What a glorious treat, two whole days of gardening, in fact the first real gardening time this year. What with injuring my arm just after Christmas planting a Sorbus in the front garden and the icy or wet weekends January was a very frustrating month. However, it did allow a lot of time to ponder and plan and to think about possible plant combinations as well as ordering far too many random packets of seeds. Today, with some freezing weather forecast again later in the week I decided to sow those seeds that need a period of cold to help them germinate.
Whilst sowing the first seeds of the year is quite exciting what is really exciting is finishing the edging of the bottom path to give me more structure and order. I suspect I wrote previously about the thick wood edging to the Big Border, this weekend narrow wood edging went in on the bottom side of the path. I didn't want to replicate the thick wood as it would have felt like a channel rather than a path plus I wanted a softer edge with plants tumbling over it. The stepping down of the wood size also reflects the way the garden slopes down. I'm hugely grateful to my eldest son for finishing the edging for me. The plan is to top dress the path with a thick layer of wood chip. I pondered about gravel as this would link to the gravel steps that the path runs from but after much debating we decided to go for wood chip as it would work well with the wood edging - although I'm not 100% but we will see.
Today I finally got to tidy the bottom border and re-organise it, putting some of my January ponderings into action. I decided back last year that this border needed a clearer focus building on the roses already in place so I have decided to add herbs. There was already a bay standard and purple sage in the border and today I added parsley, lavender, more sage, chives, oregano, and sweet cicely. In addition there are some foxgloves, alliums, dianthus, aquilegias, sedums, and assorted geraniums. Hopefully, I will eventually get an English style rose/herb border with plants spilling onto the path all using plants already in the garden.
Now to plan for the next gardening day.....
