Yesterday was a subbotnik day at Andrew’s a few hours further south from our home where we cleared his terrace of pots and had a major sorting of all sorts of things. So wonderful to be driving home with a car full of tools that he brought over from London. No longer will our spare bathroom in London host the spade, fork, edging tool and hedge cutters that have been languishing. If Eurostar’s security guards could consider a pen knife a weapon, imagine the apoplectic fit they would suffer when confronted with my two foot long hedge cutters beaming up at them in the xray machine? If I didn’t want to have it confiscated it might have been a fun spectacle.

So I am glad they travelled back to France in a van. And I had twelve (or was it ten?) Calamagrostis Karl Foerster plants, plus kniphofia and pulsitella plants to bring home. And some gaura from Andrew and a few other things I have already forgotten. Dreadful memory.

What I haven’t forgotten was the amazing drive back. From Privas to our house (a drive on a main road of about 50km) I encountered not a single car behind or in front. What a wonderful ghost town this place is at 9pm at night. So easy. And I made it home in time to pluck yet more roses for a late night jam session. Of the bottling rather than the musical variety, and a watering of the seedlings.

Up just after dawn to plant the grasses, water every single plant in all the gardens (am away for another week) and hide most of the smaller seedlings in the space in the bread oven enclosure. It’s too tricky and tedious to take them down to Bernard’s for just one week. And I hope that he will water on Monday. They should be able to survive. And if they don’t I shall weep. As it is the very first time that I have managed to germinate cleomes in such a quantity. I have almost 40 little seedlings coming up. And as much again of precious basil, and a thousand and other things that need just one more week in their pots before they go out. Curse this going away. It does tend to make gardening and planning quite problematic.

And then one last lingering look at the lupins. They will be well over in a week. And a quick netting of the climbing beans and sweet peas in the potager. I realised too late that I really ought to protect the two blueberries that are right on the edge of the path. But not time. It was time to go.

I must water everything first off. This heat hasn’t resulted in a typical Ardèche rainstorm yet. One is predicted tomorrow, but until then I shall have to make liberal use of the hose. Luckily the source is almost full. Just a foot off the top of the tank, so there must be water somewhere.

I was itching to start on the flower garden, but first I had to rescue the clematis that is supposed to be climbing the walnut tree. Instead it was lurking in the long grass. Rescued also the seedlings I am supposed to plant in the garden under the wisteria. They were gasping. I want to plant some kniphofia (is that how it’s spelt? Red hot pokers, but in that case green) and some echinacea green envy here. But so far they are still in their pots and further down the To Do list today.

To reach the new cutting garden behind the potting shed I do have to go past the sight of a few more pots that are still in the hot and thirst-enducing shed. Guilt ridden about the red hot pokers, instead I plant out all the mint that has been lifted from the mint prison for the winter (it had a lovely display of tulips and narcissus instead) and so far neglected to be returned.

Duty done, it was down to the fun of flowers: I started with a major Agastache plant. It’s a good do-er so I am planting scads. I think I will eventually plant a hedge of it facing the shed wall. But for now it’s in the wrong place and will have to stay there until spring. But I have planted clumps in around the liatris spicata bulbs at the edge of the wall.

Lots of water and a good mulch and then fish blood and bone. My they are being spoilt. But this is now a warm sunny spot so they need nurturing.

I had to uproot lots of stipa grasses that I have grown from seed. They are to go onto the bank below the pool. Poor things, they have just got going, but I need the room for flowers, and they will do a better job down by the edge. I dread going out at all now. It’s 28C and a warm wind is quite desiccating. But there were more seedlings to do. I planted sunflowers and zinnias and sorted out the netting to use as a flower support. Remembered almost too late that I need paths in between. And then managed to find a space for the three dahlias I have revived from their tuberous winter state.

There are plenty more rows of things to go – but they are still too small to risk planting out. My cleomes are too tiny and it’s a miracle they germinated, so I don’t want to kill them just yet.

