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This weekend’s forecast for yet another mixed bag of weather meant that I needed to get cracking early – just in case, just in case things turned really nasty and put the kybosh on my plans. As a result I was out in the garden by 8 o’clock on both days.
The weather wasn’t as bad as expected – although Sunday started out dull, damp, dingy and wet, but by 11.15am (having gone back indoors for American pancakes and The Archers) it had stopped raining and the rest of the day was fabulous.
The plants from the front garden from Beth Chatto had arrived mid-week, so Clare had the delightful job of getting those planted and announcing the front garden complete. Hurrah! Apart from putting back the gravel mulch. Boo! About an hour and a tonne of gravel later, this was also complete. We think it looks great and certainly a vast improvement on what had been there before. And, as it's all planting and gravel we’re doing our bit to prevent localised flooding from hard-standing run-off!
The finishing touch was to yank out a moth-eared clematis that hadn’t been doing well for the past three years and replace it with something a bit more exotic and in keeping with the new look front garden – we chose Campsis radicans ‘Flamenco’.
I felt that this weekend was a good time to start feeding everything in pots. I’m a firm believer in controlled-release fertilisers – they feed just the right amount when the plants need it for anything up to six months. I get mine from Greenacres Horticultural Supplies who do a wide range of feeds and the results are always excellent. I also went around treating those plants in pots that need an acid soil (our water is very hard/alkaline) with Sulphur Soil – also from Greenacres; this included rhodos, Japanese maples and blueberries.
Every day this week I’ve been patrolling the lilies for the red menace – I found one on Saturday, but that has been the first since last weekend’s six; but this is no time for relaxing – vigilance is still needed.
By Saturday evening the lawn was dry and ready for a cut, and on Sunday I decided to rake and oversow some of the thinner patches. I’m not sure if many people realise that up to 25% of the grass in a lawn can die each year and the best and easiest way to replace this is to oversow with grass seed.
Of course, this weekend also involved some activities in the veg garden. You can read all about these on my RHS veg blog.
Enjoy your week.