The Mad English Gardener

The Mad English Gardener

I've been doing my best to live up to my reputation here. The back garden is essentially done. Friends René and Armelle asked me at the pizza evening yesterday when they could come to see my back garden and I suggested that they wait until the roses are in bloom. I can conceivably get one more clematis in a pot there but there is room only for one or two “fill in” plants at most otherwise. Pictures on this blog will certainly follow then.

Across the road in the front the daffodils and crocus are over but some grape hyacinths are still in flower and the first of the irises is out; Last year the clematis over the wash-house across the road came into flower only when the Banksia rose had finished but this year the clematis, a light lilac in colour, looks to be ahead of the rose. I'm hoping they both come out together. I've also stuck some old nasturtium seeds in the ground around the trees in the hope that they may come up. And I've put some sunflower and morning glory seeds in pots and will find somewhere to put them when they come up.

Nobody has yet come to prune the trees opposite but I'm betting that they will and so bought more petunia surfina and will put up a third hanging basket. I also bought marigolds to go in the pots outside my bedroom window. That's it for the front, barring any casualties. The mad English gardener strikes again!

It was Steve's birthday today and he and Jo invited me to have lunch with them at the Dandelion cafe in Faucon. We sat outside in shirt sleeves gazing up at one of those pale lilac skies we get here and at the snow on the top of Mont Ventoux. Blissful. I got Steve half-a-dozen muscat grape vines, black French grapes and white Italian ones, which je can plant to grow up the fence around their garden. Jo wants some plants climbing up/down the wall on their terrace as I have on mine at the back so I've been building stone “cups” into their terrace wall. It will take a little while to get going, as mine did, but should look good in the end.

Then there is the watering to come………………….