Concentrating The Mind

Posted on 23 Feb, 2008 6 comments

I’ve just taken my first booking for a group to visit my garden this year. It’s not until 10th April (which sounds a long way off) but there’s still lots to do and I will be away for a week over Easter. Even ‘simple’ little jobs takes longer than planned. Yesterday, for example, I tidied all the planting baskets in the pond; there are about twenty. Cut away all the dead top growth and any roots growing out the sides, scraped moss and liverwort off the surface and then top dressed them with grit. A couple needed division and several will need doing next year. And just that took nearly five hours. I hope March settles down with some decent weather otherwise I can see me working through the night to be ready in time.

Here’s the progress so far:

In front of the house, I still have to cut back the penstemons against the far wall (this will be done some time next month depending on the weather) and give the cotton lavender a short back and sides. There is a new shrub on order to plant under the window

Here everything is done. The path is made of woody stuff that has been through the shredder – it’s different colours now but it all weathers down to dark brown eventually

This is a spring garden area so there should be more to see in April and May

This path is lined with bearded iris – roll on June!

The two major areas left to attend to are:
To the front and right of the house. This area faces south and has lots of borderline hardy stuff so it will be mid March before this area is addressed

The main herbaceous border in the back garden. Everything here needs to be lifted, divided and replanted so I’ll wait until it starts to shoot so I can see where everything is

Comments

Grenville

Hi Andrew,
Very best wishes for your open day. Lets hope we have some good weather and the group visit is successful.
You have been working really hard by the sound of it, but its very satisfying.
Im waiting for the weather to warm up so I can put some dahlias in for a summer display.
Im trying Dahlia 'Gainsville' (pom-pom variety) with masses of Allium Syn.ostrowskianum shades of plum and purple underplanted with vibrant lime green grasses in a container.
All best wishes and happy gardening.
Grenville.

23 Feb, 2008

Maple

Good luck Andrew. I'm sure you don't need it though as all the pics of your plot look great. Come the day all you will hear are OOOH's and AHHH's and you can sit back feeling self satisfied (rightly so).

23 Feb, 2008

Spritzhenry

Do you just have groups or can people come on their own? Do you get fraught about it all or are you laid back - I can imagine that you would want everything to look at its best. From your photos, you haven't much to worry about, Andrew! SOOO many interesting and unusual plants.

23 Feb, 2008

Buzzbee

Best wishes for the visit - there will be something seriously wrong with people if they don't come away thinking they have seen something a bit special. So, don't you fret!

23 Feb, 2008