Before…
During…
After…
The butterfly bush is flowering better than ever – softening the rather spare looking plot while it’s in the awkward phase.
After missing 2 months, it’s all systems go again.
Old mint and lavender plants, rescued from other spots will make a fragrant boundary line.
There are courgettes in pots, awaiting the spire growing experiment, and 2 raspberries and a blackcurrant are already bedded in the purpose-built raised box.
(next time, pics of plants in the main bed – red cabbage, beans, pepper; and the new gate arch, made from wisteria tree cut-offs, and a very convenient wild dogwood rose)
A few notes for zero-budget gardening:
- the raised beds are made from reclaimed wood (totally free from folks on Gumtree)
- the chicken wire was all found stuff, and holes etc repaired before putting up (moss painstakingly removed to add into the moss garden – waste-not-want-not!)
- the weed suppressing is provided by second-hand straw from a goose house, a very old carpet headed for the tip (providing an eclectic, bohemian feel to the plot, I think) and some carefully placed wood-chip mulch – making sure a little goes a long way.
- The black plastic on the right is old compost bags, in situ until more covering stuff can be found.
- The dug-up root balls have been stored, to provide screening and hedging elsewhere instead of buying new plants. (Hopefully deer-proofing for an orchard, eventually – but that dream is a long way off!)
Photos of the actual planting by next week!!
(And some silly beautifying courtesy of a box of old jam jars!)
A few outtakes…
(sadly I don’t have any of me stuck in the mud when it flooded – those root balls make some very deep holes…)
