End of Month View – January 2017

This time last year I started the year’s End of Month meme with a post about the front garden.  By the time I had finished writing it I was completely certain that my argument that I had a love/hate relationship with the garden was flawed; I did in fact hate the front garden. Readers were kind with their comments but it was those that extolled me to bite the bullet and just dig up the wretched lawn that really hit home. So I did.

Well my youngest son lifted the lawn over the space of a week in April and then I pondered what to do next.  I had a whole collection of asters and grasses from the back garden that needed a home so I bought some fennel to add height and a couple of Euphorbias for substance.  Walking back and force it soon became clear where the path should go and my eldest son very kindly, with the odd mutter, laid the brick edging and spread the gravel. We also widened the single width paving slab path along the front of the house which has somehow balanced things better.

In my usual random way I didn’t dig the whole space over and carefully plan things.  Instead I spread the asters and grasses out and planted them hoping for the best.  The asters had lost their labels (a recurring theme over the last few years) so I wasn’t sure which were the tallest or the tones of purple.  Anyway, the first summer was good, not great or amazing, but a decent start for such an unplanned decision.  The smaller bed was full of bright red zinnias some 4ft tall; this spring I hope it will be full of tulips and then I intend to repeat the zinna show.

The bigger bed which is essentially most of the front garden needs lots of work.  I need to work through it weeding and removing the perennial weeds.  I have thought that the space needed a third tree for some years to balance out the other two so back at the beginning of the month I added a Sorbus ‘Pink Pagoda’ and in the process aggravated an old arm injury and so gardening has stopped.  Hopefully if the healing continues as it is and the rain stops I might be able to do some weeding next weekend. I think the Euphorbias are too far forward but I can’t for the life of me remember which ones they are but in the back of my mind they are Euphorbia characias which might be too tall but I wanted them to flop over the path.

Anyway, there are lots to do in this area, plants to re-arrange and plants to add so I thought I would share the progress in this year’s End of Month meme.

The meme has been very well supported over the last few years, even when I have been a little lax in supporting it myself so I am hoping that some of my readers will join in again this year.  You can use the meme however it suits you – all I ask is that you include a link to my monthly post in your post and a link to your post in the comments box on my post.  I think that makes sense and will allow us to find each other.