I have been completely immersed in gardening this weekend and its been wonderful. The sun has shone and now on Sunday evening I have pleasantly achy limbs.
I have been busy planting out plants that were waiting on the patio in the new border. Tree peony (label lost its waiting so long), Paeonia lectiflora ‘Sarah Bernhardt’, two Ashwood hellebores, Hamamelia xintermedia ‘Aphrodite’, half a dozen dahlias and I also relocated a Cephalaria gigantea which was shoehorned into the old narrow top of the wall border. I am going to have to keep a careful eye on them and water and feed carefully to help them recover from the trauma. I still have some chrysanthemums to add as well as lots of annuals to fill gaps. The other issue is that the small plants that were at the front of the old border are now near the back of the new one. I am in a dilemma whether to move them now or leave them be and move them in the Autumn which I think might be kinder.
New big border
As a diversion I also had a meeting at lunchtime about the summer horticultural show at my local club which I am helping with. I am now stewarding the flower entry judge but apparently I’m not allowed to give hints about my own entries.
Today I went for a little more gentle gardening and spent several hours potting up seedlings, I planted the first hanging basket and completely repotted my pelargoniums. Instead of just topping up the compost in the pots, I completely emptied the pot and replaced the compost. Its been a few years since they were originally potted up so I thought this would do them good plus I could use the old compost on the new border. The pelargoniums have been put out along the gravel steps and on the top of the wall. My son, on returning for a weekend away, said he thought quite Mediterranean – well the sun was shining for a change.
The bare path at the top of the steps is the workshop site which is changing rapidly – it’s quite scary.
Finally this afternoon I treated myself to an excursion to the far side of Herefordshire, just over an hour away, to visit Hergest Croft. I have had a desire to see rhododendrons for a few weeks, they take me back to my childhood, and I knew that Hergest Croft had a collection. My trip was very worthwhile but I will save that for another post.
Finally I will finish with a photograph of the bog garden which has thrived on the cooler and damper conditions that we have had so far this year. It’s all very lush and the Rheum (or maybe its a Rodgersia) seems to be getting out of hand and popping up everywhere so I may have to edit that at some point.