Well I’ve decided it’s time to reintroduce Mondays Meander Round the Garden, mainly because I really need to get out there and get inspired again.

When I look at my garden I see all the weeds and they are threatening to take over. When you see a list of nasty perennial weeds in a book, well we’ve got about 75% of them! We back onto an old disused railway line, which is great for walking the dogs, not so good for the bramble, bindweed, dandelion, buttercup, couch grass…not to mention the mares-tail. I’ve got lots of plans to make it easier to keep on top of the garden, some of them pretty major, as I said to my OH, we’re not getting any younger and I’ve created a pretty high maintenance garden!

I was looking at the garden this morning, which happens to be a beautiful sunny early summer’s day and I thought actually, if you ignore the weeds, it’s looking pretty gorgeous at the moment. The aquilegias are all in flower, self seeded all over the place, as are the alliums. We’ve finally had some nice days to sit outside and enjoy the sun, this is our main sitting area with a rose arbour and a bistro set. I like to sit in the shade in the arbour, my other half likes to sit in the sun!

This area got totally trashed by the chickens in the winter, so I was relieved to see it’s recovered, the red poppies totally clash with everything else, but who cares, they’re fleetingly glorious!

I bought the pink poppies at the Harrogate flower show this year, aren’t they a gorgeous colour, I’ve put them in a planter with some tree lilies underneath.

This area is known as the AA garden, Amber and Amethyst, it’s overflowing at the moment and looks lovely but it is the are that’s going to have to have the most changes. It was originally a potager with eight raised beds and narrow paths. Unfortunately I made the paths far too narrow and as I’ve got an issue with balance (like I haven’t got any!) I’ve fallen over here numerous times, there’s also a 6′ drop onto concrete over a very low wall which does freak me out somewhat. So this whole area is in for a radical redesign, like I’m thinking round lawn and deep beds. I’ll keep the colour scheme though as I like that.

The pond area is looking very verdant, the hostas are lovely at the moment, the toads and frogs are obviously doing their job at keeping the slugs down. The rhododendron is in flower, I love the way there are two different colours as the flowers age. I learnt the other day that these are highly toxic, both to insects and other plants if their leaves fall on them.

The front garden is my main area to tackle this year as it is overrun with mares-tail and bind weed. My plan is to remove all the perennials, weed it as much as I can then put a double layer of membrane down, planting just shrubs so I can put the membrane right up to the main stems. Any weeds that come through will get sprayed! I’ve got lots of shrubs in now, the problem now is that by mid summer I can’t access most of it as they fill out!

The Scottish rose I planted a few years ago is looking gorgeous, it only flowers in one flush, but it’s worth it. I’ve bought a ground cover rose to go in the front too. I still want lots of colour and interest, just without the weeds!

So hopefully you’ll see some progress reports over the next few months, I’m easily disheartened by the constant battle with weeds, it’s easy to feel a bit overwhelmed…and my response is to retreat to my sewing room, which doesn’t help the garden at all! Sometimes I just need to step back and think actually, it’s looking pretty good at the moment!