Hedge Fun

It didn’t rain and I had a great busman’s holiday weeding and planting at La Goulette in the afternoon.   I managed to water the climbing plants up against the building at St Michel enroute.   All plants alive and putting on bits of growth. I wouldn’t call them romping away, but at least they are alive.

Leslie and Teo have made huge improvements in the garden.   And it was so lovely to catch up with them after a very long absence.   And driving and pondering plants means that I even came up with a solution to the barrel in the middle of the potager problem. Must have been because I had a huge pot of lilies strapped into its seatbelt sitting beside me in the car. It was sending out smart rays.

Lilies. I have pots of them still (after giving the one to Leslie) near the potting shed.   So I have decided to sink three pots of the flowers into the barrel.   And plant around all the edges with little seedlings of violas that I dug out of La Goulette’s veggie beds.   They self sow beautifully all around their garden and I yearn for a similar bit of delicate colour.

That sorted, and believe me it has been vexing me for a bit, I felt like the productive garden is now complete.

And one of the many generous plants that my dear friends gave me included a very fetching poppy.   Leslie and Teo have these plants like weeds in their garden (I know, I know) but I’ve not even been able to keep one Patty’s Plum alive in mine.

So heeding advice (and taking two of the roots as cuttings before I planted) I have placed the plant in a moister spot in the herb garden. You can barely see it as it lost its petals on the twisty and winding road back home late last night.

But it’s in. And I found a few rogue nettles as I was planting (and found the gap between glove and sleeve, of course) so came up with another long pondered project.   Nettle soup.

Where to place the reeking mix?  In a garden this big there are plenty of hiding places, I know.   But in the end I have put the barrel (with the offending nettles and a bit of water) behind a tree right down the end of the garden near the duck pond. With luck the pong won’t reach as far as the pool.

I was hanging about the house waiting for the builders (who never showed up) and in the end gave up.   I went up to the farthest reaches of the garden and started on the much needed weeding of the hedge.

It’s a jungle up there. So hand weeding was the only way to go. I waded in and made great progress on the top part of the hedge.   It’s about 12 metres long (12 trees evenly placed) and the photos never really show how much plant there is in there.  

I don’t know if I have time to weed the other 16 metres of hedge on the other side.   John and Jean arrive tomorrow for a short stay.   And I have two houses of housework to do. Builders to chivvy, and life to get on with.   Hedge weeding just doesn’t fit in.