I beg your pardon...

...I never promised you a rose garden
Along with the sunshine
There has to be a little rain sometimes...

After all the hard landscaping - Robert's job - I finally get to start doing the prettifying. I must admit I've been a real lazy git and stayed well out of the way while Robert did all the digging out and patio work but only because I knew that looking after all the new bits of garden that have been created will be my job in the long run. Robert and weeding don't really go together! However he has done a fantastic job of filling in my raised flower bed and with the aid of some weedproof membrane and a few ton of granite chips the need for much bending over and hauling out dandelions, sticky willies and their pals should be much diminished. Of course, yet again Robert received supervision from George. He knows a job just doesn't go right unless he inspects it with his four paws!

Robert and his little helper!

My pots are starting to come along just dandy.

Pretty pots


More pretty pots

And isn't the fire pit cool? It throws out quite a bit of heat too and at least it's not as environmentally unfriendly as those horrible gas heaters that everybody has started to work with. At least we're burning old pallets - and putting on another jumper - if we get cold!

Fire pit in action

And the piece d'resistance...my Derek Jarman inspired raised bed. I just love what he did at Dungeness with his shingle garden and I'm trying to bring the look into my garden slowly and steadily. The raised bed contains my driftwood collection to date. I'm going to find out more about the good beaches up this way to add to the rest of the garden. Robert was actually suitably impressed so obviously if I carry on in this vein it will actually meet with his approval - bonus! Means less likelihood of arguements and I can carry on with what I'm doing in my own cack-handed sort of way.

Jarman inspired raised bed

The hebes have been howked ouot of the rest of the garden where they haven't been at their best so here's hoping they're happy here. So chuffed with the finished look.

Driftwood hebes