Eurovision and clearance

Another weekend of glorious weather here in North Wales.  I’d intended on getting some more plants potted on and clearing up the potting area a bit on Saturday, and then settling down to watch the Eurovision Song Contest with my family and a neighbour during the evening.  About 11am on Saturday I heard the front door open and the familiar voice of my best friend who had decided to travel up from South Wales and pay us a visit to join us for the evening of Eurovision.  A lovely and unexpected surprise!

Not having a garden of his own at the moment, my friend was keen to get outside with me and help do some gardening until the competition started.   He potted-on hundreds of Ixia, Achillea Cassis and Alium Moly into different pots for me.  These bulbs were all part of free collections I’d received with orders from jparkers over the last 6 months and they’re all growing well.   I then dished out some of the pots to my neighbours because I’m not going to have room for all of these bulbs and some of them don’t fit the planting scheme I’m planning.  The neighbours are in the same boat as me – creating gardens from scratch and planning their schemes more carefully, so it was a mutually beneficial exercise as chose the plants that would fit with their schemes, and I gained some much-needed space in the little grow-houses and on the back-patio.

We also got the rest of the Dahlias planted, and crossed-fingers there will be no more frosts now.  I’d pre-soaked them and I’ve tried to plant them in a way that spreads the dinner-plate Dahlias evenly throughout the two Dahlia-borders.   I ended up with far too many for the borders, so I’ve planted some up in large pots and I’ll dot them around the seating areas.  I’m so excited to see them grow this year!

Last year it was a complete fluke because I’d received 12 tubers free with an order and thought I’d give them a go, having never grown them before.  They were all orange and yellow and they were amazing!  Lots of walkers commented on them because they gave me such a display you could see them clearly from the road.  The display continued until early November, when I dug them up and stored them according to instructions on one of Monty Don’s tutorial videos on You Tube.

So this year I am more prepared!  I’ve bought lots of plant support sticks and Dahlias to fit in with the garden’s colour theme.  I chose a mixed purple and white collection, some large white ones, some huge aubergine-coloured ones and a few cerise pink.

The cat seems to like to use the Dahlia beds as a toileting area, so for the moment I’ve covered the beds with chicken wire to keep him away.  He’s most put out and after I’d done it he went to sit in the kitchen and wouldn’t look at me!

We came in from the garden about 6pm to prepare ourselves for Eurovision and do the one-hour round trip to get a take-away.  Lucie Jones, who is from Pentyrch in Wales, did well in representing the UK in the competition and she actually took us over 100 points.

On Sunday my friend left early and my partner and I decided to have a day clearing up in the garden.  We cleared out Anne Hathaways shed, burnt lots of rubbish, cleared the patio and hosed it down, cleaned pots, moved 16 bags of compost into what is going to be the sunken garden, and moved a ton of gravel into some of the new sleeper steps to fill them up.

We also unpacked the fountain that is going to go into the sunken garden and it is huge! We’re going to need 3 people to move the bottom bowl of it down to the lower levels, and even the standing base is too heavy for one person.  It won’t be installed for at least a month but I wanted the weather to get at it a bit, to make it look less ‘new’.

We were exhausted after the day’s work and whilst we were pleased with our efforts, it still looks like a bit of a building site by the parking area, because this is where the builders merchants deliver all the materials.  There are still piles of sleepers, bags of hardcore, wood to make the platforms, parts of the fountain and some pallets.  I can’t wait to get it cleared, but I’ll have to be patient.

Tomorrow, a decorator is coming to climb the scaffold outside and paint the fascia board and 3 windows before the wall can be finished off with the pointing.  Apparently the weather this week is going to be a lot of rain and some sunshine, so hopefully that will spring the Dahlias into action and we should see some growth.