Bit of a bind..

In the beginning, the first job in the garden was to clear the bed at the bottom.

This is what it looked like in the middle of May..



Since then, the geraniums have grown, I've added stakes for the passionflower to grow on, I've added dianthus, lupin, fuchsia, iris bulbs, petunias, it was looking beautiful a few weeks ago. Now, the bindweed is back..

It loves the stake that I put in for the passionflower..



It's making great friends with the dianthus..



And it's treated me to one little flower..



I didn't know what it was until yesterday, and now I've realised, I know that I have my work cut out for me! I've been advised to remove all my lovely new plants and let the ground lay fallow for a year, covering it with plastic. After some research I see that even that doesn't work, and almost nothing works for bindweed.

I made the mistake, during my weeding, of yanking up the shoots and adding them to the compost heap. Now my compost heap is a heap of perfectly happy bindweed, it can regenerate from the smallest bit of root. My poor garden!

But who said gardening was easy?!

Two weeks later..

The roses have gone over now, this picture was taken before I dead-headed them. You might just be able to make out some pink flowers on tall stems growing in front of them. A result of clever planting perhaps - as one goes over, the other starts to bloom?

Talking of roses, I'm a bit disapointed that the 'Gypsy Boy' rose that we were given as a wedding present from work hasn't flowered - hopefully it will next year.

My first job in the garden this year was to attack the budlea, which had taken over. Now it's grown back almost to the same size as it was before - and is in beautiful flower, and I'm grateful for it, because it's just so pretty with the butterflies fluttering around it in the sunshine!



Our neighbour's garden is giving us some real goodies this year, just look at this crazy honeysuckle! It's just coming into flower and it smells amazing!



I've replaced the plant in the crate with something different, which I can't remember the name of just now, but it's really unusual I think. Although most of the flowers have gone since Sunday, because they were 'rained' off - can't complain about the rain though, this was the 'lawn' (aka weed patch) on Sunday - very thirsty!



Lastly, very exciting, the first bulbs that I planted in the garden this year were summer anenomes, inspired by the anenome blanda that I saw at The Courts in the spring.. and at last they have started to flower.. and well worth the wait!



Mrs White :-)x