Lush and alive

I arrived this afternoon and didn’t even bother unlocking the front door. I zipped straight up to the potting shed to see if the seedlings were alive.

That’s a gardener’s priority for you.

And thanks to Elodie’s intervention most of the plants are alive. Hurrah!  And as you can see, they have put on enormous growth.

I did a fast watering and inspected the casualties – I’ve lost the lettuce seedlnigs, but that is no surprise; they don’t geminate above 24C. And it was way too hot in there for that.

But that seems to be the worst of it.  Some ratbidia  haven’t germinated and I’m down a few tomato seedlings. But overall, it’s great.

In fact I had an idiot grin all afternoon.  I did a long session of watering the new trees and the newly transplanted grasses.  There has been a session of rain in the past ten days, but I suspect it was last week.

And my goodness the lush growth.  I don’t dare photograph it until I’ve done a mow.  The daffodils are all out, and the cherry trees are just a few days from magnificent.

Well the cherry tree at the top vegetable patch is out. It’s the first one to bloom and it is so exciting.  Fruit in just a few weeks time. But everything seems to be about three weeks behind last year. I must check my records.

And my hedge. I never thought I would get excited about a hedge. But I’ve put so much work into this part of the garden. I was a most unwilling planter of this bit of land; it was done to appease Jean Daniel to screen the potting shed from his view.  There are over fifty shrubs and trees forming a barrier around the top road and down the side of the building.

Naturally it doesn’t hide the potthing shed yet; that’s a few years off. At least.

But I have come to love the complexity of this mass planting and mixed planting.  And the layering.  I’ve only done two layers – shrubs and narcissus. But it’s a start. The acer is the bright shining leafy green plant in the middle of the picture. And it’s thriving.  I need to water the newly planted hedge to the left of this picture tomorrow. It has gone on the ever growing list.

One thing that is growing is the excitement of the asparagus bed; I have four spears. Not quite break out the bubbly, but it’s a start.  I’m going to go up tomorrow and Thursday to make sure I have enough for lunch with Andrew later this week.  And from now until about the 2nd of June I will cut them every day.  It’s my first real crop of veg.  I do have some overwintering spinach left over and my purple sprouting broccolli. Enough for a few meals at least.

What other news. Well the most important one was that Artur was languishing in his usual spot and greeted me with delight.  He looked a bit hot from his hard day’s labour (err, sleeping) but happy.

He then proceeded to follow the hose and me about as I watered in the newly planted trees.  And kept flopping into the shade of shrubs when it all got a bit too much. I see a languid summer ahead.