The first strim of the year

1strimmed lavender areaYay, I have my strimmer back. It has been in the repair shop for way too long.  So I finally went down and had firm but friendly words with the workshop staff where it has been sitting for almost five weeks.  And by chance I actually found the boss not the rather feckless apprentice.  Staff troubles at the beginning of spring is never ideal when you are a small firm who wants to keep their customers loyal.

So all is well and the boss fixed the problem in a trice. A new spark plug and it is back in sparkling order again.

To celebrate I spent a happy morning doing edges and having my first wade into the wilderness of the duck pond. 1strimmed alice path

I can’t mow a lot of places as the violets are still flowering.  But it feels great that I can remove a lot of growth from the sides of things.

The lavender bank where I planted the new 18 lavender grossos looks neat and tidy now.  And I did all the edges of the potager and the lawn.

Alice’s path in front of the shade garden has been whipped into shape. It does have a lot of weeds which insist on growing on the parched dry soil. Life is too short to even consider irrigating this area; so the plants have to fight it out.

1quinceI was going to strim the steep bank in the east garden where all the quince trees grow.

But to my delight I can see that the camassias bulbs are up.  I planted fifty of them there two years ago.  So there’s another bulb that has returned.

I can’t remember much flowering last season (the second year) so here’s hoping the third year will prove bountiful in the bulb department here.

I need about 1000 more narcissus Thalia on this bank to make it stunning. But planting the bulbs deep enough is such a challenge as it is so bone dry and full of rocks and stones. 1strim around daffs

And now that the fence is down on the lower side of the road, I can picture more drifts of daffs under the cherry trees.   They will mirror the daffs I have planted all against the edges of the house on the right hand side.

There I go again. More planning for next year. Time for a cup of tea and a pestering of the cat to take my mind off future dreams.