The price is right

Collected the remaining Lavender from Long Barn on Friday and as fortune would have it they had an end of season sale of plants. I'd say £1 for plants that retail at £5.99 each was a snap so I purchased:

• Monarda Gardenview Scarlet x 1




• Nepeta Souvenir D'Andre Chaudron x 1




• Veronicastrum vir. Alba x 1




• Sisyrinchium Striatum x 6




• Nepeta Longpipes x 1




• Achillea 'Mondpagode' x 3




• Aquilegia Barlow Black x 4




• Sedum Mediovoriegatum x 3




• Hemerocalis (type unknown) x 3




• Campanula Perisicifolia Blue x 2




• Iris Ceasar's Blue x 3




• Campanual Prichards Variety x 1

Great variety of plants and not normally found in garden centres so I am extremely pleased. And Saturday was fun planting them all out. Then cracked on with planting the Lavender border.

Lovely lollipops

Planting of the key structural plants continues. I have been busy this week planting Ligustrum (Privett) standards along the side of the main path that disects the garden.

In fact these lollipop standards are a theme in the garden and we already have a grove of Portuguese Laurels and Viburnum Tinus standards standing to attention in areas of the garden.

I have also now pretty much enclosed the vegetable garden with box hedging underplanted below pleached Hornbeam hedging.

So progress is good and steadily the outline structure of the garden is beginning to take shape.

A firm footing

I have spent each evening this week barrowing 14 tonnes of decorative stone around the whole garden to top dress the many paths and walkways.

It's been hard work but the transformation is dramatic.

The garden now begins to actually look like the garden designed long ago in the depths of my mind. But the garden is, of course, devoid of planting.

We have reached, nonetheless, a watershed for from now on the garden will be all about the plants and the colour schemes that will define the space.

I cannot wait!

Coming along nicely

The new fruit garden is looking good. The latest edition are three step-over Apples and a Cherry.

One of the step-over varieties we have opted for is Pinova (M27). This dessert apple is a new mid season variety which seems to have a high resistance to both mildew and scab. We should also be able to pick the first crop late September next year.

The other two are Ambassy which appears to have large juicy fruits with a red flush and is a heavy cropper.

I have always wanted step-over Apples and they have always been part of the plan to provide the boundary between the fruit and the vegetable gardens.

Meanwhile, I have planted a dessert Cherry (Stella Giesla) in the fruit garden itself. This is a self fertile sweet Cherry with dark red or even black fruits and should be ready to pick in late July next year given luck.

The boy loves the black stuff!

For two days now a pile of pure black gold has stood steaming on the drive. This lovely stuff is recycled garden waste from the local council and it will do the garden and its many new borders no end of good.

Year after year we imported this wholesome material into the garden at Linden Barn and by the time we left the soil looked almost volcanic. But it was wonderful for the plants which thrived. It also surpressed weeds and kept in the moisture while improving the very structure of the soil.

Our rather thin soil will be much improved by this vital material. But barrowing it around the garden is very hard work and I fully expect that by the end of this weekend I will be a wreck! Nevertheless, I assure myself it will all be worth while in the long run.