Dig, Dig, Digging

I'm pretty much up to date on here now! Mostly what I've done in the last month or so is start digging over the new back border. I won't dig it again after this other than to put plants in, but I really wanted to get as much of the weed roots out as possible, and we'd been walking over it to remove the stumps so I wanted to remove that compaction. The soil is an absolute dream, dark, crumbly, just gorgeous, I'm looking forward to being able to grow plants I couldn't grow in my last garden. Some progress of the border:

Then, we bought a tree!! In every image of a garden I'd pinned there was a beautiful multi-stem tree, so I knew that I wanted one to be a feature in the new garden. I have always wanted a tree in my garden but the old garden just wasn't big enough, so I made do with trees in pots instead! The tree will also provide us with a little privacy from our neighbours window when it's in leaf. After much research I decided an Amelanchier was the way to go, initially I was looking at 'Robin Hill' but when we went to a local garden centre we found a perfect 'Lamarckii' and so ended up getting that! It will have beautiful white blossom in the spring, followed by berries, then has excellent autumn colour so it's a good all rounder.

I'm thrilled with it, I've planted it about 2m from the fence as I'm not looking to cast shade on my neighbours garden or make them have to deal with my tree growing over the fence!! Behind it I have planted two Hydrangea 'Annabelle Strong' as I think the big white blooms peaking through the tree will be really pretty. 

Today I managed to get an hour of digging in before the rain came, I'm so close to having this border complete, I just need the weather to be vaguely agreeable, I don't even need warm, just dry!!!

The bamboo sticks on the left show where I need to get to, I've got most of the soil dug over, I just need to do the last little bit where the green tub is then chop the turf and stack it somewhere to rot down. As you can just about see in that photo I managed to get back out in the afternoon to get some mulch down. I'm using composted manure in a thick layer in the hopes of keeping the regrowth of the weeds to a minimum.

I used all the manure I'd bought the other week, so I will get some more after payday, probably another 8 bags to maintain the depth of the mulch, it's about 3-4 inches deep. You can see the Hydrangeas that I planted behind the tree, I've got a few plants ready to go in - like the peony from my Nan's garden you can see in the bottom right there, but most I still have to buy, I have ordered a fair few from a website that seems almost impossibly cheap, so I'll be sure to post a review once those arrive (hopefully in March!) I hope you managed to get out in your garden this weekend if you have one, and that storm Eunice wasn't too cruel, have a great day!