Baby Robin

It has been two months since I lasted posted here and I couldn't even recall what I last blogged about, the winter has been passing more quickly than usual and my focus has been on the indoors and the work that needs doing there.

i had previously bought a bird feeding table to put in the front garden as I've never seen cats out there, unlike my back garden which my neighbours cats seem to prefer than being in their own garden.  So far only a baby robin has been using the bird table and therefore my bird photography has been somewhat limited, but he comes back every day and it is a joy to see him feeding.

I think he may possibly be a sole survivor of the robins nest which my neighbour told me her cats had dragged indoors a while ago.  I'm not sure where he sleeps or even if he has a nest to go to, but he is the only one eating the fat blocks I made, filled with wild bird seed.  He is fairly tame and as photos through the window pane don't come out clear enough (my windows open outwards from the bottom so not ideal) I have to go out there and hope he stays long enough to get my camera in focus, and approach him close enough as I don't have a zoom lens.

I uploaded a photo of the robin to Redbubble, and it was featured in the group 'Backyard Photography'.   When I next saw my robin i told him that he is famous now with his photo on the internet, and he just stood there like he was listening to me.

Then today a woman knocked on my door and gave me a mealworm suet block for the robin.  I'd never seen her before, but she had obviously noticed the robin and explained that robins have sentimental value for her and her family.  I was really touched by this act of kindness from a stranger, and felt pleased that others were becoming aware of my robin and getting pleasure from seeing him than just me.  So I felt like sharing that today, and he deserves a place on my blog at the very least so I can remember him if he flies off somewhere else in the spring.

Here are some other photos of him:

Rambling Roses and Countryside Rambles

Walking in Devon in November

Just to update since my last post, I've recently joined a walking group which meets every Sunday morning, so I now get to enjoy some nature therapy beyond the garden as well.  As I don't drive it is a bonus to reach those places that would take forever by bus, assuming public transport would even go there.  As this year has been very wet there have been less gardening days than usual but at least I have now found someone reliable and reasonably priced to help me with jobs in the garden that I'm not coping with and he is coming on Monday morning (if it is not raining, although rain IS forecast) to help me burn the holly that is still stacked at the end of my garden.

I spent a whole afternoon the other week trying to get a bonfire going, but it kept going out.  The holly I'd saved to make wreaths with (see earlier post)  I had to finally chuck out as it was becoming brown and dry and all the berries were falling off despite being kept in buckets of water in my utility room.  If I had known I was going to make holly wreaths I would have had the tree felled nearer Christmas, but it was just a way of recycling and I like to make things.  I did save some of the berries and put them in the fat cakes I made for the birds, which are now stored in my freezer as there are still plenty of berries on the trees and bushes in this area for them not to need them just yet.

I have also bought a wooden bird table today to be delivered on Monday, which will be for the front garden so I can watch the birds and hopefully take some good photos of them.   As the cats from the house next door never go in the front garden they should be safer there too.  It was quite cheap compared with some I've seen on the internet, and I'm going to be painting it pale blue with acrylic paint when it arrives.

Plenty of jobs still to complete in the garden such as a broken fence, a summerhouse with no roofing felt, a collapsed deck and broken stone steps with crumbling dry stone walls.  At least I had one major wall rebuilt this year, but the mature ivy vines have done a lot of damage to the short wall on the narrow terrace and I no longer have a stone waller after the last one disappeared without hearing a word from him again on that strange Friday, despite arranging to phone me to do my steps next.  This wall will need mortar though so it is more a question of cementing in the stones that have fallen out, after which I plan to have clematis in pots to trail down the walls from up on the terrace.

RAMBLING and other ROSES

This month I'm ordering some rambling roses to disguise the mudslide of a collapsed wall which needs something to hold it together as the slope is very steep and I'm not sure what else I can do with it.  My garden will never be a neat, manicured suburban garden as it is wild by nature.  As are all the gardens on this particular higher level of town, which was once cleared woodland to grow fruit commercially for the London market.  That's why it keeps wanting to revert back to woodland with blackberries, wild strawberries and ivy trying to take over as soon as my back is turned.  The fact that neither of my immediate neighbours does any gardening at all doesn't help much, and the woman who lives two doors away told me that she can't even get outside her back door at all as it is so overgrown with brambles.

