The terrace bank in spring

This is popping up on Tuesday but I am cheating. It’s actually early Sunday morning and I am putting off work. Don’t we all have those brilliant prevarication tricks? Mine is to look at my garden photo folder on my laptop and file away the pictures into the Master Photo folder complete with all the 36 or so sub folders.

I live in dread of being fetched off by a random rock or tractor and some poor sod is going to be confronted with six zillion pictures on this machine and not know what to do with any of them except hit the magic button ‘delete’.

Well, they will just be forced to hit 36 delete buttons, but I do like to be File Tidy. Not potting shed or bookshelf tidy, but definitely file tidy.

And I realized that I have HEAPS to show you before I get back out to the farm and bombard you all over again.

The terrace bank for example. I snapped way just before I left. This impossible space above my potting shed. On granite. No soil, never watered … you know the drill.

Because I was blessed with that rich mine of well-rotted mulch this early spring I even managed to cover parts of the neglected garden with weed suppressing and improving bliss.

(And yes, I will go and get more next Sunday up to the depot to fill the back of the car with the luscious stuff – the Barn Garden could do with a bit of love. Am I a mulch addict? Oh yes indeed.)

Back to the green.

Since mulching all the little narrow beds I feel that it is almost ready for an outing on the blog. You rarely see it.

It’s a decade long work in progress. But I am thrilled that so many plants thrive and even survive.  I am fast becoming a phlomis fan. I took cuttings, they rooted. I planted them out. Their leaves cling on, even under heavy snow.

There is no way you are going to see much detail in here with the rest of my planting. My aim is to cram these beds and let the plants fight it out.

And don’t you just find santolina exasperating? They take so well from cuttings so you get lots of freebies.  So come Spring you pot on and then get to plant out a titchy sample. Fuss and worry and they do nothing much for two seasons. Then whoosh, they turn into garden magazine-worthy plants. Fluffy and round and buxom.

Especially the dark green Santolina Primrose Gem.  Love that one.

One season or two of glory, then they look like they have carked it in the drought. And you think ‘oh well, short-lived perennial’ and either cut it down to the ground or grub it out.

But no. Santolina have other ideas. Here they are again, plump and lush and pretending they didn’t break your heart last August.

The euphorbias are a bit big here. I’m waiting for all the other plants to catch up. Lots of sedums, dianthus, a few geraniums which can’t believe they are not getting more moisture. Tough roses.

(Darn, the shot I took of the geranium and roses is blurry. I thought it was just me – grubby specs. But no.) Have a look at the hedge instead.

I can’t tell you how pleased I am with this mixed hedge. It completely screens the paddock beyond.

If I am organized when I get back I will take more Sedum cuttings and even, like a repeat offender, take yet more santolina cuttings.  The cycle must be maintained. I have finally weaned myself off taking purple sage cuttings, but those santolina….