Tip toe through the thyme plants

thyme on terraceIt’s not so much mowing as a slalom course through the gorgeous flowering thymes.

I can’t remember a better year for late flowering thyme. It’s a positive carpet of happiness. And you have to watch where you put your feet when going down to hang out sheets on the line.

Bees everywhere.

I don’t suppose I really needed to mow this first terrace below the road.  But I have been staring out at it for the past month from my office window and declaring it the first reward for finishing my work.

I do love a sward. But this one will stay resolutely pink and green until the flowering is over and the bees have harvestd as much as they can.

After nipping to town I even managed time in the potting shed too. I wanted to move all my little eragrostis grasses up a size so they can take a bit of neglect when we are away in the Alps next week.DSC03381

I combine two grasses per pot to make them a good plump clump.  Lavish watering and off they go. It’s a bit of a production line, but I have worked out that for the big winter project – redeveloping the sloping bank above the courtyard I’m going to need a volume of plants.

oaksAnd all grown from seed as it’s such a brutal site. Dry as a bone and very thin in the soil depth.

Even the holm oaks – we grow like weeds – that are ubuiquitous here only grow about an inch a year.  I can’t tell you how many small plants I have planted up here and then watched as they either died or refused to thrive.

So eragrostis grasses, gaura and verbena bonariensis it will have to be.

I’ve started putting the lawn clippings in rows along the bed. I’ve worked out that it is roughly seven metres by seven metres. So If I’m to plant impressive drifts of anything, then I’ll need three grasses per metre, so that at least 21 grasses per row. mulching courtyard

erag up a sizeI think I have thirty good sized plants in production. But I’ll need about forty more. At least.

So I grabbed some eragrostis seeds from the ripe ones on the steep bank above the pool and got cracking. Hopefully they will germinate by the end of next week.