Garden Planning.

The day has been warm and generally grey. Sometimes brighter and almost sunny after a few very light showers in the morning.

My day began as usual, sitting out on the terrace. Not too early but then it never is after a busy Friday. I could easily sit out there for an hour if I had the time and a lot of that time is spent 'garden planning'. That is after I've had a quiet time to absorb the sights and sounds of the view and nature around. Although the re-design of the garden is complete I still occasionally spot a plant that needs to be moved or even removed. That's part of the challenge of gardening, being able to visualise the mature plant while looking at the tiny potted specimen brought home from the garden centre. And sometimes plants surprise you, at 3ft 6ins this lavender flowered hardy geranium below is almost as tall the blue hydrangea it stands in front of yet the parent plants from which this was a cutting are a good foot shorter. 

This morning I thought long and hard about where to plant the new artemisia. I had sat it by the caryopteris where it looked perfect as they are both about 6ins high but I know that won't be for long. In the end I've put it in the shingle garden. As I observe the garden in the mornings I work out the next job to do which now are all quite small tasks. Today I could see that it is time to start cutting back the aquilegia seed heads but only once they have lost all their flowers as the bees love them.

Like me the front garden has a split personality (put me somewhere where I feel confident and I don't stop talking but put me in a strange situation with people I don't know and I'll either hide in a quiet corner without uttering a word or leave). As to the garden, the beds around the edge are filled to bursting with a haphazard abundance of plants while the shingle garden is designed to show off each plant as a separate specimen. To keep it more or less that way I'll need to do some pruning of the more vigorous plants. I'm already eyeing up the tall flowering spikes of the stachys which has grown so well. I'm hoping to establish some at the zoo once the cuttings I took have rooted.

Having done all my planning, later in the day I had a long gardening session, cutting back the aquilegias, fine weeding the shingle and removing more of the blanket weed from the pond. As I scoop it out I have to check for the snails which I put back in the water. The ramshorn snails have been multiplying and there are also some very tiny pointed snails about the size of a grape pip. The more snails in there the more blanket weed they should eat, good!

While Peter was out playing pool I put the picture I bought him at the craft fair in a frame I bought yesterday and wrapped it up as well though his birthday isn't until July. I also put the photos I printed at Morrison's yesterday in the family photo frame and hung it in my study. 

By the time I had finished all my jobs for the day it was cool enough that I needed to fleece on to sit outside to read for a while. (The spiderlings have almost all gone now, maybe into the hedge.)