Progress report – 071019

Remember I said before that I thought the lawn was being over-watered? Well last night I determined to find out by how much, and that meant donning the swimming trunks on (is that picture firmly in your mind yet? Good! :twisted:) and turned on the sprinkler system and investigated each zone separately. I determined that Zone 1 in particular had too many sprinklers. I have no idea why the company I initially commissioned to do the garden decided on that many; in any case, I identified four sprinklers that could be done away with and did the necessary plumbing to disconnect them. I’ll only get to see the result of that decision in the next few weeks and will keep you updated. There are still some more to be removed from the other three zones, but the situation there is not as severe as zone 1.

With that done, I turned my attention to planing the new flower beds created around the two Cassia fistulas and filled those with seedlings from the nursery. I put the Scabious Scarlet Empress (B&Q) on the inside surrounded on the outside by Antirrhinum Monarch Mixed (B&Q). The distance both in depth and breadth is approximately 30 cms between each seedling and the next. I know that this might be a bit crowded, but I want this effect. If I find that they are just too crowded in the future, it will be easier to remove some plants rather than try to put some more in.

I did some more work in the garden this afternoon by clearing the font path’s beds and turning them over, making them ready for planting something in there – petunias if Frances gets her way! With the number of really interesting seeds I’ve got and am cultivating, I think they will probably be better there, and I’ll keep the petunias for the street beds. I’ll think on it a bit. There is no real rush there as I want to turn the drip system in those areas off for a couple of days to try to dry them a bit and then mix in some compost to receive whatever we decide to plant in there.

The same treatment was given to other beds around the garden to liven them up for this season’s plantings which I am really looking forward to. In anticipation of that, I’m cultivating some more seeds in the nursery. Here’s a list of seeds I planted in seed trays tonight:

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