Garden made less embarrassing

I really needed a weekend in the garden! It had started to look like one big embarrassment. Some of that is due to it having been super busy in early spring (with my applications and suchlike), but after that I think I just had too much of a busy social life. That is a good thing! But when the days are long and there is plenty of rain, the garden will grow into a monster. And I needed to tame it.

The weekend after the race I had nothing big planned, so that was when I set to work. I had already cut the grass a while ago; that really made huge difference. I had at some point considered cutting it, but the dandelions were out, and I thought that would be cruel to pollinators. But the dandelions had had their time, and the grass had been way, way too high. So I had prioritised that. But there was so much more to do.

Some of it was to do with the raised bed in the back that I had been clearing of ivy. That is a lot of work! But I have more raised beds. The raised bed with the apple tree was okay. The raised bed with the succulents looks after itself. The two really small bed tend not to require much attention. But the other four bigger ones really needed work. The one that had had the walnut tree was very overgrown, mainly with grass and dandelions. The bed with the plum tree was so bad I decided to give up on it for this year. Maybe next year! The big central bed was also suffering from invasion of grass and dandelions. And it had become overcrowded. The plants I had to put in it had, of course, all been growing, and by now several plants were basically pushing each other out of the way. So I needed to make some changes there.

The big central bed: weeds and overcrowding 

That weekend I cleared almost all the ivy! And I tidied up the bed that used to have the walnut tree. The other walnut tree bed temporarily mainly has oregano, a pumpkin plant, and potato plants. That will do. And I got quite far with the big central bed. It has had an enormous amount of grass and dandelions removed, and I took out three plants for which there wasn't enough space. One is now in the position of the walnut tree, and two are in pots in front of the house. I'm not sure if that is permanent, but it will do for now.

Much more ivy removed 

The big central bed: not finished, but clearly progress! And yes, different angle, but this shows the progress better…

It's clearly not done yet, but I am happy with the progress! My garden doesn't look embarrassing anymore. And the raised bed in the back is almost ready to be taken into use. Progress!