I'm ordering at least 3 rambling roses because if it is going to be a wild garden it might just as well be a wild, romantic garden.  The ramblers will be strategically placed to stop all the neighbours' cats from taking a short cut across my garden.  The cats have their own garden so no need to use mine as I want to attracts birds there.  I even nailed a wooden nesting box for robins  to the summerhouse which has never been used by any bird in the 2 years I've lived here.  Instead a robin makes a nest in the tree next door where 3 cats live, and the cats eventually dragged the whole nest indoors.  

But back to the rambling roses, I'm putting my short-list here as I've lost the rose notes I made a while back, either scribbled in a diary or on a computer document I can't find.  

Rambling Rector (above)  has large clusters of scented, semi-double, creamy-white flowers from July to September and is very vigorous. Ideal for covering an unsightly structure or scrambling through a robust tree, an excellent variety for wilder areas of the garden or for covering a north-facing wall.  This one is for the end of the garden, what I refer to as the 'woodland garden' (as there are too many self-seeded trees there for the space) and I will try to train it to grow up a tree as it can reach about 30 feet in height.

The Cornelia rose is a hybrid musk and a great rose for a shaded place. It is very fragrant and has a unique color as well!   

Many-flowered trusses of small, formal, rosette-shaped blooms of coppery-apricot which fades to a coppery-pink, it is a vigorous plant with good dark green foliage. Will form a good hedge 5 ft. x 5 ft. and they work equally well as a climber or a shrub.

They are nearly thornless so they are easy to handle and need very little pruning in most cases. Most importantly, they are relatively shade tolerant so they're a good choice for those tough spots without good sunlight. However, with sunlight it can be a very strong grower.  This is on my shortlist for if I need a rose of this colour somewhere.  

For a sunny spot on the terrace, to form a bit of a hedge between my garden and the lower end of the slope where the collapsed dry stone wall is (and at the moment only held together with weeds and dead ivy vines) I'll try this rose below.

Roseraie de l'Hay is a vigorous, dense shrub, with healthy apple-green foliage. Rich wine-purple, elongated buds, opening to four and a half inch, crimson-purple flowers in July to September. Strong perfume. One of the finest Rugosas. 7 ft. x 7 ft.  It is a tough plant with good disease resistance with repeating blooms, and it tolerates a wide range of soils and even seaside conditions.  It may keep next doors' brambles from encroaching into my garden or at least block them from view.  The earth slope by the steps is far too steep to do anything with, and I need more varieties of plants to stop the soil erosion.  Most of the slope can have white ground cover roses which will eventually join up with the magenta roses at the bottom of the slope.  The following two white roses are possibilities, underplanted with creeping juniper.  Once the slope is more stable I can risk weeding it. 

Kent -  A perpetual flowering ground cover rose. Pure white semi-double blooms. Tolerant of wet weather. Dense hugging growth. Size:30cm x 90cm. (12 x 35 inches)

Grouse  - A densely growing very vigorous ground cover rose. Single pink to white bloom. Strongly scented. Excellent glossy healthy foliage. Summer flowering. Size:60cm x 3m.

(24 x nearly 10ft)

GROUSE GROUND COVER ROSE

The creeping juniper would also be good for decorating wreaths, and I'd like to make one for each season, but I will need to find other plants and shrubs with different root depths to really stabilise that slope.  Perhaps the man who is coming to help me sort out the garden can suggest some type of structure to go along with the plantings.

Once I have cleared the large pile of stones and rubble on the terrace, which I had been carrying in buckets to the end of the garden which is now inaccessible due to the holly branches awaiting the bonfire, I will have just enough space to put a small table and chair on the very narrow terrace, so I can have my morning tea up here while gazing at the distant hills where Dartmoor begins.  The imagined potential for my garden has not so far lived up to the reality, and I have yet to relax in it and enjoy it as there is always much work to do.  Hopefully next year will see better weather as I have only spent a few days gardening this year and none of the hard landscaping got done as originally planned, and neither did my pond project.  Just as well that I also enjoy researching plants and re-designing my garden as I surf the internet.

