My arms are killing me today. Yesterday I finally strimmed it down.
I know it’s far too late – all the grass had gone to seed and was flying everywhere – the last thing I want when I want to get rid of the grass! I’ve promised myself that next year I’m going to strim it far more often. My plans for that area of the garden has completely changed anyway, due to the disaster that it turned out to be. Yes, it looked lovely when you were standing waist height in the grass swaying in the breeze, but the whole space was totally unusable, and really a waste of garden and looked a mess for a lot of the year. Out of the three packs of meadow flower seed, not a single one flowered. I don’t think seedlings have a hope in hell when we are infested with slugs.
So my vision of the whole space covered in poppies, daises and cornflowers didn’t come to light. I hardly have time to keep up with the weeding needed in the rest of the garden, so I had to think of a plan that would make that area easy to maintain, and I want it something more interesting than just lawn. So, here’s my latest idea: I’m going to buy two more apple trees to go near the back; and I’m going have six silver birch trees – the variety that have really striking white bark (Himalayan Birch I think)- three each side to make a path leading to the weeping silver birch. Then, each side, behind the birches, I’m going to have two square ponds where I will keep frogs that will hopefully keep my slug population down a bit.
I will then scatter a tonne of bark chippings over the rest of the grass. Hopefully this will keep most of the grass down, but still allow all the bulbs I planted to still come up. It will also be my “white garden” as I always love them at National Trust properties. There are already about a hundred white alliums in there, the apple blossom is mostly white and there are about 400 snowdrop bulbs that I planted last year and I hope will be a bit more successful next February. I’ll gradually introduce more white flowers when I can afford them; though to be honest, the whole thing will have to wait till next spring to do because from now till Christmas I’ve got a million things to do with the house. For now, I will have to be content with imagining it – and it looks amazing!
