The festuca forest

I just love ignorance.   There I was last winter happily digging out festuca grasses from all over the terraces and transplanting them to this perfectly turned bit of garden.

Little did I realise how happy they would be. So not only are they about a foot taller than I ever imagined, they are flowering.   Madly.   My weeds have become a very fetching jungle.

It’s so lovely to run your hands through the grasses on the way up to the potting shed. And it is just perfect for the cat. He can stalk me here in the mornings; leaping out on the path thinking he has goosed me. When in fact I can see him through the flowering stalks.

But best of all, it’s such a great spot for snoozing in the afternoon. Soft. dappled shade.   Particularly as there is a fifty foot tall chestnut tree above them.

If I was smart I would strim this part down very low to prevent any self seeding grasses. But I can’t bring myself to do it. It’s too much fun having it tall and scuffy.

And I love the soft grey colour.   If you stand directly over it you can see the 50 of so thyme plants flowering like mad underneath. But it’s a stretch to look at it and think ‘well designed’.

Other news: (can’t keep posting images of the feline) the water lilies survived the winter well. And I have my first flower.

Another first is the honeysuckle watering at long last. I planted it over a year ago, and it spent all that time deciding whether or not to thrive.   I can’t smell anything as I’m so bunged up with hayfever, but I think it has scent.

And then at dusk I made a foolish mistake.

I just popped up to the top potager to check on what needed doing next week in the weeding department (answer, a lot) and saw water.   It is seeping out of the mountain from the overflow pipe about twenty feet higher up.

Ugh.   That meant moving the hose. It was seeping right under the row of cabbage plants, but too much water can be a bad thing on free draining soil. It leaches any goodness out.

I thought I would just make use of the free water (now gushing out like a fire hose) by giving things a bit of a soak.

And hours and hours later I had to tell myself to stop. It also helped that I could barely see. I went mad.   Watering the raspberries, the cabbage, even the potatoes.

And then moving down to the hedge, the terrace bank, it was so addictive.

Finally I wrestled the snake of a hose, still gushing water, right up to the top of the potager and buried it deep in the forest. It will seep down the mountain again, but hopefully with less gush.

So in at 10pm pleased with my long day’s work I finally dragged myself inside.

Where instead of flopping onto the sofa to not watch tv, I ended up making nine pots of strawberry and rose petal jam. Go figure.