Autumn at The Garden House, Devon

I enjoyed an afternoon coach trip with the local gardening club two days ago, when we visited The Garden House, nr.Yelverton in Devon.  The acer glade was particularly stunning and I yesterday put some of the photos up on the internet as I have a Redbubble account, where greetings cards or prints can be bought of any of my photos, and I haven't been on that website for a very long time so I suppose garden photography rekindled my enthusiasm as I was pleased with some of the results.

The garden itself is small enough to see everything in about two hours yet large enough to get lost in and need a map.  At this time of the year it is worth visiting to see the autumn colours and although many of the plants have finished for the season I would like to go back again in the spring and summer to take photos of different plants, colour schemes and groupings.  They were due to close in a weeks time so will not be open for a while now.

It was interesting that I found myself being drawn to some of the stronger coloured plants, as in my own garden I tend to avoid these for some reason.  They worked very well on a dull overcast day or against the grey stone walls, so I have some research to do to find out what some of these plants were called as not all of them were labelled.  As I have some grey stone retaining walls in my own garden I now feel like adding some splashes of colour there, and the oranges and reds looked perfect against such a backdrop.

I don't have a camera with interchangeable lenses and my current camera is mainly suitable for landscapes, so I don't get those blurry backgrounds when doing close ups of flowers, but I prefer ideas for plant groupings or seeing plants from a bit further away as I can see their form and get a better idea of how they would look in my own garden. Although macro photography would be fun to get involved with, for the purposes of gardening I prefer to see plants from a few steps back and in context with the rest of the garden.  One of the things that has often frustrated me when looking through gardening catalogues or websites was having every single plant photographed in extreme close up. I then have to search through google images to find the plant taken from more of a distance.  

The following red flowers with black leaves worked very well in the garden (alongside the tall grasses), as did the orange flowers with yellow centres.  If anyone knows the names of either of these it would be much appreciated if you would let me know in the comments box.  I also never thought I would ever be interested in dahlias (below) but the deep red 'urchin' ones growing in the walled garden were certainly attention grabbing.  

RED URCHIN DAHLIAS

On the cooler end of the colour spectrum the lacecap hydrangeas are still on my wish list, as soon as I've had a bonfire to clear the space in the 'woodland garden' (the very back which has too many trees for the space) of the felled holly tree branches (see previous post).  I liked the relaxed shady atmosphere of the rhododendron walk, so named on the map although only the hydrangeas were in bloom at the time.

HYDRANGEA WALK

LACECAP HYDRANGEA

The acers (or Japanese maples) were the main attraction in the garden, and I only photographed a few that were there.  The view of the bridge shows various colours together.  

ACER GLADE AT GARDEN HOUSE

More of these can be seen on my Redbubble account (separate categories for flower close-ups and gardens), and these ones are all copyright as they are for sale, and I will be also using some of them for future calendars.  Other photos elsewhere on this blog are not and just require a link back to my blog if the photo is mine.

Now I am off to find some ferns and moss to photograph together for a photo challenge on Redbubble, assuming the ferns haven't all died off by now.  Up on the moors last Sunday they were all brown and dead.  I did buy a fern at The Garden House when I was there as I am collecting different varieties just like the Victorians used to do, so if I don't find any still thriving in the wild I'll just plant my new fern next to some moss in my garden.

For more info about The Garden House see http://www.thegardenhouse.org.uk

Making the most of my Holly Tree

The most exciting thing to happen in my garden recently was having the holly tree felled.  It was growing out of a stone wall on the boundary of my garden where there are many more trees creating a shade tunnel as I have trees on either side of my narrow strip of land.  I wanted to save the dry stone wall which had started to burst apart due to the girth of the tree and let more light in so my plants could thrive better.  The weather had been too wet to burn all the branches so they are still stacked at the bottom of the garden.  Then I had the idea of making holly wreaths out of them, perhaps selling some to the local florists even.  I've not made wreaths before but as there is still plenty of holly growing around here there would be a small supply to continue making holly wreaths in the future should I find I enjoy doing so.

Having decided on this I then regretted having taken off so many of the berries because my first idea had been to make fat blocks for the birds.  It is too early to make the fat blocks but I have a bag full of holly berries, along with some wild bird seed that I bought the other week in readiness for this.  I have also ordered some wire wreath frames from ebay to make the wreaths.  As the berries seemed to come out early this year, they would no doubt be no good come Christmas time anyway.  There are still enough sprigs with berries though and I may experiment with putting clear nail varnish over the berries to see if that helps keep them better.  This years wreath making is an experiment so I'll see what works best.  I am so glad the bonfire wouldn't light the other week when the tree surgeon was here.  It is amazing how things often turn out to be a blessing in disguise.

