Getting It Right

Such a wonderful day yesterday. I worked in the garden for hours, putting in all the plants I bought at the Walled Garden nursery. The area behind the pond is looking magnificent now, though photos don't really do it justice. It's going to be a mass of colour when everything comes out. The shrub bed too is looking very pretty, and the perennial bed is well under way, with delphiniums and lupins already up to several feet and beginning to flower. The wild pink poppies that had seeded everywhere last year and made such a great display are back again this year in even greater numbers. Such luck to have them to bring an extra exuberance to the garden. I've still got plenty of spaces, and this morning we went to another garden centre to see what I could find to fill some of them. I've decided on an area of rhododendrons and azaleas, but at up to £39 a shot I'm going to wait until they've stopped flowering and the price goes down a bit. Bleedin' daylight robbery. But that will nicely sort out one bare part of the garden.

Here will be rhododendrons and azaleas

On the dahlia front I've had 100% success, but it's spoilt the fun of going to check on them each day. Now I know they're all alive and kicking I've rather lost interest. At around 5pm I dragged myself up to the house to make a cup of tea, knees sore from all the digging. Hugo was hungry and I fed him early, which was when I decided to take him to the Woodland Trust to have a proper run. The last and only time we went before we both got plastered in mud, but it's dry now. Talk about dog heaven, for both of us. One of the joys of having a dog is to let it run free, do its own thing but keep any eye on where you are and keep coming back to check on you. You can stride out without the lead to hold. Just to be sure, I taught him to respond to the whistle before we went. I made him stay at one end of the kitchen, blew the whistle and called him, and when he came bounding up to me I gave him a treat. He got it straight away, little pig that he is. And it worked on the walk too! He was perfect, galloping off but always making sure he knew I was following, his ears twitching along with his nose, eyes everywhere. When I whistled he raced back for his treat. Amazingly we didn't spot a single furry thing to follow. It's only just over a mile from the house so we can go everyday when it's dry. By the time we got back to the car I was hobbling, the tendons behind my knees stretched and sore, but my spirits were soaring. As I said before, what a wonderful day. Gardens and dogs. S'all you need.