Ended day planting stipas in the bank below the pool an feeling that things are coming along nicely indeed.

Watering is by far my favourite start to the day. So peaceful. And the birdsong this year is quite stunning. There is a family of blue tits beginning their life in a small nest high up in the wall of the guest house. No pointing or work on the stone walls there for a bit I think. Hopefully we will be around to watch the babies fledge. That’s quite a drop.

My main task for the day was to plant out all the extra little vegetable seedlings that didn’t go in during the first major crop work. Random pots of cabbages, coriander, and two cucumbers needed to fill in the small gaps And then there was the question of where to put the everlasting peas which I sowed over the winter. They weren’t putting on that much growth in their pots. I decided that they might do (eventually as an extra feature on the wall that abuts the herb garden. There are three small New Dawn rose plants already there, but surely this wall could do with more. Perhaps it is the wrong place, I really had a lapse of creative spirit. Blame it on flagging in this heat and sneezing every few minutes. My first week of major hayfever is always tiring until the antihistamines kick in.

All these chores were interrupted by our escaping neighbours. Jean Daniel is away for a few days and he rather left his lawn mowers have a feral vacation. Getting them back behind the electric fence was like herding cats. Our wildflower grasses were so much more interesting and juicier than theirs, and naturally once they realised that the electric fence didn’t entirely confine them they were out and into our property like a shot. I was worried that some of my plants may be poisonous to them too. Not to mention the fact they would much the entire shade garden down to the ground in about three mouthfuls. So I hauled them away from the grasses and fun and sent them back to sulk.

In the afternoon it was a case of hiding from the sun. I need to get the strimmer and go into the orchard and trim the weeds behind the trees. But decided to just sit down and use secateurs instead. I cut plastic bottles and used them as gauntlets for the brambles and thus armed I set to some very destructive work indeed.

I cut out the apricot entirely. Sad to see it go, but it looks like I’m only going to be able to plant peach leaf curl resistant varieties from now on.  There was no way I could pick off all the infected leaves and hope for a recovery. Every leaf was infected. Blown from the spores that have lived (and dare I say thrived) on the peach trees up near the house.

The diseased tree went into a bin liner. And then I marched (slow motion in the heat) up to the culprits and decided they all have to go. Now. No more waiting until June when I can get help. This infection spreads faster than I can control it. So I just launched in cutting off all the branches. Cutting them into bite sized chunks. And then spent an assiduous half hour picking up all the fallen, diseased leaves. A summer of careful cutting and care of this bank. (Once the stumps are removed) and maybe in the autumn I will plant more olives. That’s the plan. But certainly no more peaches.

Then as the heat was finally relenting, it was up to start on the future flowers for the house area. I had thought to put it up at the top potager. But I realised that I have a lot of very sunny space here behind the potting shed. So I shall make use. Walking up to the top potager is a challenge and very uphill. Watering there twice a day would be bound to prove too much. And these are flowers for vases so need a good season with plenty of moisture. There are lots of sunflowers in my mix.

Weeding the area wasn’t too onerous as most has been under black weedproof fabric all spring. (I do apologise for the dreary pictures, you just can’t get creative with dirt) And then in a trice it was dig over with a fork. Just a few months ago I couldn’t even wield a fork without stabbing back pain, so perhaps time really is the great healer of sore spines. I can picture how it will look. But had to down tools and just plan what needs to be done tomorrow. No more gloaming gardening today.

Well, it’s 1030am and I have done the bank. And now I’m going in for a cup of tea and a nice lie down. Aching.
Note to self – do not weed or mow in anything but long trousers and do wear gloves at all times.

Legs and hands a tingling. I suspect it’s called revenge of the nettles. I wanted to finish the first terrace mowing early – I blame sitting on terrace at lunch yesterday and watching the nettles growing way down the end of the first terrace near the old rabbit shed. They couldn’t be ignored for much longer or they would set seed and create yet more.

