Sun hat and t shirt weather

The last day of November and I had to go and get a sun hat at lunchtime to keep out the glare.   A gorgeous sunny and windless day.   I started with one fleece and two sleeveless fleeces and a woolly hat at 830am and then gradually shed as the day wore on.

I was on the grass work all day. Well it felt like that. One of those ‘you’ve started now you’ll have to finish project’.   And by the end of the day I can see that I have two square metres of grass transplanting to go.   But I won’t.   I must attend to weeding of the soft fruit orchard while it’s so fantastically mild.

And I’ve looted all the easy festuca grasses close by and have to start ranging quite far and wide to get my stock.

So I decided that before I start spending all my time walking up to the top terraces it would be prudent to have a tidy of the area and call it almost done.

First up was to take out all the asters that I plonked here as a sort of nursery bed and distribute them about.   Most of them went to the terraces just close by.

But I did go and put some into the east garden lilac bed to bulk out the beds there too.   Sorry the pictures are so unappetising: this is the end of November after all.

And I tried to take photographs of the heathers that I planted up above the lilac garden in a forgotten little space.   But they just disappeared into the background of grasses, rocks and ahem, weeds.   So you’ll just have to trust me that seven plants went in.   That part of the garden which abuts the gite is a future project. In about ten years time I’ll probably get round to it.

For now it was love what you have and attend. So I raked all the fallen chestnut burrs, nuts and leaves from the path above this new festuca bed; and pruned back some of the small branches of the chestnut that looms.

It looks a teensy bit neater now.

And it is in direct contrast to the path above the walnut walk where I took most of the afternoon’s grasses.   Battle of the Somme on a slope.   But I need to weed here over the winter anyway (it’s on my list), so I guess I could say that I’ve made a start on next year’s project.