My wife’s gardener

On the way back from shopping and walking Mirinda to the station, I managed to get a photo of the front of the ex-Colony – the sun was behind some rather thick clouds. This shows, much better than the photo last week, the lower windows which still need quite a bit of work but the roof and the casements look fabulous!

Back at home, I set to planting all the bedding and other plants we bought on Saturday. There were quite a few of them.

First up came the delightfully vanilla scented Nemesia. We planted some of these last year and the smell was fantastic. This year, Mirinda wanted some in the Garden of a Thousand Yaps, dotted among the Busy Lizzies. This was where I fell foul of the old path…AGAIN! This happens almost every time I try and plant stuff in this bit of the garden.

I moved the new plant locations a bit and then placed a new Pixie Path over the old path remains so I never do it again.

Pixie Path made from leftover bathroom tiles

I also filled in a couple of gaps between the lavender on the other side, in the Crazy Bed.

I was working in the rain for quite a bit of the morning but I was happy with what I’d achieved. Particularly given I’d had to dig more holes than required for the first lot.

After lunch and our walk, I set myself up at the Candy Border (outside the office). I’m always on the lookout for partial shade loving plants with either pink or purple flowers to go with the office interior. On Saturday I found a Nemesia Myrtille which is the same type of plant as the vanilla ones but in purple and a completely different shape…and scent. In fact, I had no idea they were the same until I wrote the name in this post.

I also planted a small ragged flowered plant called Lychnis flos-cuculi Nana which has light pink flowers and sits just by the water butt. This is an area that is regularly taken over by the St John’s Wort, herb Robert and dandelions. I’m hoping this little flower will keep the weeds away. Speaking of which…I removed some new weed growth as I went. Good grief! They grow back so quickly!

Then it was onto the Hot Border and the majority of plants. We bought some more Alstroemeria’s (Princess Diana and Inca Bandit), Gaillardia x grandiflora (Goblin and Burgundy), an Anthemis tinctoria (Sauce Hollandaise), a couple of Osteospermums (Voltage Yellow and Margarita Blue Sunrise) and, finally a load more Bidens. This little lot took me the rest of the day but I was well satisfied with the end result.

It’s a bit difficult to see from the photo above but if compared with the one from last week (Hot border sweats) the difference is a bit clearer.

Then, just when I thought I’d finished for the day, I had an email from the guy building our library. The images for the glass panels are portrait when they need to be landscape. Why couldn’t he have said this when I initially sent him the original scans? I’m surprised he has a viable business because he’s pretty bloody useless.

I then spent the rest of the evening/night choosing new images and creating a frame for them to go into. Good job I know what to do with Photoshop.

Eventually I sent some mock ups to Mirinda for her final approval then went to bed. I’ll redo the proper files for him tomorrow.