The mowing is a lot of work as I have chosen to eschew the mulching blade and stick to the one that requires emptying of the grass collector every five minutes or so. I need that grass for garden mulch. So as a result one has to trudge up with wheelbarrow full of grass cuttings to use as a mulch for the potatoes which is a hot uphill five minute round trip. Well, I never wear a watch so that’s just a guess. It does take time, but it’s good exercise in the heat.
Done. – tidy and useful. But how do you reverse out of a nettle field with a mower gracefully? That was what flashed through my mind as I made the mistake of wading in. With bare calves. No more capri pants for me. They slashed and swished with the enthusiasm of a triffid crop, and caught me well and truly every time I went near.

I then took the mower for a spin on safer nettle-free ground (on six cutting blade to avoid any obstacles) and did the bits of the top part of the property. The area around the first floor of the gîte was turning into a forest and making it hard to get into the front door. It wasn’t all duty, I stopped en route for some more cracking cherries off the tree and then did the walnut track.

A thin path through the wildflowers was closing in so much that you could barely hack your way up. So I decided that we needed to mow just that little bit more.

But my now it was hot. And the glimpse of glittering pool through the sea of weeds was enough. I put the mower away and plunged in. So refreshing. And it’s the first swim of the year.

Cool and refreshed I spent a happy early evening weeding the bed at the end of the lawn and the bonariensis hedge. It’s alive. Miracles. And sitting on the soft grass in bare feet while I pulled out unwanted dock weeds in among the stipa grasses was bliss.

The day ended with a quick collection of a punnet of strawberries – it’s amazing how they actually have a value when you do so much work to achieve them. To you they may just look like a supermarket punnet.

But when you think just how many hours went into producing the crop you will see it in a different light: weed, clear the bed, lift every plant, lay down the weedproof barrier, cut slits to replant every strawberry, haul four or five wheel barrow loads of river stones as mulch. Weed again. And water. Watch the snow falling on them most of the winter. Water again, weed some more. And here it is. Half a punnet. The first crop.

Started the day by making my first strawberry and rose petal jam batch. The Gertie Jekyll roses are so abundant and going over so fast that I am trying to keep up. The dead heading involves plucking off the blooms and putting them in the wicker basket for Andrew’s pot pourri gift. And then first thing this morning I took six plump roses and decided they could do for jam. You have to wash carefully, give them a mighty spin in the salad spinner and then laboriously trim each petal. Apparently the very white part of the petal is bitter, so it must be removed. After a half hour or so of this I decided to eat a petal and see if it was true. And I found the entire petal bitter, so what do I know? I continued to do as I was told, and ended up with very trimmed petals indeed.

Hope the jam tastes good, it’s the most labour intensive batch yet. And don’t they look grim in close up? Much darker than I expected.

Did I ever get out of the kitchen? Well, there was a long interlude of opening the pool and vacuuming. But really the only gardening of note was cutting back verdant growth beside the new steps down from the pool to the pump shed. Luckily there are plenty of ripe cherries at head height here, so it wasn’t as laborious as I make out.

I should have done this earlier when the sun wasn’t so hot, but I had to make a start on weeding the path down to pool in between the banks. It will eventually be sown with grass seeds. But first I had to pluck out the endless little stones and then yank out the unwelcome nature-abhors-a-vacuum-or-in-this-case-bare-soil guests. Took ages.

And all the while I had to look up and see the mighty growth of even more weeds on the Pennisetum bank. It is so steep that I had been in denial about the sprouting annuals that have crowded the little ornamental grasses. But start I did. And even had the happy distraction of helping to move 34 sheets of plaster board over at Jeff and Lynn’s before getting back and getting stuck in.

