Aperatif hour

sedums and pennisetumsToo civilized. We have taken to having a proper apartif now: nuts and olives on a beautiful wooden tray, cleansing ales. Glass of white wine.   This is the life.   And I can almost, but not quite say, that I’ve earned it today.

I have finally planted out the eragrostis grasses in the steep bank above the pool.   I didn’t launch in straght away of course. I first had to nip up to Vernoux and get a tyre changing lesson from our lovely local garage.

We arrived on Saturday afternoon to find our car had a flat at the train station. And naturally it was pouring rain when we had a go at changing it. So today when I went up to collect the repaired tyre, M. Marton showed me the best way to get a flat tyre off. Forget undoing the nuts with a deft twist. He recommended you stand up and stamp on the wrench and give it some welly.   Marvellous.   That looks like something I would enjoy doing. 72 eragrostis in

And I had to stock up on butchery while I was in town.   But as soon as I was back it was out with the ladder and the plants and on with mass planting.

I counted out the pots at the end of the session: 72.   You can’t see them in this shot. And quite frankly, you can’t see them on the bank either.   This huge expanse just swallows small plants.   But the ground was moist and this is my best chance of getting these little critters established. I crammed them in.

In spring I will dig up the large eragrostis beasts in the calabert garden and plonk them in the gaps.