My poor summerhouse, which is more like a shed than anything fancy, has no roofing felt when it blew away in the strong winds that I get up there frequently in my exposed garden.  I should have put a tarpaulin over the roof when the felt first blew away so I hope I don't have to replace the roof as well now.  With all the holly stacked up behind the summerhouse it was hard to reach from the back to temporarily cover the roof on my own, but that will have to be re-felted as soon as I can do something with all that holly as access around the back of the garden is difficult right now.  Being a very wet year the urgent jobs have been on hold like the bonfire and waterproofing the summerhouse roof, as I need more than just one dry day occasionally to help dry everything out.

I bought another new tool, a maul to chop the wood of the holly tree for my woodburner.  Not used that yet but the wood will not be seasoned enough to use this winter anyway.  I also bought a moisture meter to check the moisture content of wood before burning any logs.  I'll post the results of my wreath making attempts once I have finished one, assuming I can keep the holly alive until December since it was cut on the  9th Oct.  I wouldn't mind having a few holly bushes as bushes rather than trees, so once the remainder of the crown of the holly tree is burned I'll have room to plant a few somewhere, and will choose a couple of variegated holly shrubs as I understand that variegated holly is harder to come by.  All this and I don't even celebrate Christmas!

For some reason I have the idea that the local florists may be interested, and if not I can always sell sprigs of it, along with my wreaths, from my front garden or even on my blog.

On Tuesday I am due to go on a coach trip with the gardening club to Garden House.  This is on my links list of local gardens to visit so I'm looking forward to getting some photos of that to post next.  

Chemtrails and Rock Dust

It has been ages since I posted anything on my gardening blog although I have managed to get out there occasionally when the weather has been more cheerful, like yesterday.  I decided to move a spiraea 'little princess' shrub to the back garden from a pot in the front garden, and ended up creating a whole new flower bed along the edge of the lawn before replanting it.  Previously the lawn reached up to the stone wall of a raised bed, which made it difficult for cutting the grass and usually was full of weeds there anyway and wild stawberry plants, the latter having a habit of popping up in the middle of my lawn.  So the new narrow bed will help with lawn mowing and also soften the appearance of the stone wall.  I have ordered some more Spiraea shrubs from Amazon to fill the rest of the row, and found two unnamed Hebe plants in Morrisons' supermarket for £2.00 each, which I also planted in the new border yesterday.  

I then got carried away and decided to cut an even narrower bed all along the pathway as the lawn gets scruffy along the side of the path with really tough long grass that doesn't pull out easily.  Tomorrow I am going to order some very low growing plants to fill that gap before more weeds take up the space and decided on Sedum Purple Carpet (Stonecrop) and Hebe pinguifolia Pagei (evergreen, with grey green leaves and white flowers) to line that edge of my small lawn, which at least gets some sun during the day.

SEDUM PURPLE CARPET

Anywhere north of the lawn tends to be in too much shade because of the tree canopy, so it made sense to create more growing areas where there was a bit more sun than elsewhere in the garden.  In two days time a tree surgeon will hopefully be felling one of the holly trees, which being evergreen creates continuous shade as well as causing the stone wall to collapse that it is growing out of.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the weather will be fine enough for him to carry out the job on Tuesday.    Whenever we get a nice warm day with blue skies the planes are usually out spraying their chemtrails all over the sky for weather modification, and this has been going on all summer.  Some of my plants didn't bother to bloom at all this year, presumably still waiting for summer to begin.  My heart sank when I saw those planes up there again while I was enjoying gardening and the warmer weather.

I grabbed my camera and took some photos as I'm keeping a 'before and after' record of this whenever I notice it.  I don't have a strong zoom on my camera to zoom in as close as I would like, but the results are always the same.

Both (above) taken from my garden on Saturday (Oct 6 2012) when I first noticed them doing it.

And the sky the following day (Sunday) which is nearly all white, taken around noon.

