The weather here in Yorkshire hasn’t improved much today, but in between the downpours I managed a quick totter round the garden! Last week I showed you my seriously overgrown Amethyst and Amber garden, most of the paths were inaccessible and half the plants were hidden by the weeds. I’ve managed to spend a good few hours out there, tidying and clearing so I wanted to show you the results! There’s still a lot of work to do, but it’s better than it was!!

We can now walk to the chicken run by the main path, the mint has had a major haircut! I’ve got three different types of mint growing there, it’s a good place for it, I’d spent several years trying to find plants that would survive the narrow dry strip and I finally found it. Mint is well known for being invasive, but here it’s limited by the path on one side and the chickens on the other, they do like a bit of fresh mint so any stem that dares to grow the wrong side of the fence is soon nipped in the bud. It’s also meant to discourage vermin, which is always useful  round chickens.

I had to be pretty ruthless on the paths with all the little seedlings, I love aquilegias, but I do need a path! I’ve left lots of poppy heads to self seed though, They look rather statuesque anyway but the poppies have been lovely this year, I’m not sure where these came from but I seem to have lots of lovely shades of purple and deep pink.

It is finally looking like a garden again. I made the raised beds about 15 years ago, there’s four square beds in the centre and four large triangle beds to make the corners. With hindsight I should have made the paths wider as they are only about 15″, I have four ‘wobble sticks’ so I don’t lose my balance round the beds, they wouldn’t save me, but just having something to put my hand on is enough usually! I love the unstructured look of this bit of the garden, it has a relaxed feel to it.

Just got to sort the rest of the garden out now, this clematis is looking great, unfortunately it decided it would be much more interesting to climb the bird feeding station instead of the obelisk!