Plans change don't they?

Back in January I posted on several plans for garden projects so I thought I’d update on our progress or lack of it!

Halfway through 2011 and so far we have almost completed one of the projects which was to plant up a small bed at the front of the house with perennials  - the plants that I bought for the front garden bed have now been planted up - the last batch planted just yesterday morning. I say almost completed as I want to plant some spring bulbs in between the perennials to provide some early colour and I can’t really do that just yet. The gaps are where I’m also going to add a few of the aquilegias that I have grown from seed and these aren't really ready for planting out just yet. It even rained all afternoon to settle the plants in which was a long awaited bonus. For more about the rain click here.

I don’t expect that it will look much this year but maybe next. A couple of brave hardy geraniums are producing a few flowers as is a very premature Michaelmas daisy. Some of the poor plants that have been planted a while had to cope with the period of very windy weather and have been a bit battered but they seem to have survived. It's surprising how stony the ground looks - the stones seem to have come from nowhere.

Another plan was to tidy up the area by our cold frame using the paving slabs which would be replaced on our patio. A temporary solution was called for as the patio hasn’t yet been tackled so for now Martyn has created a bark chipped area. Once the area was tidied up (I know it may not look tidy yet but you should have seen how it looked to start with) and bark chippings laid we were surprised at how much room there seems to be in what is just a bit of space tucked behind our greenhouse so we now need to think of how to make best use of what is a sheltered sun trap. The ivy which is creating a fedge is coming through the fence from next door and will be trimmed back hard. The birds love the berries it produces and it also provided ideal shelter and nesting which is why it hasn’t been cut back just yet.

Another plan was to create some sort of focal point in a shady area under our crab apple tree. We were thinking of placing some sort of statue there and planting around the base with shade loving plants.

I searched and searched for a suitable statue but nothing took my fancy. Then we saw a bird bath that we liked which we thought would fit the bill (no pun intended). I know we already have a couple of bird baths but I’m sure the birds will enjoy another. Before we bought the bird bath we decided to cut back some of the bamboo and a very large fatsia and in so doing got a bit carried away so now this has become a project to replant the whole area. What was intended to have been a small project has become a major one which involves trying to cut out some of the branches of the crab apple tree! I quite like the idea of planting a small acer here as we have quite fancied having one for ages but need one that doesn’t need a very light position - any variety suggestions?

At the moment the area looks like this - but as they say with any project things often have to get worse before they get better.

As for our other intended projects - well these seem to have been scaled up too and more have been added to the list after some losses due to last year’s awful winter.

I  planted out the dark leaved dahlias bought earlier but not where I had intended to plant them - they were destined for a bed in which we have (or should I say had) a group of banana plants. As all that seems to have survived over winter is one small shoot this bed has been earmarked for a major renovation so the dahlias have been added to our perennial bed. I can always move them later if they don’t fit in.

Allotment update:

We did manage to plant a few more things on the plot too last week but as I don’t want to duplicate what Martyn has already written on his blog then you can read about that here.

RSPB - Make Nature Count

We took part in the RSPB annual nature survey and for the first time ever the birds were co-operative and didn’t go into hiding so we had a good mix of species with only one or two regulars missing. We even had a couple of new faces.

Mr and Mrs Bullfinch

The garden is also full of baby birds but the ones that the RSPB asked people to look out for seem to have grown up even though we have had baby blackbirds and robins earlier in the year we had none to count last week. The challenge was to count the sparrows - how on earth do you accurately count a flock of sparrows? In the end we had to make a guesstimate.