It was a fine enough Sunday that I was able to venture out and spend some time in the garden and admire the plants, like this Mahonia oiwakensis below (although I'm a little suspect with its ID...)
Pretty isn't it??
Now for the not so pretty bits...
A couple of small areas in our garden that I want to sort out by spring are the small frog pond and vase corner right at the very end of the garden.
The small frog pond above has seen better days when it used to covered on all sides with 'Mind Your Own Business' plant Soleirolia soleirolii, softly hugging the stones and growing on top of the plastic lip effectively concealing it. However, as our garden grew and this area became more densely shaded they don't thrive here anymore despite repeated attempts.
There's always the option of removing it and gaining a planting space but it has its merit of being a breeding space for frogs which in turn helps the garden by keeping some pests at bay. The merit alone is strong enough reason to let it stay, it just needs sprucing up.
Plan is to remove all the existing stones surrounding it and the dead tree fern log. Then relay the stones but adding more to have a bit of layering, with the stone edges going over the plastic rim on all sides to hide the plastic edges better.
I'm also toying the idea of doing a mini brook water feature with it, putting in a pump that will let the water back in to the pool via a few rounded stones to one side. Will mull over this, watch this space...
The pergola above was the first garden structure Gaz built in the garden with the help of our dear friend Kevin who is now no longer with us. This makes it all the more important that we keep it. This is right at the end of our garden, in an area that is densely shaded almost all year round being under the canopy of a large tree. Behind the bamboo slat screening you can see our neighbour's cream painted shed.
This shouldn't take long to tidy up, keeping the big urn where it is but replacing the bamboo canes (because it's currently used as bamboo cane store, too functional!) with fatter ones. We'll have to sort out the planting and get that metal bird properly secured upright as it has a habit of falling down and breaking plants along its way (naughty bird!). I won't repaint the pergola, I quite like it's patina.
Hopefully by early summer I can post some after pics!
Other highlight of last Sunday was that we managed to do more on our new garden shed/filter house. Gaz had to do a lot of limbo dancing that day...
Mark :-)
