Mulching the beds and trees

1mulched treesI’m trying to spare you the relentless shots of brown. But mulch is a major theme of spring.

Luckily I can offer you a shot of Andrew’s mulching of his fruit trees which is not brown.  He uses strimmings from the meadows around his cutting garden.

That’s one of his dogs – Juno – helping us with our garden tour.

It was a marvellous day and full of interest – even at this early stage in the growing season.

There is only a small window when you can get the mulch down in comfort without having a weed panic.

I have mulched the verbena bonariensis bed at the very top of the potager.  1mulched vbs

And to celebrate, I have taken the bubble wrap off the gorgeous red pots which I am minding for our friends Chris and Danielle.

The parsley is still growing merrily in the pots. And I can see some lilies poking their heads out of the soil.

I have decided not to mulch the entire bed: I can see thousands of little verbena bonariensis seedlings just emerging from the soil. So I’ll harvest those and put up with the inevitable weeds that accompanies any bare earth for a few months, until I can move the little plants.

And just in case you thought you had a surfeit of my potager beds all brown and dull. Here is the last one. Promise.

Tomorrow it is lily and dahlia planting. I ordered a huge number of bulbs from Andrew and have great plans for a summer of lilies and new dahlias. Joy.