I came back from the Malvern Spring Gardening Show full of enthusiasm to get to grips with matters horticultural. I decided the very next day to make tracks with the 'End of The Month' border. My first task was to remove the pile of bricks that had been hampering my access for the last couple of years. The very next day feeling rather pleased with myself managed to spectacularly trip over something else which I had left propped near the wall. I took a spectacular stumble and landed on a patch of geranium macrorrhizum. As I am of voluptuous form the geranium came off worse than me but I sadly I was rather crestfallen after this incident. Bruised and cut knees and elbow ensued plus a cut forehead. After what seemed an age lying on the ground I gingerly picked myself up and got myself in myself in to be tended to by himself. Since then there have been other events getting in the way of gardening but I have been able to do some work in this border - more in the way of removal than planting.
I have been struggling with the removal of this thug which I introduced originally for some late summer colour- I am not sure what it is ~
I admired it in a friend's garden, came home with a clump of it and have watched its spread with dismay. Time to yank it out - a piece saved to plant at the allotment where it can do its stuff in the autumn. It has the most stubborn of roots to dislodge so is still a work in progress. Most satisfying though each time I pull another piece out. The geranium phaeum 'Lily Lovell' which you can see in the above photo will be in for some drastic thinning at the least when it has flowered. Both clumps are getting too big. Although I like the flower I have realised at long last that they do not really earn their living. The foliage is already looking quite forlorn after such a dry spring. It might even be a case of removing them completely - oh such decisions to be made. Now what will be going in to replace the bare patches - I'm not sure yet but watch this space.
