So, what's been happening in the garden ?
The herbaceous borders are undergoing a mini revamp, with certain plants being either removed altogether or transplanted from one border to the other. The white geraniums that were growing in a row alongside the box hedge of the top border have all been removed and are now planted in front of the Lupin wall below the lower border.
The pink geraniums that were in the lower border have also been removed and are currently in residence in the west facing border until we decide where to put them.
All the Achillea are now in front of the white Buddleia in the lower border. Whilst moving these, I took the opportunity to remove as much of the couch grass from the Achillea root systems as I possibly could. I have also done the same with some of the original Iris in the top border but with limited success.
Both Buddleia bushes have been taken down even further with the chainsaw to try and bring them back to a nice shape and manageable size for this season.
All the clumps of Kniphofia have been cleaned up too, with a lot of dead vegetation removed.
In the fruit bed, I have planted a row of Autumn fruiting raspberries along with more gooseberry and currant bushes, including one whitecurrant..
Elsewhere on the fruit side of the garden, all the apple trees have been given a further prune and been brought down to a manageable size, that size being defined as being able to pick all the fruit by hand from the tripod ladder. The pear trees have also been given a further prune.
The middle section of the garden has all been turned over and this will be filled this year with flowers for cutting. The cordon grown sweet peas will be grown in the bottom section of this area and this year the varieties being grown are as follows - Gwendoline, Percy Thrower, Raspberry Flake, April in Paris, Royal Wedding, Lovejoy and Madison. There are 145 seeds sown so all being well we should have enough plants for the cordon growing and also to put a couple of wigwams in the herbaceous borders again - assuming all hares are now dead !!
And finally, the veg garden is underway - the layout of the beds has been decided and the posts for the beds (all 82 of them) are in situ and the 8" x 2" timbers should be arriving any day now to form the beds - the sooner the better as the beds will all need to be dug over, manured etc before April.
The dahlia tubers are being overwintered in the greenhouse and those we wish to take cuttings from are all marked up, the gladioli corms are in there too, along with some strawberry runners, the sweet peas, leeks and swiss chard.
So to finish here are a couple of pics to illustrate some of the above. This first photo shows one end of the middle section of the garden. The lupin wall is immediately below the box hedge and immediately below are the recently transplanted white geraniums. This is the section that will house a lot of cut flowers including Ammi, Orlaya and Verbascums as well as the cordon sweet peas.
This second photo is of the area of the new vegetable garden, with all the posts in situ, though not very clear to the eye!
So that's what has been happening in an abbreviated form. Will add more soon.
