Mad mulching part two

This is the lovely view that greets me every morning when I open the shutters.   The lavenders look quite fetching from on high.   All it needs is a serious weed, some gravel mulch, and some fencing and it will be perfect.

Today was to be another mad mulching day. With weeding thrown in.   I started off with the lower potager.   To start I planted out the red cabbage that were still in the potting shed, and then mulched like mad.

And as I went along the rows I weeded out the cosmos seedlings as I worked.   Most of them I just chucked, but some I have transplanted to the edge.   That’s the plan this year.

And I recall that last year I was in Australia for three weeks in May. Which meant that I took my eye off the weeds.   And believe me, cosmos flowers are weeds in my potager.

Next up was the broad bean section. Out came the cosmos, down went the mulch. And I weeded the top part that I had pretended wasn’t a thicket of unwanted plants.

I have tucked the net properly, hammered in a few more stakes and generally stood back and marvelled at the vision of orderliness that is my garden.

Oh yes, and I mulched around the healthy looking echnops (from Andrew) and philadelphis and roses (from Leslie and Teo) in the corner.   They should put on quite a show this year.

I had a bit of mulch left for the hedge up at the potting shed. So I continued the work from last night. I don’t have enough for the entire hedge, but at least I’ve made a start.

This fantastic moist soil makes weeding a joy.   Except I have volumes and volumes of the stuff to shift.   So it was make yourself comfortable and start at one end and work your way down the thirty foot row.

I am saving some of the clary sages and cornflowers which has self sown.   But up came the verbascums, and everything else that wasn’t welcome.

It almost feels a shame to just devote this area to 50 or so shrubs. Once the shrubs get really going, I might try and be brave and put in some annuals that won’t interfere with the roots.   Right now it just feels great that it isn’t mad rampant weediness.

The photinia are doing well, all garish reds, and most of the rest of the shrubs survived the worst of the weather. Some are blasted, but at least I can see new shoots coming through.

I did sneak in three pyracantha (red) to give a bit of winter colour in a gap. There always seems to be some small gap between the hedge.

And just as I was blessing the moist easy to work soil, the heavens opened and it started to pour. Again. And I wasn’t finished. I still had over ten feet of border to go.   So I ducked into the potting shed to wait it out.

Artur was already inside, pretending to be a dried flower arrangement on the very top shelf, but he came and sat on my lap, briefly, and then returned to his box.

If I wasn’t so wet and grubby, I might have tried to join him. Instead I sowed a dozen more sunflowers and six more nasturtiums while I waited for the rain to stop.

Once it did, I raced through the last of the weeding, spread the mulch and made a note to buy yet more.

And then it was down to thistle control.   I have noticed that the thistles (up there with verbascums in the Enemy Plant List) are almost starting to flower down on the bank near the road.   So down with the secateurs and the thick glove and off I merrily went.

I love the look of the Mount Tacoma tulips in the plum terrace. They look like peonies, too beautiful. And I couldn’t resist walking along the orchard to admire the apple blossoms on my way back up to the house.

Tomorrow I need to move all the seedlings out of the potting shed and into the calabert.   Again.   But it’s great exercise if a bit plodding.   But at least I can admire my newly mulched beds and vegetables en route.