As you can see, we have started vandalising the front garden!
R has spent quite a lot of April digging big holes in it. We had originally intended to have left all the big shrubs until we can afford to have landscapers come and remove the wall and path and put in new hard landscaping ...
... however, we discovered a number of ash saplings growing very close to the house, which had to be removed, and the roots of one of them (circled in picture above) were so entangled with those of the big Weigela in the corner that R had to dig that out too.
RIP Weigela. The photo above was taken when it was in flower last May. I had intended to get rid of it at some point, as it was a yucky p*nk colour, but not until we bulldozed the garden, as it was a magnet for bees. I will have to plant more bee-friendly plants in the front as soon as I can.
As you can see, I now have a nice big space for them! I might put annuals in here for the time being, though it is a very shady spot, so I'd have to find ones which will tolerate this.
This is the front from above now, showing the location of the new space.
And this is the rest of the front garden, showing a bright splash of red ...
... in the form of a clump of tulips, which are providing a patch of much-needed colour (though I could wish the previous owners hadn't planted them quite so close to the purple Aubretia!). I will dig these out and put them in a pot to keep as soon as they have finished flowering.
I will try to save some of the Aubretia too - I have plenty to chose from as it is growing in patches all over the horrible wall.
More colour in the front garden is provided at the moment by these Centaurea.
Meanwhile, the corner bed at the back is looking very sad, though I hope you can tell that I have been doing some weeding! There are still quite a lot of annual weeds though, as well as plants the gardeners who cleared this bed missed, mostly Japanese Anemones. There's also an Aquilegia (in photo below) which I left deliberately, hoping it would be blue or purple. It isn't - it's p*nk - so I will be digging it up and disposing of it shortly!
The fence has now collapsed and is hanging across our neighbour's path, so we will definitely have to replace it. It is annoying, because it's her boundary, but apparently it is our fence, so we will have to pay for fences both sides (the one the other side is not in much better condition). We have a builder coming to look at it this afternoon, so I might just have a nice new fence to show you this time next month!
For more end of month views, visit The Patient Gardener.
5 comments:
there is nothing more satisfying than digging up unloved plants to make room for something else. Pity about the fence.
That's quite a lot of work you've got done again this month Juliet. Digging out well embedded trees and shrubs is such hard work. I must confess that I saved up and paid someone else to do it in my garden!
For annuals, meconopsis cambrica, the Welsh Poppy, is happy in a shadier spot. It does self seed if happy, which I love but I thought I better warn you. Bees like them, so a short-term replacement for the Weigela's attributes?
Hello!
I'm visiting from the End of Month views page.
Spring is the best time for doing all these renovations, isn't it? I'm doing much the same in my garden--moving this, taking out that. It is nice to have some bare ground every once in awhile. A clean slate to fill up.
Take care!
Hi Juliet, thanks for leaving an organic recipe for getting rid off powdery mildew on roses on my blog!
It looks like you have been able to bring much more order into the garden since April last year. I really like the one year, before and after comparison photos. Digging out that weigela must have been a hard job. It is funny, you seem to dislike pink as much as I dislike orange in my own garden. It is interesting how and why we develop strong preferences for certain colors and an equally strong distastes for others.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention how much I love that blue centaurea.
Warm regards,
Christina
Thank you all for your comments, and thanks Julieanne for the Meconopsis idea. I love them so would be happy for them to self-seed everywhere, but they wouldn't grow at all in my last garden, where we had heavy clay ... and guess what, we have heavy clay here too. I might get some seeds and have another go here, but for now I have put in some old seeds of a few other things I already had.
Hello Linnae - nice to meet you! I will go and visit your blog when I can.
Christina - yes, it's funny how different colours appeal to different people. My favourite flowers are all orange!
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