Landscape Gardening

Recently, I have been ploughing my way through a series of books written by Monty Don, the gardening man. I do this; I find a person I would like to find out more about (last year it was Hugh F-W) and then I buy all associated books on said person, mostly in search of inspiration.

And I have to say that Monty Don has been, thus far, inspirational. So much so in fact, that today I had a go at a piece of landscape gardening.

Now, you need to have in mind that the words 'landscape gardening' can cover a wide variety of architectural features within a garden. I thought I'd hang fire on the wall building, pergola construction, water feature of a miniature Niagara Falls plummenting 'neath an oriental bridge etc etc, and base my efforts around six bags of shiny white gravel and four rather lovely blue shiny pots in various sizes. And some pansies and violas. (I was looking for primulas and primroses but they can't be had for love nor money at the mo - well, not in Homebase anyway; I believe I may have missed the window of opportunity vis a vis primulas.)

Anyway, back home I got out my hook 'n' hoe hand tool. It's brill! Everyone should have one. It can even double up as a prop should one ever find oneself playing Captain Hook in a Christmas Pantomime. Basically, it is a hand held gardening implement with a hoe on one side and hook on the other (but you probably guessed that anyway.) And then I set about weeding the gravelly area just outside our front door, to the left hand side. You start off hacking at weeds with the hook, which brings up most of them, and then, if some weeds prove a little reluctant to leave their bed, you can flip the tool over and hack at them with the hoe bit. Either way, you end up with a weed-free space and an enormous release of any pent up anger.

And then, in a terribly artful way, Andy tipped the bags of lovely shiny white gravel onto the weed free area and I, also in a terribly artful way, spread the gravel out to form a lovely shiny white gravel bed on which to place, in an artful way, the four shiny blue pots.

I said, 'I expect all the local cats will use this as a toilet.'
'Yes,' said Andy. 'But at least you'll be able to see it to clear it up.'

And this is where the art of landscape gardening skill came into play; for at the garden centre there was also choice of shiny green gravel and shiny orangey-yellow gravel, and when I was making my colour choice I thought, 'better not choose the green or orangey-yellow option. I won't stand a snowball's chance of seeing cat poo against that.'

You see! Inspiration in action!!

Anyway, I potted up the pansies and violas in an artistic way. I also found an embryonic lupin from last year, still in its pot and throwing up this year's growth, so that got planted, too.

And then I arranged the pots on the gravel and stood back and admired.

Our friend Jean paid a flying visit, to drop off a card and present for new parents, Chris and Leane.
'I like what you've done to your front garden,' she said.

And when Heather came home from work, she said, 'I like the way the shiny blueness of the pots has been complemented by the shiny whiteness of the gravel.'

Job done!