Sunday

For some reason we were a little slow on Sunday morning but not dying. H and I were up, the Kiwis slept on. They has been in a round of parties and packing up house for the last couple of weeks and I think the chance to rest was appreciated. I had appointments at noon, one with the muck trailer and other with a JCB driver both at the lottie. I bagged Mike and we went for the trailer. H and Susie met us at the lottie. I gave them the tour. In all the time we had known them and they were our neighbours for a few years they had never seen the lottie. Mike comes from farming stock so I do not know what he made of my little vegetable patch. The lottie is at its worst at this time of year too. Susie and Mike to go off to collect there little one and continue the round of visits and farewells. I did my trailer thing. I also connected up the water supply for the trough. It is off all winter. I gave the bottom of the tank a clean out before I put the water on. Then trailer back to Overseal and us back to Moira. After a brew we decided to tackle the front garden.

It has taken an age to figure out what we are to do with the front garden. I have dug it, manured it twice, dug it again, raked it over and over. Only now do I think we have a plan. We have a little stand of conifers near the house to give height and shield us from the car headlights playing on the front windows as they come up the hill and round the bend. On the house side of the conifers we have planted lots of spring bulbs for early colour. Last year summer I put in some bedding plants on the street side of the conifers and it look really well. People complimented me on the display. Odd really since the seeds were fag ends of seed packets, sown and poorly looked after by me. They deserved their few months in the sun. We decided that a border was needed to define the space. H and pondered over what hedge to have. Privet, greedy and huge if not controlled, Beech long lead time to make a hedge and only winter green, Yew too slow, Laurel too big. Should the hedge be variegated, light green and dark green, evergreen or deciduous? In the end we plumped for Box. We have gone for miniature Box on the front edge by the street and standard Box along the border with the neighbours. Mini Box only gets to about a foot high in five years and is clipped to make a low hedge. Standard Box gets to about two foot. Between the two types we had fifty pots to plant. I set out a string to keep the hedge line straight and then it was a case of dig a small hole, small handful of BFB, de-pot the plant and pop it in the hole and firm in. I went round afterwards and watered the plants in. Even though the plants are separate it has defined the space and has lifted the garden.

The empty pots from the Box plants were an ideal size for the Garlic. Thirty minutes after cleaning up the front garden the fifty pot were replanted with the Garlic cloves bought on Saturday. I took those over to Mo's as well. Mo's is filling up nicely.

The conifers in the front garden, one is about five foot [1.4m] high the other thee foot [1m] tall. we bought a ball type conifer called Grandmother's Curls to go with the tall conifers. It is only a foot high [300mm] but is quite yellow. It adds a bit of interest in the height change and unremitting green-ness of the conifers. I have resolved to try a little harder with the front garden and make it have some kind of flow. We will see!