Late Weeding

A busy three hours’ weeding this morning.

We’ve got borders full of buttercups, carpeting like carefully nurtured ground cover in places. I’ve dug up so many I can see them when I blink. A strange sensation which I hope will soon pass.

The buttercups came up easily enough using my Mum’s bent old right handed trowel, which fits my left hand so well. The trowel and my knees are in a sorry state of muddiness. It’s really far too wet to venture onto the borders. I went in covered in mud; thick clods on my knees, smears up my arms and on my face. My coat was so filthy I left it in the shed.
Despite the mud I feel content with what I’ve achieved and with the world.

The robins have been busy helping and have got quite close, darting about when I stop to dump my box of weeds into the builder’s 1 cubic metre gravel bag, and collecting beakfuls of tasty morsels.

The ground got very compacted wherever I stood or knelt, but it can’t be helped. I finished the border and finally got round to planting some perennial wallflowers that had been languishing in the Polytunnel. Each one was placed in a hole filled with compost to make their introduction to the cold clay a little easier.
I did the same with some clumps of polyanthus I’d ‘rescued’ from the garden design project I’ve been working on. The hard landscaping work there is underway and the Clients want grander plants than these modest polyanthus, so I’ve found a space for them here, along with some shrubs they were discarding. Nothing wasted….