And despite the sky being nearly totally covered with cloud, they were still spraying today - I guess there were still too many blue spaces showing up there.  I realise most people know all about chemtrails but exposing this is the only way I know to voice my opposition to it.  I watched a youtube video today where someone was showing us what we can build to knock them out of the sky, but I have enough trouble assembling flat pack furniture, so a Tesla coil or whatever it was is way beyond my building capabilities.  I was pleased that there were things around though that caused chemtrails to break up, so I'm hoping some scientist makes them commercially available in this country.

There was also mention of basalt, amongst other things, as being good at breaking down heavy metals in the soil, as the chemicals will land on our gardens.  This is what reminded me about buying rock dust for the garden to improve and re-mineralize the soil.  I'd heard about it ages ago and then forgot all about it.

So I ordered two different brands, one of which contains basalt.  Autumn is a good time to apply it, along with compost/manure.  I will probably have to wait a few months after applying it to see if I notice any difference.

There is still a huge amount to be done in the garden because I haven't been out there as much this year.  I swept the first lot of leaves and erected my new leaf cage, but will wait for the rest of the leaves to fall before sweeping again.

Cleaned and oiled the garden furniture to store away, not used once this year.

This happened to be the first year I really saw the appeal of bulbs, and my saffron crocus bulbs have started to come up already in the utility room.  I'm looking forward to collecting my own saffron to cook with rice.  They were free with my order of other bulbs, which I have yet to plant when the weather inspires me to go out there again.

I'm experimenting with coir compost for the bulbs, as a change from John Innes compost.  My aloe vera plant wasn't so keen on it though when I repotted it.

I planted lots of different bulbs in pots and also in the 'woodland garden' area at the very back.  The ground is very hard and compacted there and dry because of the trees taking up all the moisture, as well as being on a slope so the rain runs off.  I'm not sure where I'd be without a mattock, much better than digging with a spade.  In fact you can't even make an impression with a spade in that area.  When my rock dust arrives I'll apply the manure at the same time, and I still have gypsum to put down which I forgot to use last year, which help break up the soil a bit.  The leaf mould won't be ready for another year though, but it is primarily for this back end of the garden which I also want to create more of an acidic soil for.

Yesterday I also bought a new shrub, Sarcococca confusa (or Sweet Box), to put in a container by the front door.  The man in the market said it was his favourite shrub and convinced me I wouldn't regret buying it because it has a strong perfume that fills the garden in winter.  

I wasn't initially attracted to it as I was on the hunt for plants with white flowers for the 'woodland garden', especially viburnums and white hydrangeas.  He told me I was too early for viburnums and too late for hydrangeas, so I bought a few more white cyclamen plants and went back for the shrub later to give it a chance.

Not much point in planting in the back garden as I'm rarely in my back garden in the winter, and this one flowers from December to March.  It prefers moist soil and shade, and also copes well with dry shade and urban pollution too.  As most plants in pots are coming to the end of their flowering season now in the front garden, it seemed like a good idea to have something evergreen by the door.

Slug purge and Shade tolerant plants

I'm currently waiting for a landscape contractor to come round to quote on some jobs that need doing, so thought I'd get up to date on my blog.  Yesterday was dry so spent some time in the back garden picking up some slugs and snails that were lying on the surface of the beds that I had treated with Slug Clear liquid concentrate the day before.  For the last two years I've tried all kinds of organic methods, including beer traps, but this year the slugs and snails were totally out of control as every newly bought plant or seedling I planted had a near zero survival rate.  It feels even worse when it is something I have raised and nurtured from seed.  I don't grow food, only ornamentals, so something that actually worked was urgently needed.  

I have never wanted to use pellets as animals eat them, and this stuff just dilutes in the watering can although you have to pick a day when rain isn't forecast and re-apply after heavy rains.  I was really surprised how well it worked and got rid of dozens of slugs and snails the following day, so I definitely recommend this product.  It was quite a fun job too finding them all on the surface in broad daylight to easily dispose of as I'm not one of those people who would go looking for them after dark with a flashlight to catch them in the act of nibbling.

Then this morning some plants arrived that I'd ordered online, mainly hardy geraniums and Japanese anemones as I have some shady beds to fill.  

