There are many job’s in the garden and the early party of the year is supposed to be spent planning and planting seeds. The greenhouse door fell off and a panel smashed so I have not been tempted to spend much of November or December in the greenhouse making it useable… it is very messy!

I also didn’t clear all the windfall apples and that makes my greenhouse path more treacherous! As it’s also the route to the new compost, that is not ideal.

But I think it’s obvious that my passion lies in the colours and types of flowering plants I have introduced to the garden. Some of which have not prospered, and that is partly my ignorance but also my neglect through inexperience. My frustration due to this is exercised by the amount of weeding and eradication of unwanted plants that keep growing back…

I would love to introduce a water feature. I though this might happen combined with a home office but the pandemic brought astronomical rises in the cost of building materials. Both of the adults working from home have made this a definite need, but the local planning regulations have made home offices harder to get permission for, so our plan of combining our four sheds into one or two has actually become harder to do cheaply.

We have lost some of the biggest trees we thought we would have for ever in the garden. This has meant trying to recover some of the privacy we have lost to existing properties and to one new one. Trees don’t grow quick enough! Actually we don’t necessarily want to grow more (things need to be gone if anything!) but I’d love a pergola or a trellis we can sit under.

Patio areas are lacking too. I dug out a couple of patio (it nearly killed me!) but we need to get some concrete and sand to properly seat the slabs before the mad couch grass grows back. I’ve purchased recycled rubber train sleeper-esque slabs but they don’t hold back couch grass either!

What I dislike about my Garden:

* couch grass

* dandelions

* euphorbia

* AKA weeds!

That’s what gardeners have to accommodate: some gardens attract the things we HATE!

We also seem to be attracting CATS. Time to get a DOG!

RIP C x 🐶