It’s time for some action on our plans!
Work has started on some changes we’re making to the garden. We made plans during long, hot summer days, now it’s time for action! When we moved in we enlarged an existing flower bed, maybe making it too big. Some plants have grown too well and taken over, and adding bindweed to the mix has just made a muddle. We’ve started by digging up all the herbaceous plants – some are now in pots awaiting replanting and a new bed has been made at the edge of the orchard. All late-summer flowering perennials have been re-planted here along with some grasses. However, I’ve taken great care to pull up a perennial helianthus – although pretty, it’s a thug! Rootballs of other plants have been dunked in buckets of water to ensure no traces of the helianthus escape elsewhere. Once the border is clear we’ll turf it. Hopefully constant mowing will eradicate all final traces of the helianthus!
Grasses planted in other parts of the garden are looking good, especially when the afternoon sun shines through them, and Cotinus coggygria is living up to its name of ‘smoke bush’. I recently removed a lower branch from the cotinus and found it had rooted. It’s now potted up; hopefully it’ll survive and can eventually be planted in another area.
We welcome all wildlife that visits, but I was a little alarmed recently as I went out of the back door to find a baby snake! At first, thinking it was a lace from someone’s boot, I nearly picked it up, luckily it moved! We’re pretty sure it was a grass snake, however, there must be a bigger one somewhere and I rather hope I don’t encounter it in the undergrowth!
Tales from a Country Garden 