Anemone x hybrida 'Whirlwind' is a double white autumn flowering anemone that grows up to nearly 3ft tall and spreads rapidly.  This is for the small corner bed where I have a black lace elder bush growing and needed something white to brighten up this corner under the shade of my neighbours tree.  The stone retaining wall adjoining this bed will prevent it spreading beyond this corner bed.  

Anemone hupehensis 'Praecox' is a deep pink colour, grows to 2ft tall with single flowers darker than most pink forms from August - October.

Praecox is earlier than other summer blooming anemones. 

This one is for the west border near the deck, as there is plenty of space for it to spread.  

Anemones like fertile, humus-rich soil. They like slightly drier conditions before flowering in early summer, as well as in winter.

Anemone x hybrida 'September Charm'  has single rosy pale pink flowers and grows to about 2 feet tall.  Flowers July to September/Oct.

This one is going in the 'woodland bed' at the back of the deck, which is one of the shadiest beds but gets some dappled light throughout the day.  I have a pale fuschia that is growing there and I love the way the pale colours really stand out in the lower light. 

Of the new hardy geraniums to try out I have the following:

Geranium sylvaticum 'Mayflower'  Grows best in a semi-shaded woodland garden.  This will also go in my 'woodland bed' behind the deck which really needs filling out.  It is 45cm (18in) tall and flowers May/June.

Geranium 'Sweet Heidi'  grows to 12 to 18 inches tall and has a semi-trailing habit, so good for slopes and hanging baskets too.  It flowers briskly cover up to 2 1/2 feet of ground, repeating for months on end in full sun in northern climates, part shade farther south.  I'll use this one in a bed that gets a little bit more sun, probably to underplant my roses.

All of the above are perennials and easy maintenance plants.  


Back to the slugs and snails though, they have eaten all the leaves off of my new Salvia nemorosa ‘Caradonna’ which I only just planted and spoke about in my last post, along with the newly planted aubretia and lobelia.  And this is in the gravel garden where there is all that sharp stone and grit.  I dug up the leafless Salvia and now have it in a pot in my utility room, where I hope I can help it recover although I don't have high hopes for it.  If we get a few consecutive days with no rain forecast I'm really looking forward to applying another dose of Slug Clear, which also deals with snails, and can see this becoming a favourite pastime of mine.

Gravel garden and Passionflowers

The heavy rain is keeping me indoors at the moment, so a good time to catch up with my blog.  This must be the wettest year I've ever experienced, which means progress in the garden is slower than usual.  I'm glad I trimmed my neighbours hedge (my side) in the front yesterday while the sun was out, but managed to fill up all of the councils recycling bags in the process so they are clogging up my front garden.  They only collected four of them last week, which was half of what I put out.  Not sure why I can't use my neighbours' quota as most of the road didn't leave out any garden rubbish for recycling that week.  It was a pleasure to use my new Bosch cordless hedge cutter for the first time, which came with 2 re-chargeable batteries.  It was light and easy to grip and nowhere near as noisy as I expected.  I used my new Abro stepladder for the first time too, which was essential in getting to the top of the hedge which had been neglected for so long and standing on a chair was inadequate.  I have no head for heights but it felt safer than the ladder that was left here by the previous owners.

On a dry day I took a photo of my white passionflowers which are currently blooming in the front garden, whereas the purple ones in the back garden are not.  The latter have produced more leaf and have managed to climb the trellis at least this year, whereas the ones I only planted recently are doing fine.  I think it is because they are in containers and so have better soil and drainage, as well as more light although not in full sun for the whole day due to my neighbours hedge.

Passionflowers in front garden tub

I've been enjoying creating my gravel garden out the back on level one and will be tweaking it throughout the year.  I want to keep it fairly minimalist as a low maintenance bed so have not planted it profusely, as well as needing to test how certain plants thrive or not before buying more than one or two at a time.  The cotton lavender has died already, but they didn't look too strong when they were delivered.  I've moved some plants from less sunny areas of the garden to the gravel garden which gets full sun much of the time as it faces south, and bought a few new ones to provide different structural interest.  So far, this is what is planted there:

SHASTA DAISY 'PHYLISS SMITH'

1. Shasta daisy -  the shaggy one called LEUCANTHEMUM X SUPERBUM PHYLLIS SMITH

2. Echinacea purpurea  -  Had tried to grow these from seed, but the small plants didn't survive long so bought a mature one from the market.

