Come into the garden, Maud ...

Ooh look at you - first past the garden gate.  Is your name Maud?  Eh?  Eh?

If your name's not Maud, you're not coming in.

Oh go on then.........  come with me and have a nosey around me garrrrrding (as they say in Birmingham).   (Disclaimer:  I'm not from Birmingham.  And I don't say garrrrrrding.   Just saying).

We've been doing lots of revamping of the garden recently and I'm really pleased with how beautifully its coming together.

Now then, I have donned a straw hat and a rosebud sprigged lawn tea-dress, white cotton gloves and am carrying a trug in case you would like a couple of cuttings.   **flounces off**

**flounces back to don sou'wester, gum boots and a brolly - and you can carry yer own trug!**

This post is photo heavy - not sure whether I should apologise for that or not - but in any event, click on them to enlarge if you would like to see them in better detail.

So this is the bottom border, newly restored and planted up.  As I want the garden to be relatively low maintenance now in view of our work patterns and my crook back, I have stocked the borders with shrubs which will provide some all year round colour and will bush out nicely.  I have chosen peris (forest flame), a white variegated Euonymous and Photinia red robin for this part of the garden.  There is also a big clump of zebra grass already established in there from a few years back and provides some tall structure together with my gorgeous dicentra which never fails me every year.  It had a bit of a hard prune back (thanks non-gardening man!) and I was worried that it wouldn't come back but it has.  Smaller than usual but beautiful all the same.

A little further up the columbines are running riot as usual - I love the different colours.  I've given up trying to move them now!

The japanese maple was rescued from under the hedge which explains its contorted form.  I thought I had lost this but it has suddenly put on lots of leaves so I'm hopeful that it will like its new home.   The terracotta pot next to it contains a new pink lavender which I bought last week - and it is the strongest smelling lavender I have come across.... just gorgeous!  The flowers are very delicate - I just hope that I can keep it! I'm not very successful with lavender plants for some reason.

Lots of clusters of pots line the edges of the newly paved area which used to be the lawn. (Remember the never ending sea of black plastic last year because of the continual rain?!)

  The heuchera is "autumn leaves" - one of the prettiest I've seen and the leaves light up beautifully when the sun shines on them.  I have a thing for heucheras! I have "plum pudding" and "chocolate ruffles" too elsewhere.  There are many, many types - I wish I had room for all of them!   This new addition is already sending up flower spikes now so I'm looking forward to seeing what colour they are.  

A pot of pretty pink cosmos with their frondy ferny leaves...

The picture above shows the area still under construction.  There will be a fence across the bottom of the patio which will screen it off from the rest of the garden and will enable us to have a 'secret garden' away from the dog(!).  We have the arch and the gate already constructed and it only remains for the weather to stop bliddy well weathering so that the fence panels can be hung and everything completed. 

I'd like the top borders to look a little 'woodlandy' and so there is a fern unfurling in an old Belfast sink (it was too dim to pick it up properly though) and some bark mulch spread across the soil.  (I adore the smell of bark mulch - just thought I'd share that with you!!).  There is a new purple lavender, and two pretty little peris (mountain flame) which have been planted this week.   

The Buddleja (Dark Knight) is growing apace and hopefully will attract lots of butterflies.  In the back ground there is another heuchera!! 

I don't know where this little chap came from but it is yet another colour columbine self seeded from somewhere - The colour has bleached a little here - it is actually very dark - like a Cadbury's purple.

I haven't take an aerial photograph as yet (as not only do we still have a bit of construction work in progress, but also an aerial photograph involves such derring do as me hanging out of the bedroom window by my toes to bring you a suitable full length picture.  Of the garden dear, not me.  Do keep up!)  Hopefully at some point soon I shall be able to show the big picture!

In other news - our new barbecue arrived today.  It is the size of a zeppelin. You do realise that this will signify the end of any good weather.   I do apologise.

Hope you've enjoyed your trip around the garden.  See you soon!

 
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