A spot of garden therapy

Outdoors, in the wintry sunshine planting bulbs. That felt great. We are about to get a serious cold snap here. (Well, all over Europe, actually.) So I thought it best to get the last of the bulbs into the ground before the soil freezes over and I break the tines of my fork.

The central barrel in the potager new has allium purple sensation, surrounded by White Triumphator and Mt Tacoma bulbs.

And I have planted the same two tulip varieties all along the top and bottom edges of every garden bed.  That ought to be a fun surprise come March.

I also came armed with bubble wrap to secure the beautiful pots that are going to stay out in the garden all winter.  They are way too heavy for me to get indoors. And they are ‘guaranteed’ frost proof. So we shall see.

And as the four magnificient red ones belong to Chris and Danielle, I want to make sure they are tucked up well in the thicket of verbena bonariensis at the top of the potager. In the lee of the stone wall, I hasten to add.

These have had lily bulbs all summer plus my parsley plants.  The mole rat finds parsley roots particularly tasty, but never managed a decent raid on the plants up off the ground and in pots.

So parsley will have to be a permanent home here.  But I did plant a dozen bulbs around each plant, and topped up with compost.  So that too ought to be a happy spring event.

I removed the euphorbia oblongata plants which were doing a sterling job of being green and lush and not much else in the centre of the potager. But I had to put them somewhere.

And that’s what happens in gardening. You pop out to plant some bulbs and end up landscaping the shade garden bank.

I have five thyme plants mooching about the edge of the potager; not doing much.  So I dug them out, put the euphorbias in their place (to not do much) and took the thymes up to the shade garden bank.

This was the one ravaged by the flood.  It is now planted up with thyme, purple sage, stachys lanata and yet more thyme. Plus a euphorbia wulfennii, two prostate rosemaries, and a,  god what is it called, oh yes, viburnum tinus.

The trick is to blend the different greens – from the thymes at the bottom of the bank and up to the shade garden itself.  I haven’t sorted it out yet.

And in fact I’m just relieved to have soil and plants in this place at all. A few weeks ago it was a gaping wound. A gully.  So I’ll leave the aesthetics and tweakings until spring.

The pale grey of the stachys break up the somewhat municipal carpark look of the thymes. And thank goodness I have lots of those plants about. They thrive as ground cover in the barn garden close by.

And with the day running out, I just had time to move all the pots indoors that I can almost comfortably lift.  The sedums from the steep path beside the guest house, and the lemon verbenas.

I have not placed them very carefully in the potting shed. There is just room to creep in and find tools.

And I’ve left the big bucket of water from which Artur likes to drink.  Next week that will be frozen solid with the cold weather coming. And I’ll have to agonise about whether to bring in the eucalyptus trees.  But in all, a good and positive day.