Suffering for symmetry

I have been scrabbling. Down on my hands and knees and in the jungle of mustard.   Bulb planting.

It’s a curse of mine that I want to try and keep the potager symmetrical.

So that means when I wanted to plant tulips they had to go in mathematical order in the four central poles of the four quadrants.

What a jungle scramble.   The green manure mustard is romping away all over the place, so I had to really climb through the scratchy stuff and get planting.   There are lots of germinated little coriander seedlings around the base of the poles; so I must try and dig them up and keep them safer in the potting shed.

Mind you, they have become so amazingly hardy they tend to self sow all over the garden and come through the worst of the weather.

I had a few gladdies left over to put in the barrel, and then staggered upright; collected Artur who was supervising, and headed up to the terrace bank above the shed.

Here I’ve planted lots and lots and lots of Tulip Merry Go Round, and just have to hope the moles don’t have them.

The soil is wonderfully soft after a day of gentle showers; and the moles do aerate the soil. In places I don’t wish them to go.

The last of the camassia bulbs have gone in the damp north side of the calabert barn.   And the very last ones were shoved (I was tired) in the damp base of the fig tree in the east garden.

So that’s a job almost done. I have just 120 tulip Mt Tacomas to go.

One of the surprises when I was planting up near the terraces above the potting shed was the delicious scent.

I could smell a beautiful rich perfume; but couldn’t work out where it was coming from .   So I had to resort to sniffing all the shrubs in the hedge (good thing no one was looking) to find the source.

And the winner is the eleagnus ebbingei shrub.   I have three.   What a delight. I can’t wait for them to get taller so I can loot branches to bring indoors for the scent.