Dumb things to do in a garden

I blame Artur. He was having an ornery day.

He camped out in the potting shed but was refusing to be friendly.

He just giving me his patented Death Stare and refused to sit on my lap. Even when I deigned to sit down on the floor beside him and not even force him to have to leap.

Glare. Stare. Small meaow which is code for ‘go away’. He even hissed and lashed at me when I started to tidy up the pots too close to his orbit.

So I decided to clear the little terrace bank below the potting shed and duck back in regualraly to annoy him as well. He can’t settle in his fleecy lined box because I keep banging open the door. Hah! Two can play at ornery.

This tiny terrace is no more than five feet wide and it slopes in a scary way. So I have never developed it. Just strimmed it if I can hold onto the stone wall on one side and teeter along the edge.

I have been thinking that it could be planted up.  I have an excess of little fruit bushes. I take cuttings every year and then leave them in the ground behind the potting shed to grow on.

Two years is enough time in the nursery beds. So out they came.  I potted up about a dozen jostaberries to give away. There is a waiting list for these amazing fruit bushes.

And I managed to take some cuttings from Lynn and Jeff’s magnificent reducrrant bushes in their garden around the mountain.

Some of the cuttings had labels, others I had to scratch and sniff. You can’t beat the gorgeous whiff of a blackcurrant bush. One of my favourite scents.

So I dug over this terrace and that was where I made my dumb mistake. No gloves.  And when you have a terrace that sits under a huge chestnut tree and has been neglected for seven years you have to accept two things. Brambles and burrs.

Both of which embedded themselves in my fingers and thumbs.

I’m typing with nine digits right now as I can’t get the nasty burr out of my thumb.  I could have stopped and gone into the shed (banging that door to wake up the cat) but you need to have fine motor skills to grub up all the little bramble roots.  And my guantlets (the only gloves that are burr proof) are just too thick.

So I suffered. But it’s lovely soil and stone free now. I didn’t have far to go to place all the unearthed rocks up on the terrace above.

Were I a proper garden designer I would have stopped  and taken a good hard look at the site. It sits above the pool bank which is eragrostis rich and just grassy.  I could link it with that part of the garden.  Or plant something different and contrasting.

But I love the idea of another soft fruit area. Productive plants win out.  So I have planted seven fruit bushes – red currants, black currants, jostaberries and white currants.

And I have left plenty of room to step in among the plants.  I can water from above which is a bonus. But it is going to need a thick mulch as it’s a tricky place to weed. As my injuries can attest.

And what to call it? I could be kind and call it Artur’s Seat. It’s one of his favourite places to snooze in late spring and plays nicely on Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh. But he’s not getting any favours from me today. So it shall be the poetically named Little Terrace.  For now.