garden update

As reported, we're off to Surrey for the weekend, but by the magic of pre-scheduling, I bring you a brief update of the garden for those who have been asking.

It's slightly shaming how long it has taken me to accomplish so little. C'est la vie. Luckily I'm not easily embarrassed. The fact is, I don't have bags of free time and I with my back being quite a bit on the tricky side, I can only do so much digging at once. The soil here is pure clay and is as heavy and impacted as concrete; in fact, we're less than 5 miles from China clay pits that have been mined for hundreds of years and once belonged to Wedgewood.

That explains why the clay in my garden is strong enough to withstand a pickaxe. It would be outstanding on a potter's wheel, I'm sure. In my spade, however, it's a very different story. And you have to feel sorry for the plants that try to stick their roots down into it. Over the 5 or so years we have lived in this house I must have planted more than 200 bulbs - daffodils, lilies, assorted other things. To date I have about 6 daffodils that come up each year.

So, before I could plant anything, I had to dig in loads of grit and compost to try and make it a better habitat for plants. All through the winter, this border was a pond. The water just didn't drain. It would have made an excellent teacup.

So, section by section I dug in a bunch of stuff in an effort to improve the drainage. And as I prepared each section, I planted it up with a combination of plants I rescued from my garden before the builders moved in that over-wintered in pots, plants kindly donated by Jay's mum, and new things I bought especially. I'm a fern fan and keep picking them up when I see a nice one. Has there been a plan to my planting? Of course not. I've just been pretty much sticking stuff in and see what happens.

You may remember, this is how it looked over the winter.

This much took me about a week of dedicated morning & evening work:















A little more:

















A couple of months on, it's been doing some growing.
















I haven't quite finished that stretch yet, but I'm very impressed that for the first year ever I've managed to rear all my baby fuchsias into proper grown-up flowering plants. I just need to get them into the ground now.
















And, as you can see, the other side of the patio still looks like this. So, there is still plenty to keep me occupied.


















But I do have a question. Why is it that my carefully chosen selection of clematis, all different types and colours (according to the pictures on their labels) all turned out to be pink?