I’ve just had nearly a week off work, just the way my shifts worked out, so I’ve managed to do quite a few hours in the garden. It’s been pretty perfect gardening weather, warm and dry, but not too hot!

My first target was to get on top of my Amber & Amethyst garden, I’m completely redesigning it so it’s been a major clearance job that seems to have taken months’ particularly as we have a lot of nasty pernicious weeds! I’ve now cleared it all, I started leveling the centre with a rake, pushing the decent soil from the middle to the edge where it will be in a raised border. I decided I needed to mark out my centre which is going to be graveled. I stuck a post in the centre and then measured out with a long cane, marking the circumference of the circle with more sticks. This gave me a more definite area to concentrate on, leveling and also digging a shallow trench for the split log roll to go in. I’ve ordered 12″ split log roll with the thought that I’ll bury it about 5″, have an inch of pea shingle, then a raised bed of 6″, hopefully that will work.

I was quite proud of myself remembering the formula for calculating the circumference of a circle from it’s radius from school days, (must be 35 years ago!) even better, I worked it out in my head (approximately) and it came pretty close when I checked it on the computer later! So I’ve ordered enough log roll, just need to wait for it to be delivered!

In the meantime, nextdoor have started to work on their garden again after a few months hiatus, they’re having major landscaping done which impinged on our garden as they are putting a new fence up, which is good,  it’s just put this area on hold a bit as a couple of trees and shrubs needed to come out. Anyway, the diggers are back so I started having a good clear out on this side of the garden. I started with the pond area, as that is one bit I have managed to keep on top of. I’ve cut the solomons seal down and pulled up some crocosmia which was getting a bit invasive and gave the whole area a good weed. You can actually see the pond now…just!

I then started on the rose bed, this has been getting increasingly chocked up with bindweed and a wide variety of other weeds! I’ve had a good clear out, a few perennials such as astrantia and geranium have had to go as there were just too many weeds growing through them. I’ve dug up loads of roots, I’ve filled a wheelie bin, a feed sack and I’ve still got a big pile! My aim is to clear as much as I can around the roses and the shrubs, then weed killer anything that comes up next year. The bed does look an awful lot better, if a little bare!

I managed to get two free stone troughs too, next-door didn’t want them so their landscaper offered them to me and volunteered to carry them round, good job he did as they weigh a ton, I was hoping to shift them off the grass, but I can’t move them! I’ll have to wait for my OH to come home!

When I’m doing lots of major weeding like this, it’s nice to be able to see the pretty bits of the garden, One of the roses I planted in the AA garden last winter is a gorgeous copper colour, I love it, it looks great next to the purple coneflower.

The plants I’ve saved for my AA garden are in what I call my holding bay, basically the bottom bed of the area I’m clearing. It’s looking very pretty at the moment with the coneflowers, liatris, roses etc, all purples and ambers.

Hopefully my split log rolls will arrive soon so I can finally get this area finished and start the fun bit of planting it up. In the meantime I shall just keep admiring my roses…