You can’t see how steep it is. Or how perilous it is to perch and hope I didn’t start a landslide while I pulled out the unwanted greenery. It was even too steep to keep my secateurs in my pocket (they fell out twice and then I gave up as I grew tired of scuttling back down the bank to retrieve them). So you can see that I need to go back and remove the little brambles that have sprouted up at the base of the bank. I was amazed there weren’t more. This was a bramble thicket once. It isn’t entirely finished. But I am happy with the day’s progress.

Finished the gardening day by cutting back the grasses that have grown up right on the edges of pool. There are some places where the mower just won’t reach. And up popped a blister on my thumb from so much secateur use as punishment. But it looks spankingly neat and that’s all one can ask for. Now where’s that bandaid and where’s my beer?

When I look back over my notes for this day I only have one entry. Ate our first cherries from the cherry tree down on the lower terrace today. Gee thanks, that will really help to flesh this out.

I have been watching the cherry trees that we see from the terrace – and all are stubbornly green. But I had forgotten that we actually have a few grafted cherries on the property. Well four I think. One down on the terrace below the road, one up near the first floor of the guest house. And two right down the end of the property near the pool. Naturally most of them are very high and inaccessible. But I found that as I was mowing the second part of this terrace I could eat a handful with each pass of the mower and the grass catcher and the wheel barrow. It certainly incentivises one to keep going. Delicious plump fruit. So addictive.

But the day began up in Vernoux. I needed to get bread and go to the market, and drove Bernard up for his daily physio session. He usually cadges a lift from one of his many neighbours, or uses the moped if no-one is making the 15km drive. And it’s like driving royalty. He knows absolutely everyone and they all stop to wave once they work out who is in the car. We even had to stop and say hello to the goats. These belong to the big farm on the plateau owned by the Meiers. Very friendly folk, and no one even minded the traffic jam we caused while Bernard talked on and on to the farmers. Quite fun really.

Once back I walked down to the letter box to get a huge bunch of cow parsley for the vase for the front hall in the main house. This is the second flush of this wonderful weed. Sorry, wildflower, and I think we can get another before it all goes over and is replaced by other dull things like nettles and such.

I also picked the very first sweet peas that are popping up in the vegetable garden. They are twining up the bean poles in perfect formation. And it bodes well for a long season of room fresheners. I also managed a first crop of swiss chard for dinner tonight. Such a relief to have things to eat after the endless cabbage.

And then in the afternoon I potted on a good crop of basil seedlings which have survived the erratic germination. Poor seeds. They get sown in one pot, sit happily for a week, then get hauled into a car, taken down the road to another venue, baked for a bit, and then driven back up ten days later. Hope they put on growth now, and not just sulk.

And you may think that Alice’s path of grass is also sulking; you can’t see the detail in this picture. But the grass seeds are germinating, truly. I will try and find the time to weed out the weeds later this week, or on the weekend and maybe sow some more seeds to fill in the gaps.

What is that condition called? Vibration white finger. The beloved affliction of jack hammer operators and compensation injury lawyers alike. And I know just how they feel. My fingers zing. But it’s not as painful a sensation as ripping out stinging nettles, so hey. Not a bad day. I have been strimming and mowing. And I will show you pictures as soon as I go back out after lunch and look for my camera. I must have dropped it in the long grass on one of my long peregrinations.

I spent the day skirting the sun; up early to do the pool. Then set to in the vegetable bed. With the system of cloches you can always raise the height of the structure by reeling in the string that holds the sides together. So first off I tightened the cloche on aubergine plants. They are growing up too well and I don’t want to strangle the leaves. I have one aubergine flower already which is fun.

Then moved on to the other cloche nearby and pruned the land cress and the salad. Pretty weed free which is great, and the lettuce are fine.

Next I watered all the grasses before the sun reached too high; and then as I was watering down behind the piano area behind the pool I decided to remove all the accumulated small stones from gap between piano and the rough track. Gravity tends to send all these small bits of granite to the edges of the lawns. Sorry I can’t give it a  better description of the precise area – never really landscaped there before; it’s just the access track for pool construction but it’s looking like I can link up the lawns and make the mowing easier in future.

