Not a gardener’s best friend

There was hissing and snarling in the garden this morning: and it wasn’t Artur.   I never thought I would ever tell this elderly cat to go away but I was forced to for most of the morning.

He insisted on following me and demanding attention.   But as I was delicately poised up a ladder on the steep and fragile bank above the pool it was not a good place for a cat.

Note if you will, the poor eragrostis plant underneath the naughty cat. He was clinging onto it to stop himself from falling down the bank. And I was trying to bat him away. Naturally he thought this was a great game. So eventually I had to climb down the ladder and pretend to go somewhere else just to stop him ruining all my work.

Ah well. At least I had company.   I had rather hoped someone would applaud this very difficult task.   My tally of planting today so far is just thirty grasses.   And when I look at the bank I think I have about a hundred to go.

But I have put the ladder away to try and dissuade Artur.   I’m going to plant up the lower bank first and leave the hardest and steepest part for November.

It’s a bit of a gamble anyway. Three weeks of neglect. But rain, or spots of rain are predicted next week. And Leslie will come and water before I come back. Bless her.

I want to write about our fantastic outing yesterday; our annual general meeting of the Ardeche gardeners – Andrew, Teo, Leslie and me.   But I have grasses to plant.   And the hellebores to water.

That was my other mad plan today.   I am trying to work out what stays and goes in the difficult shade garden.   And I have decided that all the transplanted hellebores need to move.

These are extraordinary plants.   I find them quite prehistoric looking. Certainly not attractive, but they have an incredible scent in winter and green flowers.   I find them all over the terraces and just dig them up and plonk them closer to the house. It took ages for me to work out what the beautiful scent was on the wind in the first year.   Surely these ugly plants couldn’t be the source of the smell.

But yes. You have to squint very hard to try and even see the plants on the bank. I’ve planted them on a steep bank to the right of the huge chestnut tree near the potting shed.   Plenty of digging, watering, a spot of compost and even a slow release fertiliser capsule.   I have no idea if they will take. But it won’t kill me if they don’t. Just an experiment in free gardening plants.