WALLED IN

After another late start to the day for exactly the same cause I was feeling less than charming as I began to make the pancakes for breakfast. The late sunshine and the fact that the gardens have,due to the atroccciois weather,been rather neglected this years has given me the fidgetts and I am desperate to get out there and give my poor plants a little tlc.


In the end I decided to go out in to the walled garden at the back of the house and knock it in to shape fpr the autumn...if it killed me! Calling it a wa;;ed garden makes ot sound rather grand,it really isn't at all,it ia a sort of yard with an arched gate way and funny old out buildings and looks nothing like any back yard that I have ever seen.

I suppose the old mullioned windows ,the fig tree which grows on the corner and the mass of ivy covering the roof gives it more the air of a secret garden and when people see it for the first time they are entranced. This year like everything else it has not seen much of either hoe of spade and was beginning to look bedreaggled.

Earlier in the year and full of hope for a fine summer I had purchased some new plants and shrubs for my secret garden,they have spent a soggy time sitting in their pots in the orchard while fumed and fretted about them. Today,at last, the Lonicera Japonica found its new home in a shady corner with ferns for company,the new Virginia Creeper too was safely installed near the grape vine.

I raked the gravel and pulled out the odd weed and the many young ash plants seeded down last year. There is still quit a lot to do and more plants such as a black Sambucus to deploy but is certainly does look good I must say.

The gravel has been down for a long time and is not an ideal surface for the yard as it becomes filled with soil and then of course up come the weeds.I had thiught of digging the gravel out but now I have decided to copy the weeds and plant in to it things like ferns ,grasses and herbs...if you can't beat em, join em!

By four I was doubled up but very happy with my work,when Pa suggested take away for dinner I was excstatic. Tonight if I have to lie awake full of aches and pains at least I shall have my lovely old secret garden to think about looking beautiful again instead of reproaching me for my neglect, that makes me very happy indeed.