Then out came the strimmer. And it roared to life. So off I went with a trot. I strimmed bits all around the terrace bank- you can’t see the flowers for the weeds and then hacked back the entrance to the top potager. It’s hard to open the gate to get in right now.

Then it was time to whizz down the walnut path to make walking up there easier. Meadow equals thicket right now. We have sown grass seeds between the steps behind the pool. And now the grass is growing so well that you can barely see the chestnut tree steps. So with a bit of tricky manoeuvring I managed to reduce the height of grass. The last person to use the strimmer was JB who is much longer in the arm than me. So I had to do some makeshift adjustments as I strimmed.

By now the sun was blazing and life under the noise reducing headphones and helmet was getting decidedly toasty. So I swapped for the mower. Besides, my fingers were vibrating intensely – a neat reminder  that I really ought to multi task.

So off I went: mowed the east garden, up the path up to the beech tree and then mowed for the very first time the piano – and my goodness what lush lawn there is there.

I finished with a few laps of the orchard. Not the whole thing, just a swathe through the lawn to the shed. There is a mighty problem with peach leaf curl there on the apricot tree. It needs sorting. Luckily the peach tree that was specifically bred to combat peach leaf curl (the Avalon Pride) is doing well. So that’s a lesson there.

In for a boiled egg and a brief lie down. And then after lunch I had a leisurely hunt for the camer. I found it up at the top terrace – after a needle in the haystack search of all mown areas. So relieved to find it, it is a great companion.

Now that the sun was blazing elsewhere it was time to retreat to the east garden and lay the weedproof fabric and put down the gravel in the parking area under the wisteria.

I had JB set aside a whole heap of gravel from his mighty job earlier this month. So I didn’t have too far to go to do my usual cover up. But it always so satisfying to get the weeds up, rake, cut and shape the fabric. And then collect buckets and buckets of gravel and cover the black material and create a clean slate.

Hours in and it’s almost done. But can you believe it, I’m short of gravel.  After three cubic metres and I need a wheel barrow more to finish that small gap. Hope the unexpected visitors (Madame Reinhart and a friend) didn’t hear me swear as I ran out. But luckily with a bit of deft scraping and scrimping about the courtyard (finding small nests of gravel more than a few inches deep here and there) it is done.

I finished this very long day watering, playing with Artur the cat who likes to supervise me in the vegetable garden and planning chores for the morrow.

I’ve never tried this before. For speed’s sake, here are a gallery of photos from today’s visit around the garden. Should be self explanatory: verdant and ripe everywhere.

Nah, doesn’t work without commentary. Everything just looks green and baffling. Here are the first strawberries of the year. Bumper crop this year in the new look bed.

And these two shots (further down the post, sorry I can’t align things properly) ought to prove that my early pruning didn’t kill off the grape vines, nor the mulberry tree in the courtyard. You have to shade your eyes from the glare of all that gravel. This will become a gravel garden one day, promise. With plants.

But speaking of plants: here is the success story of early spring. The lupins are doing what they are destined to do. Shoot up, flower and set seed. Garish colour without any other planting scheme around them. But this is definitely the first year attempt. Actually you can’t see but there are lilies and gladiolis in there somewhere too. Just clothed in lupinness at the moment. Hopefully they will get their chance to shine later in the year. Or season.

This is the potato forest bursting out of the potager:

And don’t you just love these small tomatoes staked to monster supports? They will grow. And get leafy and difficult and throw out side shoots when your back is turned. And maybe even produce toms.

But alack, one must finish on a sad note. This wildflower meadow is a damp squib. Not damp enough perhaps for a meadow mix developed in northern Britain. I remain optimistic but it may be a forlorn hope.

