Change of Plan

Change in all things is sweet

Aristotle

This was my plan:

buy Dorset cottage for restoration in December, move in in early summer. Meanwhile, develop the garden to be 'ready' at the same time as the cottage. 

Stepping stones to aid harvesting

Things haven't quite worked out like that! The garden is very small and runs just behind the house, so, as the restoration takes its time, it is really more of a building site than a garden, with the original concrete paving still in place, providing a hard-standing for piles of flints, scaffolding and dump bags of sand. We need a plan B for this season, delaying the sculpting of the garden and subsequent planting till the autumn.

I have created a little nursery bed for the precious plants brought from the previous garden. The idea of the continuity of taking plants that we have come to love, and also plants given by friends, is very appealing. Discoveries have been squirreled away into terracotta pots, herbs have been bought from the local garden shop and market, and the plant swap in the village yielded some new treasures. I have also sown Primula auricula and a few annuals for colour. Now that what I thought was guelder rose (Viburnum opulus) is in full flower, I can see that it is in fact Viburnum plicatum, its white lace-cap flowers lighting up the darkest part of the garden.

The mystery shrub revealed

The ground has been dug, but at the moment is pregnantly blank. I remember reading an article in the RHS magazine about quick-maturing vegetables and this is the very place to put them. They will occupy the tilled earth, now warm, and we shall enjoy that very satisfying thing that is plucking veg from the garden and putting it straight into the cooking pot.