rain

finally managed yesterday to get out in between the showers and cut the grass..................cut down the lovage and salad burnet which had gone all scraggy, and put in the new catmints..........cutting the clematis has left a big gap behind the roses where all the tangles of foliage used to be, so i've chucked some annual seeds in to fill it in the meantime.........my little gastropod friends have also been active in all this wet weather, have chewed the runner beans to perdition and eaten the pond lobelia down to stumps. other things have attractive holes in but aren't quite completely destroyed, i suppose there's only so much they can eat at one sitting.........maybe the sweet peas are for dessert. so much for the slug tape, organic slug granules etc.
.......the lavender bed is totally infested with weeds.....got big bunches of sappy weed growth out but i'll have to watch it or they'll all just grow in again. the pinks had rotted while i was away, i put in what's left but i doubt they'll do much. catalogue plants *definitely* a bad idea. the herbs are good tho, nice and healthy, although the cats jumped on the lemon catmint and broke it and i think it might have died.
.........courgette plants and tomatoes have survived my absence, the courgettes need to go out so i need to get another raised bed. maybe the comfrey could go in that too to stop it taking over the garden as there isn't really a space for it. the rockery bit still looks pretty sad........better for having the weeds removed, just need to throw in the aubretia and stuff and hope they grow.
.........lawn looking better, still some baldy bits but it does seem to have benefited from the attention. i don't think this garden is ever going to be all beautiful and tidy like next door's.......i can sometimes get downhearted when i look at it and think, why is it such a mess? but it's a rather pretty floriferous mess.............OK, so it doesn't do what i want it to but it grows all sorts of lovely surprises.......
..........it would be really House Beautiful to start drying some herbs and making some herb oils.......that lovely blue glass jar that Pat bought for me at the Meadows Fair could hold some rose oil maybe..........maybe i should get that herb book and find out how to make pot-pourri.........oh i'm just getting so domesticated in my old age..........