Ouch - I'm going to ache in the morning

Sometimes you really need some extra muscle, today I had the help of Clive to put the stepping stones in place. If you've lost the thread, don't worry.

Ok, let's recap what I'm up to.

A couple of years ago we reclaimed an overgrown area of the garden to create Laura's first garden. This area was full of holly, willow, nettles and the dreaded brambles. We wanted her to be able to look after her own garden, and grow not only flowers, but herbs and vegetables. It has been really successful and unfortunately due to exams and homework ended up back under my care and attention with the odd bit of help from Laura. It has remained under Laura's direction though, so is full of mauve, blue, white and pink flowers, just NO YELLOW or ORANGE that's for Grandma's garden, any accidents need moving.

We did have a bench seat tucked in next to the garden with an area of lawn in front, a real pain for Grandad to mow, but it was manageable when the mower went into reverse.......

............ok the mower currently isn't going into reverse, ah well, time for a change methinks.......

So I've moved the bench, and removed the grass making laura's garden bigger. But, there is a special storage area for wood at the back of the garden, I still needed to give access to this from the front if necessary. There is a trellis, but it is on hooks so it can be removed to give access. How do I manage the access? That's where the stepping stones come in. We have created a path of stepping stones in a lovely warm cotswold stone to the storage, filling in around the stepping stones with small Cotswold chippings. This gives a lovely warm glow to the area. At the end of the path, I've put a planter with variegated ivy, cyclamen, a bay tree and violas to give a focal point over the winter. I've also put in lots of bulbs and more pansies, violas, polyanthus and sweet williams.

The aim of this garden is to be full of herbs and roses, useful all year round and full of heady scent in the summer.

At the back of the border there are 2 beautiful jasmine's which are clambering over the rails of the veranda supporting Laura's tree house (this needs some repairs now, the steps leading up are beginning to weaken, so hopefully we can get this fixed and she can still vanish in to her hidey hole with her nose in a good book. There is a climbing hydrangea which is doing really well, it should give a good evergreen barrier helping to generate interest and stopping the different areas of the garden being seen, I love secret gardens and would love to be able to build more areas like this with paths leading you to new discoveries.

We also planted a couple of grape vines. These haven't done so well, we will be tying them into the veranda, but we aren't sure how successful they will be.

Clive started to cut down the branches of the willow which were overhanging the garden, it is a beast, the roots are a nightmare and we hope eventually to be able to remove it, the top branches came down in a storm the other year, it's covered with ivy and is taking valuable sun from the middle of the garden.

We do have one major hiccough to our plans, deer, they love Laura's roses and despite us blocking where we thought they were coming in, the plant I carefully pruned the other day ready to go in this week, which I left on the freshly dug earth, had a haircut overnight, all the lovely fresh leaves had vanished, and the tale tale hoof prints were there in the earth. I've bought some special connectors, small green connectors shaped in a ball that take bamboo canes (we aren't short of those). The idea is to use some black netting which I can thread a cane through at the top and make a barrier around the garden. Deer like firm barriers to jump over, this will not be easy to see, so hopefully will stop them having breakfast on this area of the garden. As the farmers say, either don't grow stuff or use barriers, either the deer or rabbits will get you. We get additional pests here in the country as well as the usual pigeons, slugs and snails. Clive's put the uprights in, now I just need to cut the net, which is 4.3m x 4.3m into 3, I think 1.1m high should be enough. I also need to make an easy to manage gateway so I can access the stepping stones, as that is where I'm hoping to plant most of the herbs next year.

The temperature suddenly dropped and the rain started just before I had finished, not being one to give in to a bit of rain I finished the planting, then had to clear everything away and wash off the path from all our muddy feet, I also gave the plants a quick water, I know it was raining, but I wanted to give them a good start. By the time I'd finished I was freezing, a hot cup of tea and my snugly fleece started to thaw me out, but I was shattered and the aches and pains started, who needs to go to a gym!

Fingers crossed the weather isn't too bad tomorrow, we can then put up the fencing, and plant the rest of the shrubs and roses. I might even manage to start on mum and dads anniversary garden, it's visible for their patio door, I've got wallflowers and loads of daffodils to go in, to give them some early colour. This garden needs some serious work as its got overgrown, the perennials need splitting and some movie as they are in the wrong places. Once this is all done, I can dig up some strawberries for mum to plant in the polytunnel, and plant my peas and lambs lettuce to overwinter.

There is always something to do in a garden......