Idle musings

Not really quite sure what I have been doing over the last week.  A little of this and a little of that without very much to show for it.  The levels of stuff on the dinning table (my workspace) have been lowered and homes found for most of it.  

the bank outside my house

Some gardening has been done.  I thought the dahlias on the bank outside my house were dead so brought some new ones (the plants are only half hardy and there has been quite a bit of snow the last couple of years). But a couple of days after planting the new plants and putting slug pellets around them I discovered shoots on the old plants.  So not dead just munched every time they showed any sign of growth.  

still a little work to be done but quite pleased so far

The general yukness of the weather has not really been helping at all this year.  We have had to move a couple of the marginal plants higher than originally planted because they were struggling with the water levels, we had to bale the pond out at least twice and all this happened through the draught (and hosepipe ban).  There are bright spots though, yesterday I saw the first bud on the runner beans, the spotted orchid I got at the garden show is beginning to flower and yes the rain has been a pain but at least watering with watering cans twice a day hasn't been necessary. 

MORE PLANTS FOR THE POND and other tales

marsh marigold

Today we got a few more plants for the pond - this time from our local garden centre.  We went there for bark chips to tart up the area around the pond and decided to check if they had had any new stock in and we were lucky.

slowly taking shape

 Some of the plants we picked were old favourites,  the others we are hoping will not be to invasive.  


We carried on clearing the ivy that had got out of control in this area of the garden, and found several holly and hawthorn seedlings - far more than there is room for.

Before putting down some of the bark chippings we planted some ferns, foxgloves and anemones.   The log pile was moved to next to our water butt and some decorative pieces of wood put next to the waters edge

Still quite a bit of work to do restoring this area.  There is a Rowen that needs to be removed  but we are only going to remove the main trunk, leaving the suckers to grow.



The plants we got today are:-

myosotis palustris water forget-me-not
preslia cervina alba white water spearmint
mimulus ringens lavendar musk
mazus reptans blue blue mazus
gratiola officinalis hedge hyssop
cotula coronopifolia golden buttons


Although we are a little bit worried about the mint getting out of hand  the forget-me-not is a plant we have grown before and loved.  Just need some ragged robin now, which may have to wait till next year because we have seed for it.

wood pile and artyfarty decoration

RESTORING OUR POND - re-construction

ready for planting

NOW THE POND is completely emptied and clean we can put it back together again.  Have so been looking forward to doing this, especially while kneeling in the mud trying to ignore the numbers of worms and grubs, worrying that I would break fingernails (I didn't) while sawing through chunks of root matted earth.

a blank canvas

 We made a trip to BEDGEBURY PINETUM  one of our favourite places, and this time took the Ashford route instead of the Maidstone one this was a very lucky decision.
http://www.bedgeburypinetum.org.uk/ 

making the bags of earth for the pond

The Ashford route took us through Rolvenden http://www.worldofwater.com/
and past the gates of WORLD OF WATER.  An added bonus was that they had just had a delivery of plants.  If only we had known what a good price they were.

placing of earth bags and back filling

We are still using hints suggested by the late Geoff Hamilton, what a great person he was.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-UmPgaBa_g 

We filled old tights with earth to stop the banks of the pond all slipping into the bottom and then back filled behind the bags.  Working our way all round the pond - it is only when the pond was completely empty the size was plain to see. 

planted and being refilled

As soon as pond was ready we planted the margins.  We used eleven 35litre bags of top soil.  It was important to us not to have any of the old plants (some of which were very invasive) which is why we purchased top soil from our local garden centre
We had saved some of the old pond water and used it when
  we refilled the pond, we also had a water butt filled with rainwater.  We only had to use a small amount of tap water.  Then we put in the oxygenater plant





Now that there is clear water instead of a reed bed the trees are being reflected.  Hopefully dragonflies and damselflies will be attracted to it this summer, as well as pond skaters, water boatmen and other wildlife.

This has always been an area of the garden we have worked with wildlife in mind.  So the log pile has been moved to a better place and stacked.  We are going to use bark chippings to blend everything together.  Even though the pond is about done there is still work to do.


Plants used for the pond are  trollius golden queen,  primula denticulata, blue water iris, typha minima (a bullrush type plant), mimulus cardinalis, lysichiton americanus, caltha palustris,ranunculus flammula,mentha pulegium, caltha palustris plena, lobelia cardinalis.   
We have planted seeds to fill the gaps for this year - mimulus and a poppy that likes damp soil.  Plants for ponds and boggy areas tend to be quite vigorous.