Soil and toil

A day of soil and toil: but at long last I can tick a big job off my list. I have finally moved all the spare soil from beside the potting shed down to the wall behind the pool. It took all morning and involved lots of little loads and some rather energetic flinging of buckets down the slopes. But it is done.  And what a vast space it now is on this western side of the shed. I never imagined it would be such a space. Michel has pruned the big tree nearby so there will be less shade. And Nicolas has made a great start on steps down. I will even do a bit of work and bury the water troughs a bit better too.

But egads I haven’t enough plants to cover this area in the spring. I have a nascent plan, but no more. The plants that did well here were the Agastache Liquorice Blue and the grasses. I have collected lots of seeds so I will try and sow as many Agastache as I can hereabouts. But I don’t want to take on too many parts of the garden and do them all half well. So I may have to cover it in fabric while I concentrate on getting the other side done first.

My back didn’t hurt after all this work (being very careful and taking lots of breaks for cups of tea), so I went even further and added a lot more soil to the area that was another eyesore. The buried electricity cables in front of the house. A generous sowing of grass seeds in spring and you might never notice that bright red electricity cables lurk just underneath.

After lunch it was time to do another procrastination chore. Chipping. From brown to beige in just a few hours. Whizz. And I even had some leftover for the large shade garden that is the main flower fest of the garden.