Garden Update 11

M was here for five hours yesterday and during that time finished off all the heavy digging, cleared most of the front garden, planted the blueberry bushes and moved some plants around. 

Next time she will deal with the spring bulbs. The daffodils are over for this year but for now, the tulips are still looking good. The burgundy clematis has been moved from the trellis on the back wall of the house and planted against the unused trellis (bottom right of the photo above) and the stones have been moved from the bottom of the garden to here to keep the roots cooler. The plan is to plant some thyme or something similar by the stones.

In the photo below you can see the flower bed behind the garage. This was where I'd agreed (with the previous gardener) to plant the columnar fruit trees and nut bush but M advised against it as it's too small a space for everything that was going to be planted. I cancelled the order, got my refund, but the trees arrived anyway so I gave them to my sister. 

This space is now set aside for pretty things! The pot doesn't belong there, and so far two pot grown plants have been replanted, the hydrangea and the pieris, so fingers are crossed that they don't sulk about being moved as they are both a bit temperamental, and the newly purchased camellia is planted on the right. We spent quite a bit of time deciding on the rest of the planting for this area and have settled on two climbing roses, nerines, cyclamen and some weed suppressing ground cover, possibly periwinkle. This means I will be visiting the garden centres again, but I'm not complaining about that!

The blue/yellow sack is filled with gravel, some of which is destined for the front garden and the rest will be bagged up for now. That's my job for next week. This is where I plan to sit and dream. The bench will move back against the garage wall as soon as there is enough space for the table and chairs to be stored in the garage - at the moment they are behind the bench.

There are lots of alliums and gladioli in the centre bed (above), and eventually the sweet peas will be winding themselves around the obelisk.

The photo below looks back to the house to show where the majority of the pots will be. This was taken just before lunchtime and from about 12:30pm this area is in full sun for the entire afternoon and early evening and this is where the veggies will be, all pot grown. The two pots in front of the trellis contain the blueberries, one has the usual blue fruit and the other one has pink fruit and there will also be two pot grown patio fruit trees. I decided against the mini greenhouse and am going with Joy's suggestion so I've ordered a tiered trolley and will keep the seedlings and tender plants indoors as advised.

The other pots will be moved around but before that happens the patio needs to be power washed. M will be tackling that as well as the grouting during May. 

The green waste is in the wheelie bin for a kerbside collection but there was a huge pile of clay soil to go (removed and replaced with decent topsoil in the flower beds), which M has taken and so saved me a trip to the skip. I also cleared some unwanted gardening items out of the garage and she has also taken those to gift to the Mencap home where she works so that's the garage decluttering started!

To finish, a couple of random photos ... tulips in the sun, and a water droplet in the centre of a lupin leaf.