close again, which is lovely.
So roll on spring!

Garden in Winter

I do not like my garden in winter, it is so dull and brown/grey. But now the evenings are getting lighter I start to get excited about what I have planned!

The bamboo is doing exactly what I wanted it to do and that was hide the water butt

but it is doing it a little too well. As you can see it has spread out quite significantly, when I bought it I was told it was a 'clumper'. I do not want it to break the brick wall, which it is well capable of so it will be coming out, with the help of my birthday present 'money for a gardener' (to do the heavy stuff!

In its place I will move the TRex, provided it comes back to life!

The Tree ferns are doing well, the lower one better than the taller one.

See what I mean about brown/grey!!! That Cordyline was planted as a filler a few years ago and should have died by now (winters) but it hasn't, so before it gets much bigger I (or the gardener)will move it down the garden behind the Phormium!

Trachy is looking pretty good now and must be double my height?

Butia seems ok in the new bed. Just not sure about the bamboo trough, great for winter protection, but???????

The Phormium, has settled well in its new bed, in fact its looking a lot perkier than when it was in its tub, just need to look out for a solar pump for the ball pool, and some rocks.

Cough, cough! a new dumping ground! This is something I am really, really bad at. Space that doesn't have a use becomes a dumping ground! The smaller phormium is coming out and going to my daughters, she has the Hardy Tropical bug too!! But what to do here? Its not big enough for a seat so do I extend the flower bed? Really not sure!

The rest of the flower bed, with the damage panel that is only just hanging in there. The neighbours (its there fence) won't replace it as they can't see it!!! Anyway lots to be done in this bed I really would like the whole lot dug out and gone through to get rid of the bind weed roots. I know I will never find them all but I can certainly reduce them considerably!

Bloomin veg beds! these have not been good for years, so I have seriously thought about getting rid of them. To what though lawn? possibly thats what was there before, but its boring. Sarah Raven has plants for cutting which I think would look fabulous here, but if the veg don't grow would the flowers. Still to be mulled over!

The lawn? well the moss!!! New turf both sides of the path last year, dug and aerated and treated and it still comes back!!! I'm not sure the new fence has helped.

2 years running this has happened so there is no point in growing grass here. The bed below is easily incorporated into the flower bed. But the one above mmmmmmm??? Playing with ideas, I suppose if I got rid of the veg beds turned them to lawn with a small bed along the fenceline for sunflowers, ricinus, foxgloves and other tall stuff. I could use the wood to create a triangular raised bed so it would get more sun for ??? I was just thinking I could make it an 'Arid' bed, more thought needed I think, but I like the idea.

The pond, just look at the state of those fence panels just wish the damn things would fall down. They where put up 3 neighbours ago probably about 1990 they have concrete fence posts. For some unknown reason they never ever get blown out like the others, each year I paint them to hopefully disguise them abit!
Should be interesting to see how the pond has faired this winter. If you remember last year we had lots and lots of baby fish, which will have to be found new homes if they survived.
So far no frogs spawn.

Passion flower still hanging in there.

Olive has been out all winter this year. Not planned just got forgotten, but doesn't look any the worse for it.

This is the bottom bed that backs onto the compost. It gets very damp here so is or was planted with loads of hellabores and spring bulbs followed by 2 very large ferns. The ferns are fine, the spring bulbs are just starting to poke through, but this is the only Hellabore to survive. To be honest I'm pleased I like Hellabores.

So on the walk back up the garden I notice all the new shoots

 So I think spring is not too far away!

3 Months, 2 Weeks!

since I last blogged! So much has gone on since then, the day after my last post I had to rush up north as my mum was taken into hospital and it was very touch and go! My sister and I stayed a month or maybe more? But she is a tough cookie and has pulled through. Although we have been up and down a lot since then she has improved greatly.

Everything in my garden, greenhouse and home has been sadly neglected, so I have had and am expecting  further losses in the greenhouse :(

Today being Valentines Day, is the day I usually plant my tomato seeds! (My husband says its so they get lots of love!!) But this year they won't as I haven't planted them yet lol!! Instead I went and tidied the greenhouse, watered what needed watering and set up my propagator!

There seems to be a great lack of room in there this year, I'm not sure why. So where the heck I will put the seedlings when they come out of the propagator I have no idea.

This is just a short blog to let you know I am alive and raring to go on another gardening year. Photos