GOLDEN OREGANO

3. Golden oregano - ORIGANUM VULGARE AUREUM

4.  Lavender hidcote  - moved from elsewhere in the garden.

5.  Lavender munstead moved from a shadier bed.  Larger than the hidcote variety, it is planted next to the echinacea and shasta daisy to form a group with some height away from the rockery.

6. Varigated hebe - no exact name when bought at the market.  One has more cream and silver, and the other is cream and mauve.  They form a front border of dwarf shrubs with the lavender hidcote.

7.  Hebe rakaiensis looked too similar to my Hebe emerald green already in my gravel bed, so I planted this in another raised bed and instead put the Hebe Champagne in the front border instead.

SALVIA NEMOROSA CARADONNA

8.  Salvia nemorosa ‘Caradonna’.  It has glowing, purple-black stems and deep violet-purple flowers that bloom from June to October.  I thought it would look good near the lavender munstead.

I also planted blue lobelia and mauve aubretia to trail over the edge of the raised bed wall, which I've copied at the top of the retaining wall to cascade down and soften the hard edges a bit.  

I still need to find some small creamy yellow/lemon flowers to provide contrast with all the lavender,blues and purple.

Some plants that form cushions, like the mossy saxifrages but tolerant of more direct sun, is also on my wish list although not urgent.

In the small rockery I have saxifrage elf rose, dianthus, St.John's wort (taken from the front garden tub), Festuca glauca (short blue grass mound), and what little was left of the Irish moss which I had grown from seed.

There is also a creeping phlox and a small white daisy type plant which I bought for 20p each in a local shop. I will add the names once I have checked the tags again.

CORDYLINE AUSTRALIS RED STAR

In a pot on the gravel bed I have put my Cordyline australis red star plant so I can take it in during the winter.  It has lived in my utility room for a couple of years and the leaves are now turning a dullish brown instead of plum red, so it doesn't seem to like it too much out there. Maybe too much rain for it at the moment.

The rosemary that was in a pot has now been planted directly into the gravel garden.  There are probably more plants but that's all I can recall right now.

I forgot all about laying down weed suppressing fabric until someone mentioned it to me during a phone conversation. I don't think it will make much difference as the weed seeds will blow on to the surface from my neighbours adjoining raised bed, which hasn't been touched in the two years I've been living here.

There will be photos of the progress I've made so far with my gravel garden and rockery once the rain stops.   I had ordered two 25kg bags of fine 10mm gravel and two 25 kg bags of clean aggregate chippings for the raised bed, which is about 6ft by 4ft.  I could have done with 3 bags of the fine and one bag of the 20mm, but will empty the larger gravel on the pathway up the side of the back garden, prior to putting down something more permanent there, as it will make a good base.  The fine gravel is quite useful for a lot of things including helping to keep slugs and snails off the plants as it is sharp and angular.

Also, when you plant something new in the gravel garden it disturbs the top dressing, so more gravel needs to be applied.  It was only enough for a thin coating, and the larger gravel was mainly to deter the cats next door from thinking it is was large litter tray.

So in total the gravel only cost me £15.00 inc VAT and free local delivery.

I also used some Perlite to aid drainage as the soil is clay, and scattered some lime over the bed too as I read somewhere that lavender needs lime.  Over time I'll keep adding more fine gravel as it works its way down into the soil.

The man who re-built my stone retaining wall had chucked a load of soil and rubble on the slope bordering my other neighbour (to the east) who also does no gardening.  I hope he didn't get rid of the topsoil from the bed, but even so I still have to now shovel it all out of the way because I can't weed that area prior to planting my new hedge.  I don't know why he didn't ask first because it has made more work for me, and that slope is difficult to climb now it is higher.  He also left my potted palm on level two, which was really heavy to struggle with down the steps.  One of the steps has now broken fully apart but I've decided to tackle the job of the steps myself. Well he did tell me that if I wanted to use mortar I'd have to do it myself, and I've not heard from him since. If it ever stops raining I would really like to get on with the hard landscaping.  It is something I've never done before and am feeling a bit more confidant about it after reading some of my gardening books.  If I don't practice then I'm never going to learn new skills.