This weekend I was on a mission to get some shape and plants into the garden. After a couple of comments from readers that the garden looked a bit ‘sparse’ (I think they were being polite and actually meant ‘empty’), I decided to take action.
The first job was to get rid of the long washing line and install a whirligig. The long line is OK but it won’t quite fit in with the end vision: my drawers flapping all over the flowers is not a pretty thought. There’s a little patch of slate by the shed which I earmarked as an ideal spot for the new rotary line. It’s not in immediate line of sight from the house, near enough to be accessible, and in a spot that I’d struggle to grow much on. The plan was to extend this space to look more like a feature and install the new line. My brother was down for a rare visit at the weekend, so I quickly took advantage of this extra muscle power and set him to work.
In no time at all he’d dug me a border for the area, in which we put some bricks I’d saved from the building work last year. These didn’t need to be in perfect alignment, as their job was to stop the slate from leaking into the garden, and I plan to cover them with spreading plants at some point. Weilding my brand new mallet, he then knocked the washing line holder into the ground.
Next, we cut some chicken feed bags up that had been lurking in the shed, and placed them across the entire area, to supress any weeds. Finally the whole patch was covered in some slate tiles that I’d been saving, which he bashed about with the spade to make smaller.
Rather enjoying himself by now, he spotted the assortment of plants and shrubs on the patio and suggested we get them in the garden. After all, the sooner they were in, the sooner they could (hopefully) burst into life. I’d been to a garden center liquidation sale a week or so back, and filled up the car with as many flowering shrubs as I could lay my hands on. Some, I’d never even heard of – but they were cheap, and they were colourful.
I had actually done a bit of pre-planning with them too – I’d looked up what kind of aspect each one would like, where in the garden they should be placed, and actually had drawn a plan too. My brother and I soon had a marvelous system going, whereby I plonked the plants on the soil, then he dug the holes and planted them all. Looking back at our handiwork, we had to question how a patio FULL of plants soon disappeared when scattered around the borders. No matter. With a bit of warm weather on them, they’ll soon start filling out and should provide my little patch with some lovely color right through the year.
Slate garden