I’ve made headway on the clearance of grass for the slabs we got last week. I started with the idea I’d do lots at once but I’ve realised I don’t need to kill myself. I want to dig up the couch grass so I’m digging big chunks. We want to lay the slabs on sand with limestone to fix the slabs but allow the mortar to stay porous and to stop water from pouring/or puddling by the house walls and the french doors.

I felt like a better idea today was to take it a little bit at a time to take the grass up. It’s about a slab width now. Two or three more to go! I am not laying them six by four exactly as I want to leave one or two squares for plants. It will be random!

I also say the flowers are blossoming and it’s going to be good if the new plants flower at the same time. I’ve added delphiniums, salvias, scabious and agastache have all been planted in the last week or so. A mix of plug plants and slightly bigger potted plants. I have weeded in my bed which gets the orange lilies and am keeping my eyes open for lily beetles. Because they seem to go harder for the front garden, where my time at the moment is spent pulling out mares tail, and we are spending less time there in present lockdown land I feel sure we will probably lose some lilies…