A Busy Day

As we had to stay around home because of Max we spent most of yesterday in the garden. I mowed the lawns and weeded some of the flower beds whilst Paul dug up a small tree and moved it to another part of the garden. When we moved here a decade ago the garden was well planted and easy to maintain but as the trees and shrubs have grown bigger it has highlighted a problem with the planting done by the previous owners. I think they hadn't thought about how big the plants would grow so that now we seem to have areas of the garden where everything is close together and then large areas of space. We are trying to rectify this by moving some of the shrubs and replacing others.

Lots of the plants are in flower in particular this clematis which winds its way up into the trees at the top of the garden - I think it always looks so pretty. There is a house at the bottom of our street which has this variety all around the side of the building and then across the front door and down one side of it. It looks wonderful.

Above is the chaos that is the middle bed of the garden near the pond. It is very difficult to weed as the soil is clay and at present very dry and hard. The orange flower is Geum 'Dolly North'. The rest of the bed is filled with Aquilegias, also known as Columbines, of all colours and they spread and spread each year. Also in there are 'London Pride' and Geum 'Rivale'. Later the hardy Geranium 'Anne Thompson' will flower. You can just see one of the feathery branches of the Tamarisk tree which at this time of year is a lovely pale pink.