That'll do

It's with a sense of almost disappointed weariness that I finally finish the bulk of the garden work. After a load of earth-moving, smoothing, filling rubble sacks and planting we have my finished tiers:

There's a bit where I want another plant but I could live without it. It has a 'Black Lace' Sambucus:

A dragon:

And a face:

On my way out I also discovered that there were some late developers in the propagator that I'd already planted out from:

Not sure what to do with them. They're asparagus and I've already got tonnes of that planted out:

Got three of those troughs.. I don't really want to just kill them off though, after all they've been through..

The lavender is going mad, can't wait to see this lot flower:

Shallots doing well, I didn't really think they were like this - I expected something like the simple grasses of garlic but these are quite funky:

Spinach may be dead:

Chillis are shooting up. It seems like I look away for a bit and they double in size:

There's some other things too but that's the main stuff. Phew, tired now..

Done, ish

Been working hard again and the garden tiers are basically done.

This is mainly a post to record what has died. That is, three of my fruit bushes that never really took and the following two shrubs from the shrub collection:

Berberis Thunb
Potentilla Fruticosa

There is a third but I've lost the label off that.

I'll probably do some pictures later once I've decided which four of my shrubs will go alongside the fruit bushes.

Just read the following on wikipedia about one of my plants:

"In second-growth woodlands of New England, a thicket of lilac may be the first indication of the cellar-hole of a vanished nineteenth-century timber-framed farmhouse."

How intriguing.

Probably excessive

My garden and indoor growing projects have expanded beyond my ability to adequately manage them. Plants I have:

• Various nasturtiums
• Cornflowers
• Field Poppies
• Chillis
• Garlics
• Shallots
• Spinach
• About 35 bloody asparagus in three huge troughs
• Eucalyptus bush
• Basil
• Bush basil
• Bergamot
• Sweet peas of various sorts
• Misc bulbs
• Rosemary
• Olive tree
• Lavender tree
• Skimmia japonica (Bronze Knight)
• Violas
• Lonicera
• Euphorbia
• Sedums of red and green
• Thyme - both low-lying and bushy
• Saxifrage
• Two kinds of pieris
• Some kind of Jack Frost thing that is barely alive
• Gro-sure easy flowers - pastel and bright
• Wild flower mix
• Small early fruit bushes - six of these but not all looking like surviving
• Shrub collection - Berberis Thunb, Weigela Rosea, Cornus Alba, Cornus Alba, Forsythia Int. ‘Spectabilis, Philadelphus Coronarius, Potentilla Fruticosa, Ribes Aureum, Spiraea Douglasii, Symphoricarpos Albus, Syringa Vulgaris
• Sambucus 'black lace' - mostly due to a sort of pun on Sam's name
• Acer Palmitum - can't remember the cultivar name but it's pretty
• Planted olive tree seeds to watch
• Pine seeds

And I've probably even forgotten some. This is way out of hand.

Landscapes

I've spent most of the weekend doing more garden sorting. The chaos is gradually giving way and the patio area is no longer strewn with junk:

Apart from the two chairs on the right, they're pretty junky. Just around the corner is where I've moved my storage box and put up a ten-quid ASDA greenhouse thing. Actually quite sturdy, but the shelves are shite.

After that a good part of yesterday was putting excess rubble and soil into bags in preparation for taking the tip. I was out stupidly early this morning filling about fifteen rubble sacks and the last bit of garden was finally taking shape, though that shape was basically a huge mound of crap. I took a break to tend to the other bit of garden by laying some stepping stones:

They are square 'stonewood' railway sleepers. The rest of that is starting to come to life as well;

^^An example of the many germinations.

After that it was back to the main event. We ended up wondering about the best thing to do with the remainder of the garden. A few weeks back we were at Webbs at Wychbold (really excellent garden centre, though is far away in the Midlands) and they had a riverside garden area. We were early and this was open before the shop was so we wandered round it and they had this sort of tiered thing made with those log rolls you can get. So we decided to do it.

I must have moved about a tonne of earth today building this thing, and the ground is a complete bastard - still full of stones. Managed to clear most of it and get down to some half-decent clay-earth stuff to dig the required trenches and ta-da:

Still more to do but that's it so far. The earth in those bits needs levelling out and there's another tier to come. We're going to alternate flowers and lawn and then an ericaceous zone right at the base. Hard work, that. It's a bit.. let's say 'rustic' in finish as I'm not a professional but it'll do.

Also, got some Sweetpeas doing well:

And I probably should have heeded Helen's warning about Nasturtiums:

That's in the rockery. I never planted it, the nasturtiums are now in the front garden and THEY HAVEN'T EVEN FLOWERED YET. God knows how that one got that but I'm going to leave it be, for showing pluck.