Still going. Getting harder. 6 April 2020

Apparently much of the UK had beautiful weather at the weekend, to the extent that there were concerns about people breaking lockdown rules and heading out to the beaches and parks. Berwick didn't bother though: the weather here was cold, windy and grey, with a few spots of rain here and there although I am not sure any actually landed on our garden.

We did get out and do a little more gardening, but it's getting tougher. Why? Because we have reached the absolute bastard of a slope that is difficult to access and has the hardest soil in the world. It probably looks benign enough in this pic but trust me, it's a sod and steeper than it appears.

What I really want to do is get this patch covered in enough greenery that I rarely have to worry about weeding it. I am not sure this is even possible. It gets a lot of sun, so some things have thrived there for a few years (when they're not choked by weeds): there's one of those trees with catkins on, there's a bush that comes out in massive yellow flowers every summer (but I don't know what it is called). There's a small prunus and there are some bulbs that pop up in the spring (daffodils and snowdrops). And there is a lot of bare soil (that gets weedy very quickly).

Peonies envy

I got a bargain pack of ten bare root peonies and I absolutely love these flowers, but I have tried to grow them before and they're fussy little buggers. You have to plant them deep enough that the top bud is covered by two inches. I've managed to get one of them in this wretched patch before almost collapsing with the effort.

The rest have gone around this border.

But I understand I may not get flowers for two or three years. Hmm. It's not for the impatient, this gardening thing.

Herbology

Also planted this week: sage.

And hypericum, or St John's Wort.

Pond-ering

The pond is still problematic. You may recall that nausea-inducing pic from an earlier post which showed it full of green goo (this is a gardening term). We put some bio-friendly stuff in it and it made the greeny stuff sort of congeal, so we've been able to "howk" (good Geordie word) some of it out and slap it around the edges so that anything alive can find its way back. (This was always a wildlife pond, never a fish pond). Somehow it still looks murky and a bit of a mess. Work in progress.

Signs of spring

But hey. There are some bits of leaf and colour popping up. Nothing to do with me, they just happened anyway from things that were planted many moons ago. Like tulips in this old chimney pot.

And leaves on the pear tree.

And this is what it's all about, right?