Weeding in the dark, it will never catch on. You know how it is, it’s the gloaming hour; you have done squishing all the green fly on the roses (don’t they look gorgeous?) and then you think you’ll just pull out these few weeds in the courtyard gravel nearby. And in no time at all you have an armful of weeds, a determined glint in your eye. And then there’s no stopping you. Except it’s almost pitch dark (9:45pm) and time to call it a day.

First afternoon back is always busy: pictures to take, growth to admire, black fly on the broad beans to ignore, flowers for the house. And the wisteria is out at last, that’s worth a picture now rather than waiting for the photo round up. And mowing. The lawns were positive thickets after just two weeks away. So out came the beast for a few hours of tidying. Actually I needed the grass cuttings as a mulch for the potatoes: amazing how much growth they have put on in just two weeks. So I even ventured down to the first terrace in a bid for clippings. Looks lovely. And there is plenty more to do. But I can’t get it all done in one afternoon.

Instead I went down to pick up my seedlings from Bernard, collected up my weekly loaf of home baked bread (with chestnut flour for added chewy texture), watered everything thoroughly. And wrote out my To Do list for the morrow. Early start I think; heaps to do.

Two gardens in two days: what an indulgence. And Great Dixter was a real treat. We raced down there hoping the weather would be kind and the threatened rain managed to hold off all day.

Now this is a garden I have been hesitating to see. Too famous, too garish, too much of everything I suppose. But I was wrong; this is an intimate garden that had surprises almost everywhere one looked.

I still don’t cherish all the ideas that Christopher Lloyd (and now Fergus Garrett) held about colour combinations. But you have to admire the verve and sheer excitement of this garden. I did. And it was fun to be in such good company again.

But back to garden ideas. That’s what all these posts are about. Where to start? Well the ubiquitous allium patches must be seen and admired. I love the positive thicket of alliums that Dixter has; far more exuberant than the Chatto ones and certainly more than my meek offerings in the herb garden.

But if I was to be chronological, I really ought to note the lovely meadow entrance as you walk into the garden. It is striking for its sheer audacity. Not what one would expect from a great home and garden.

We didn’t pay to go and see the house interiors. No time for that when there was a garden to minutely inspect. Perhaps I will come back later in the season and have a look around. It certainly is intriguing.

But back to the planting scheme. Mad about covers it; but I did love this idea: bronze fennel, alliums and these amazing lilac tulips. Can I have a hundred please? Especially if they can endure until the middle of May. They have good healthy height too.

And the ground cover is certainly something worth emulating. Forget me nots. So simple but effective. What is their latin name? Myosotis. Will it be hardy enough for our garden? Long pause there while I look up the encyclopedia and cause a minor landslide in the library of books on my table. Yep. Hardy. Phew.

Here’s a fun shot of Andrew clashing with the colour scheme. These grasses look lush. Wonder what they are.

I took way too many photos to post them all here without causing drowsiness. But I did remember to take a close up shot of the yellow rattle in the meadow. Must see if we have any in our meadows. Anything to parasitise the grass and keep the levels down.

Another plant I am keen on is this lovely pimpinella. I bought two at the nursery after we had done out laps. It will have to be nurtured for a year or so in the shade garden until I can keep up with the mulching and the moisture.

And just in case you think I have gone utterly mauve and dull. I also bought two Circiums – rich red thistle like towering monsters to plant at the back of the artichokes in the herb garden. And to clash in a deliciously Lloyd-esque manner.  You can just glimpse them in the photo with Andrew in front of the topiary hedge. They are far right and tiny and crimson next to the alliums. But so luscious.

And I can’t avoid writing about the topiary; as much as one can avoid them in the garden. I am not a fan, it feels so menacing and reminds me of being on a battlement of a castle when up close. But I admire the work.

Apparently Christopher Lloyd was a ‘fig pig’. Something of which I heartily approve. These trained ones are just divine. And gives one ideas. If my figs ever get beyond the knee height and scythed by strimmer stage I will definitely know where I found my inspiration.