Back in London after a few days gardening in France, I completed the job started a couple of weeks ago - topping up the soil level in the raised bed which was begun last year, and in which the new soil had settled down to a level well below the original one. Having cleared out dead foliage and weeds, and brought the soil level back up, I splurged on bedding plants - knowing that if I left a clear area of soil, squirrels would soon come in and mess it up. Part of the bed - the bit which is below the rotary washing line - has been given over to strawberries (transplanting from the various bits of garden and pots where I had set new runners) as these will always be close to ground level. I also split up and moved into this bed a crown of rhubarb - it's not looking too healthy at the moment, but I hope it will recover. Also in are several pelargoniums which I grew from cuttings.
Meanwhile my other half has been repairing the walls beneath the pergola which we built about twenty years ago. One side of the pergola - the side facing the house - is now several inches lower than it was originally - no doubt the effect of tree roots undermining it. He has been dissuaded from taking the whole structure down and is now just supporting it at the new level. A considerable portion of the brickwork has had to be replaced too - but we hope it will now last another twenty years! Yesterday I lifted a section of the brick paved patio so that we could remove one of the tree roots which was forcing the paviors upwards.
I have taken a few more pelargonium cuttings - some from the flowering ones and some from a scented one - and these are in the conservatory. The last ones were very successful in there so I'm hopeful for these too. I used "Strike" rooting powder.
No comments:
Post a Comment